A System of Intelligence Gone Awry.

On January 21, 2012, the body of an unknown American was found in his home in Bacalar a small town in southeast Mexico. Suffering from AIDs, though known to. several locals, he seemed like so many Americans living in remote areas of Mexico, to have no real identity; no real past. His body remained unclaimed for several daysJonathan "Jack" Idema did have a past however, and though some would brand him a charlatan at best and a sociopath at worst, few alive today could claim an approximate number of adventures compared to those experienced by Idema. His most recent claim to fame involved a trial and conviction by an Afghan court in 2004 for torture and kidnapping. Idema served three years of the sentence in Afghanistan's infamousPul-e-Charkhiprison. He was released in 2007 and moved to Mexico where he died at the age of 55.

Idema, and two associates, Brett Bennett and Edward Caraballo were arrested when Afghan security forces raided their makeshift jail in a house in Kabul on July 5. They were accused of imprisonment and torture of Afghans in an attempt to elicit information relating to the locations of various high value targets. No evidence of torture was presented at the trial though Idema admitted using standard interrogation techniques on those he held, claiming his efforts were sanctioned by the United States.

During his trial by an Afghan court in Kabul, evidence claiming a dubious though not convincingly denied link to the CIA was presented in Idema's defense. Idema testified that Afghan intelligence agents had confiscated 200 videotapes, 500 pages of documents and more than 800 photos and given them to U.S. authorities. These materials he claimed were key to his defense, verifyingthat he was operating with the knowledge of the U.S.

Idema's defense offered unchallenged evidence at the trial of direct communication between Idema and high-ranking government officials during his operation in that country. The fact that the American government knew Idema was in Kabul and was obtaining clandestine information some of which the American government was receiving was fairly clearly presented and undisputed during the trial and to this day has still never been denied.

The U.S. government following 9/11 had offered rewards for the capture of multiple individuals known as High Value Targets, (HVT) terrorist fugitives. These rewards included a $50 million bounty on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Ironically idea officials of the American...