The link: http://www.vicegrip.net/blog/archive/2005/04/10/830.aspx#978
So, “John Yarborough,” with an IP that tracks to the Netherlands, feels I'm being too hard on Jack Idema. The link above is to one of my posts on Idema, with a comment from Y. I'm not really sure how to parse Y's comments. My read on it is that this is just one of Idema's people, who is pretending to have been converted by Idema's site, thinking that a “come to Jesus” story would be the most convincing way to get skeptics to follow. Who knows, though. It's still a fairly interesting comment.
“I checked out the Superpatriots.us website, and there is one thing clear- it is professionally put together” Ok, except that it's not. It's incredibly poorly designed, cluttered, and full of half-assed photoshopping. There's a huge amount of repetition going on, and the HTML was not written by a professional. As I already covered in another post, Idema's web guy has no idea how HTML forms work, which is pretty basic shit.
“I finished up thinking he was pretty damn cool and has balls the size of a gorilla.” CLEARLY, he has balls the size of a gorilla. To roll up into Afghanistan, and start taking people prisoner and shit... That takes balls. It takes balls to even GO to Afghanistan. To start carrying around rifles, hanging out with mujaheddin, yeah, that's gorilla sized balls. So what? Having big balls means very little. It's more often a sign of stupidity than real bravery. Considering that he's in an Afghan prison right now, I'd say Idema's balls were a bit bigger than his abilities, and when your balls are bigger than your ability, that's what most folks call “stupid.”
“There is no doubt that he is an asshole. There is also no doubt that he was doing a good job battling terrorists and protecting this country and Afghanistan.” I have seen nothing positive attributed to him as far as actually battling terrorists in Afghanistan, at least not from anybody besides Idema himself. What I do know for sure, is that his little operation gave the US Military something of a black eye, as they had to explain why some American loon is running around Afghanistan taking hostages, and why they're not stopping him, or even entirely aware of him. His actions most definitely served to highlight how lawless and out of control Afghanistan is, as well as how dubious the American military's grasp on the situations is. Neither of those are positive PR events for our war in Afghanistan, and considering that American public support is all that matters in this conflict, I'd say Idema has not protected the nation in the least.
“Or maybe Jacks Blog is just jealous that someone named Jack got more ink, and did more good for the world then this little blog did? Maybe YOU should look at this story with a little less hate and anger.” Oy. This is some third grade material right here. “You're not a MAN if you don't like Idema!“ Please. I'm far too secure in my self image to give your transparent tricks a moment's though. I'm not jealous of Jack Idema. He's a conman, he's a criminal, he's a megalomaniac, and he's in an Afghan prison. Yes, to some extent I do admire his willingness to pack up his shit, and head over to Afghanistan. I do believe that in his own mind, he is helping and protecting the US, and I do believe, at his core, he loves the US. I respect that. However, he is not helping anybody by running his own personal Gitmo, grandstanding, showboating, yelling about the FBI, and generally acting as a lightning rod for lunatics.
I am not looking at the story with hate or anger. I don't hate Idema, he doesn't make me angry. I actually like the guy, he's very interesting and entertaining. He's quite a character, and while I do think he's only hurting the military operations in Afghanistan, I think the impact he's had is fairly trivial. It's just trivially negative. It's pretty clear that he's a conman and a criminal. There's numerous people who have been cheated by him in business. He's so aggressively, insanely litigious, it's really pretty ridiculous. Had I ever been exposed to the guy, I think I'd probably have good reason to hate him, but at this point, since he's just some random dude I read about on the internet, I find him interesting, amusing, curious, but not at all deserving of my hatred.
The conclusion of Y's comment is what suggests to me that he's one of Idema's supporters, feigning conversion. A real convert, who has seen the various criticism of Idema over the internet, wouldn't need to make attacks on my courage, or try to discredit me as being motivated by hatred and anger. He'd simply give his point of view, and leave it at that. I'm impressed with the following Idema has managed to amass. It's amazing to me that he's gotten more than one person to come to my blog and tell me how awesome he is.