If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.

Over at the Devil’s Kitchen (he’s a chef, in case anyone’s wondering, and a fine chap), an amusing exchange between people in support of Idema and a fellow who calls himself tinyjudas. Tinyjudas is in the UK, and so is Rotty, so you’ll have to excuse some of the British references if you’re a cowboy or an American. If you’re a leftist, I’m sure you’ll want the terms explained to you. Well forget it. Do your own research or sod off. This is a prime example of why I get so irritated with people who don’t understand the Idema story; they don’t take the time to find out. They find one piece of information (like Wikipedia) and conclude they have an understanding of the whole thing. This is one such example.

There are some excellent responses in the comments there, but I’d like to refer to Rotty’s responses as he comes back with his usual form and signature wit, while making some important points.

“Really, DK, don’t let yourself be a mouthpiece for such a scandalously one-sided piece of trash.”

Hey, DK, dontcha just feel like a right moron NOW? Why, it’s a good thing there’s nice moonbats like tinyjudas around to put you straight.

“A brief scan of Wikipedia gives more than a hint that this gentleman is by no means the flag-waving all-american hero he appears to be.”

Well, Idema got his Green Beret age eighteen, completed Special Forces training a year later, and the Green Beret equivalent of the Navy SEAL course at age twenty. He became a Special Forces instructor at age 25. He taught counter-terrorism courses to special forces all over the world, including hostage-rescue and close-quarter battle to the SAS. Paddy Baker (heard of him? No. No reason you would have done — He’s a soldier, and to the best of my knowledge never had fabulously blonde hair or attended art school) described Idema as the ‘finest Green Beret he’d ever met’. Now, granted, Jack Idema’s probably never bared his soul in blank verse, but in the 1990’s he did produce the first hard-evidence (before a Congressional hearing) that former Soviet nukes were being sold on the black market. Having retired from active service, two weeks after 9/11, Idema was back on the duty roster, teaching the Northern Alliance how to take out Taliban scumbags with rocket launchers. (You remember that time, don’t you tj? It was the one-month period between your copy of the Guardian telling you Afghanistan was the next Vietnam and when the BBC’s John Simpson liberated Kabul.)

“During the 1990s, Idema owned and operated a paintball supply store in Fayetteville, which gradually merged with a paramilitary equipment store. In January 1994, Idema was arrested and charged with 58 counts of wire fraud, as well as conspiracy and impersonation of an officer; these charges were mainly related to fund-raising activities for his store. He afterwards spent an unknown length of time in the federal penitentiary.”

It was four years. The wire fraud stuff is complex. Go here for a full explanation … Though just why a conviction for white collar crime (even if you choose to overlook the fact that Idema later sued the government over his conviction and they settled out of court) should have any bearing on his ability to capture and kill Islamofascists is anyone’s guess. Over here in the real world (that’s the place with people who pay taxes to keep the art schools running), we don’t expect our soldiers to be perfect, just deadly.

“or how about,
“However, it is precisely because of his high profile and openness with the media that it is unlikely that Idema was officially connected with any branch of the military; covert operatives go to great lengths to avoid public appearances and media contacts.”

Who said Jack Idema was involved in a covert operation? He was working openly for the Northern Alliance hunting terrorists.

“It is more likely, though, that Idema was operating in Afghanistan via independent financial backing, seeking the $25 million USD bounty posted on bin Laden.”"

No. Idema was working for the Northern Alliance at the behest of the U.S. Government. Maybe over in moonbatville it’s considered acceptable to mutter darkly about ‘independent financial backing’, but over here we generally consider it useful to have at least some hard evidence before making outrageous claims like that. (And, yes, that also applies if you’re doing it by proxy.)

“And as for the claim that “Jack, Brent and Ed were originally sentenced to a decade in prison after a chaotic show trail in September 2004″… what information is there to prove this was a ’show trial’?”

Well, even the BBC weren’t impressed with goings on, and bearing in mind how far backwards they’ll bend over to appease any lunatic in a beard ranting about Jihad, that ought to at least place some doubts in your mind.

“And what was the trial for? I see that is missed out in the catcalls of ’sham’ - “Idema, Edward Caraballo and Brent Bennett were charged with torture, kidnapping and running a private jail.”"

… Yet absolutely no evidence was produced to support any of these claims. Indeed, some ‘witnesses’ at the original trial talked about seeing Islamofascists caged in the basement of Idema’s house — One problem. There was no basement in the building. See, this sort of thing (along with Idema being able to prove that the ex-judge he’d arrested (the ‘kidnapping’ charge) was, in fact, holding meetings with top figures in al-Q resulted in the convictions being overturned … All of which you’d know if you’d actually bothered to click on any of the links in the original post. Though, obviously, being a leftist, you expect someone else to do all the work for you. That way, you have more time for the important stuff. Like poetry.

“Now, once again - you know I’m not claiming Wikipedia as the sole purveyor of objective fact. All I’m asking for is a little less of the ‘bearded crazies’ and ‘american patriots’ language thats straight out of any mediocre John Wayne number.”

Well, tj, I think that people who get their jollies sawing off human heads and self-detonating are, indeed, crazies. Likewise, I tend to regard the men and women who stand in harm’s way to stop them as patriotic. Funny, that.

“We, the people who enjoy reading what you have to say, deserve better; and you, the man who does the writing, is capable of more.”

Oh dear. What a little creep you are, tj. In future, if you want to pick a fight, pick one with me. Don’t go whining to DK — He’s a grownup (when you start paying tax, you’ll figure out what that means), and if he didn’t like my stuff, he wouldn’t have invited me to post here.

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DK does a fine job of answering him, and so do a few others, but now you have even further evidence as to why Rottie is so special. And he does it with such finesse. What’s unfortunate is so many characters go to Wikipedia for a “brief scan” and conclude from the information there that it’s the whole story.

However, as is the case with Google, AOL and so many others, there is bias built in to the search engines by the programmers, and you really should do a little more reading (I know, it’s work, and that’s not what leftists are all about), and THINKING. Alas, deductive reasoning isn’t a leftist’s strong point, either. After all. That’s why Lenin called them “useful idiots”.