great response. i enjoyed reading what you had to say against it.

CJR is generally an unpleasant read, but I actually got a laugh out of this sorry SOF's woes.

Kevin,

Are you saying this man was bad? I'm not sure what your point here is... The only thing I know about this man and his group was that he was a mercenary who is guilty of many things, including murder. They may not be one and the same but this guy belongs behind bars for the rest of his life. He's lucky he didn't get the death penalty - probably because he was an American. Is this article about the same person??

Cindy

Of course he was bad. He also managed to scam the same Dan Rather (repeatedly it appears) that stepped into the dung of Memogate by being so eager to believe sources that other networks wouldn't touch (or not touch as often)...

Ok, now I know who you are talking about - mercenaries that took things into their own hands. Hope he stays in jail for life, not just 10 years. Obviously a mental case and I do remember this guy and his cohorts but I thought I was the only one who knew of this creep - you threw me off when it came to Dan Rather; I had no idea he was doing that but I did know what he was doing in Afghanistan. Anybody got a gun?

Thanks for clearing up that question for me, Kevin.

Cindy

This was already reported here at wizbang months ago:

Reported during the week of 9/8/04 in the New York Observer

Entitled: American Who Ran Afghan Jail Says He Sourced CBS.

"In a week in which it was burnt by at least one high-profile source, CBS News is being accused by another of having used and abandoned him. The Observer has learned that CBS News and Dan Rather made use of Jonathan (Jack) Idema, a former Green Beret, mercenary and rogue soldier, who was tried and sentenced on Sept. 15 to 10 years in an Afghan prison for operating a private jail and torturing civilians he claimed were Al Qaeda operatives.

Mr. Idema is now accusing CBS News of abandoning him after having what appears to have been an ad hoc arrangement with the mercenary soldier in which he used CBS equipment and personnel to transmit information to Mr. Rather for possible use in CBS broadcasts...."

One if the lower-eschalon men's mags (FHM, Stuff etc.) did a story on this guy a few months back that was surprisingly good. He's a bit of a loon who refused to acknowledge the authority of the military when they told him to stop. So now he answers to the Afghani government. So be it.

So if I've deciphered the CJR's long-winded article correctly, it seems there were forged/fabricated videotapes in 2001-2002 (phony "Al Qaeda training camp") as well as 2004 (phony "Al Qaeda prisoners") and both times CBS/Rather intimately involved.

Not mentioned in the CJR article is that Mapes herself made a trip to Afghanistan (reported in Washingtonpost.com 10/4/04):

"Just months ago, Mapes was the first to obtain photographs depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a major coup for the network. ...knows Mapes best from the 'harrowing' eight-day trip they took with Rather into Afghanistan in the days after U.S. forces entered Kabul in 2001."

Re: Abu Ghraib

What I want to know is (1) who sent the pictures to Mapes and (2) did that person instigate the events at Abu Ghraib?

Was it staged for the benefit of CBS and the rest of the MSM like the Jack Idema incidents in Afghanistan?

BR, it was an inside job; a young guardsmen took the pictures and sent them in because he didn't know what else to do. He looks about 16.

Also BR, I missed about 6 or more weeks of blogging and blogs when I got real sick and I never opened my laptop, read any mail or watched any tv.

But I did know who these guys were and was wondering when someone was going to get around talking about them - so I must have missed the boat on these pathetic, sociopathic rednecks when the story broke here.

Cindy

Yes, Cindy, I too didn't pay attention to Abu Ghraib stories at the time. Do you know the name of the person who sent the pictures to Mapes? I had read about one soldier who reported pictures he saw on a friend's laptop to his seniors, but don't know if he's the one who actually sent them to CBS. Then there were also fake photographs in the British press. Lots to sort out here.

(I don't understand your last 8 words. Let's first investigate and find out if there was a CBS skunk/agent provocateur involved.)

The Democrats are now resurrecting Abu Ghraib to attack Pres. Bush's nominee for Attorney General. I'm sure that topic will soon be on new threads here at wizbang. Let's do some Googling, then we can continue the conversation.