GANGSTERS & OUTLAWS > COPS & OTHER CHARACTERS

Jonathan Idema: Our Man in Kabul

By Seamus McGraw

Losing it Like Alexander

Idema said that since he had been back in the United States, the whole structure of the war on terror, at least in Afghanistan, had changed for the worse. "The first year I was here, it was the most perfect success story since Special Forces took over El Salvador. It was a success story. Then I left and came back, and I've got to tell you, it is a...disaster."

 

"The whole war's been changed to Vietnam; firebase compounds and big bases with steel walls and...loads of sandbags in front of them and everybody's scared to come out," Idema complained in an interview with Stuff. "In...Bagram, they're not allowed to leave the compound after dark...I get three guys and I drive out into the mountains at 3 o'clock in the morning."

To Idema, the allied strategy of hunkering down guaranteed defeat against the cunning and nimble Taliban and Al Qaeda. "That's why Alexander lost, that's why the British lost...and we're going to lose too," Idema said at the time. "You can't beat these guys with (conventional forces) and armored tanks. We can only beat them by CIA and Special Forces riding around on...camels and horses, wearing their clothes, eating their...food and hunting (them)."

That, Idema said, was precisely what he and Task Force Saber 7 did.

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1. Our Man in Kabul?
2. There is No Business
3. With Friends Like These
4. Bead on bin Laden
5. Defense of Idema
6. Loose Cannon
7. Official Sanction?
8. September 2001
9. Putting the "F" in FBI
10. Losing it Like Alexander
11. Tiptoe to My Window
12. Souring Relations
13. Through a Lens Darkly
14. Seven Raids, Fourteen Terrorists
15. Nabbed
16. Epilogue
17. Bibliography