Americans arrested while running an illegal prison in Afghanistan?

Afghans say hold three Americans after shootout

Afghan security forces have arrested three Americans and four Afghans after a shootout in the capital and accused them of illegally detaining and interrogating locals, security officials said Wednesday.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman identified one of the Americans as Jonathan Idema, who the military says has misrepresented himself in the past as an American government or military official.

...A senior intelligence Afghan official, who did not want to be identified, said the suspects had used a private house to detain local people.

"They carried illegal arms," he said. "They arrested and interrogated people illegally."

...U.S. Embassy spokesman Roy Glover said he understood three of the men had identified themselves as Americans, including Idema, who had been visited by U.S. consular staff.

"The public should be aware that Idema does not represent the American government and we do not employ him," the U.S. military said in statements this week....

--Reuters

Now ... regarding Jonathan Idema:

It's too complicated to explain how I know this, but let me walk you through a few links that mention this name.

Here's someone trying to find out information about "a Jonathan Keith Idema" who "said they were in Special Forces Reserves...."

OK, so now we have the names Jonathan Idema and Jonathan Keith Idema.

So let's turn to the index of The Hunt for bin Laden by Robin Moore. There we find "J. Keith Idema." J. Keith Idema is identified (on page 116 of the hardcover edition) as part of "a civilian team of former Special Forces operators" helping to fight the war in Afghanistan. Now, here's a Free Republic discussion of an appearance by Keith Idema on Don Imus's radio show to promote the Moore book. Scroll down to post #26:

J. Keith Idema "Jack" is a former Special Forces Sgt with a very checkered past. He was also playing in Afghanistan selling AQ Tapes like the famous CBS tape for $50,000.00USD and other to the press. While he was telling people he was with the Northern Alliance though the NA's Washington Office diened any of this in Writing. Idema was also assiting Ismail Kahn the Afghan Warlord who was being backed by Iran. My sources also tell me that he assited Gulbuddin Hekmatyar a real bad guy. Idema is suing the likes of Oliver Stone because Idema claims that Stone stole one of his movies scripts.

Confused? Here's a story about al-Qaeda videotapes being aired on CBS; the tapes were "discovered ... by J. Keith Idema, a former U.S. Army Special Forces non-commissioned officer and counterterrorism specialist who now advises the Afghan military." And here's a story (from a site apparently connected to Idema) about a suit he filed against Steven Spielberg's production company (not Oliver Stone's):

The Peacemaker is strikingly similar, and in many instances it is virtually identical, to the JK Idema story.

But there's more to Idema's legal history than that one lawsuit. Scroll down here and you see Idema suing Fox News. Scroll down here and you'll see J. Keith Idema ("I am a special investigator for the General Counsel of a Fortune 1000 company and have been an investigator for Mike Wallace at CBS News 60 Minutes and other news organizations") boasting of suing Allstate. Oh, and here's a Fayetteville Observer story about "Keith Idema, a former Special Forces soldier," who "has been doing what he terms 'humanitarian relief' work in Afghanistan for the past few weeks"; the story mentions in passing that

In the early 1990s, he was charged by federal officials with business fraud -- a charge on which he was convicted in 1995.

Go here (SOCNET: The SpecialOperations.com Bulletin Boards) and read the responses when a UPI reporter asks about J. Keith Idema:

He started doing some fraudulent stuff. Not paying creditors, not delivery goods. He got arrested tried and convicted on a bunch of wire fraud charges....

Note that Keith was a rigger. That is a Quartermaster MOS, not an SF MOS. IF he was ever fully SF qualified he wasn't serving in an SF position when I first became aware of him. As far as I know, he's a 'SF support guy' - he was in the 11th's Support Battalion, packing chutes, but not an SF soldier.

In other words, Idema may not even have been the full-fledged member of the Special Forces he says he was. And other respondents to the UPI questioner have similarly wary responses:

Idema reinvents himself on a whim it seems.... Maybe if they billed him as "loser-at-large" and left it at that they'd get it right. what a puke....

Oh my gosh, he's a LEGEND... in his OWN MIND.

Go here (a guestbook for the website of the Special Forces Association's Chicago-area chapter) and read

If one does try to confront him or print anything (such as this posting)even mildly about him, they will find themselves receiving legal threats, hate email, hate phone calls.

And this guy is running around loose in Afghanistan -- operating a prison? WTF?

Oh, and here's Idema insisting there was a Saddam/al-Qaeda connection. Naturally.