Jack Idema's free, now let's help him get justice

This is the day all those of us who have followed the case of illegally-imprisoned US Special Forces soldier Jack Idema have been waiting for.

After three, long years of torture and false-imprisonment, Jack is a free man.

A few days ago, Jack and Nina the dog boarded a plane and flew out of Afghanistan. Unlike Captain Brent Bennett's departure last year, however, Jack wasn't bundled out of the country handcuffed to a pair of State Department drones. Instead, Jack walked onto the plane a free man. More telling still, is the fact that he was surrounded by the following well-wishers from the Northern Alliance:

• Over 200 NI officers
• A group of Northern Alliance Generals, including General Jurinda, who served with Jack during Operation Anaconda, and General Shamir, who was one of Commander Massoud's Chiefs of Staff
• The Chief of Staff of the Afghan Defence Department
• Both Vice Presidents
• Advisors to two Afghan Embassies
• Representatives of the Massoud Foundation

Oddly, one might think, one group of people conspicuously absent from this event were any members of big media -- The very people who were queuing up to smear Jack and his team when they stood falsely accused of kidnapping and torture have, it seems, no interest in the news that Idema is free and, in Afghan eyes at least, completely vindicated.

Still, for now, the fight to clear Jack's name and to get some justice for the three years his own government stole from him can wait while Jack (and Nina) get some R'n'R.

The Afghan chapter of Idema's story is over, and the good guys won.

[The Jack Idema images on this site are used with WRITTEN COPYRIGHT PERMISSION and any use by any third party is subject to legal action]