Causes of Interest: Free Jack Idema Blogburst 3/21/2007

It's now been seven very long weeks since anyone has heard from illegally-imprisoned US Special Forces soldier Jack Idema. For those of us involved in this campaign week-in and week-out, it is, perhaps, easy to forget just how strange this entire situation is.

Consider: here we have a US citizen, tried in a Taliban court and illegally-imprisoned for four years who has, quite simply, been removed from all contact with the outside world. Right now, Jack is unable to:

Make or receive phone calls.
Send or receive mail.
Receive visitors.
Receive care packages.

Indeed, the isolation of being imposed on Jack is so total is hell enough. Add to this that no one even knows where he is being held, and see if you have the courage to do this for your country.

How different things are for the head-hacking Taliban crazies who wind up in Afghan prisons these days:

An international dispute was developing last night after an Italian journalist kidnapped by the Taleban was released, apparently in exchange for five senior Taleban insurgents who had been held in an Afghan jail.
[...]
Mr Karzai's spokesman said: "There were some demands, and some of the demands were accepted. You see the result of it, the journalist was released. This was an exceptional case, and it will not happen again."

But Adrian Edwards, the UN spokesman in Afghanistan, said: "The UN does not negotiate with terrorists." The Afghan Independent Journalists' Association said that the deal was "not acceptable", and a spokesman from the US Embassy in Kabul said: "It is US policy not to make concessions to terrorists' demands."

Of course, this simply isn't true -- A recurring theme of the Free Jack Blogbursts has always been the steady trickle of Islamists fanatics Karzai has been quietly setting free in return for either hostages. As with the Pulacharke riots in early-2006, the return for ceasing to repeatedly gang-rape 50 female prisoners.

Point of fact, the Karzai method for dealing with problematic Islamofascists has always been to offer them deals. Thus:

Threaten to behead a journalist -- Karzai will release some Holy Warriors.
Threaten to butcher 50 female hostages in a prison riot -- Karzai will release some Holy Warriors

And

Complain your feathers have been ruffled because a man called Jack Idema arrested a Taliban High Court Judge -- Karzai will torture, illegally-imprison, then finally disappear the Green Beret in question.