WEBVTT - Part Two: Jack Idema: The War On Terror's Dumbest Grifter 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:06.240 Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the only podcast where 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.440 the host has spent the previous seven hours drunk and 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.400 staring at a box of five point five six tracer 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.600 ammunition and wondering if he could get away with starting 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.080 a fire in his front yard with it. Uh and 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.680 then deciding that no, he lives around too many people. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.680 But I can't get the thought out of my Daniel, 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.680 how are you doing today? I'm great, I'm especially great 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.200 thinking about that moment, just especially in the dark, watching 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.040 those rounds fling through the air. It would be great, 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:33.800 It would be great, and I make everyone in my 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:40.040 neighborhood would enjoy it. But fucking cops man, that those 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:46.920 are loud rounds. So Daniel, Yes, sir Sophie, this is 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.879 an episode about Jack Edema part two. Now, when we 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.000 laughed our friend off, he had he had had a 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.240 pretty winding path And it's kind of hard for me 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.160 to summarize, just because there's so much that's weird about 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.680 this guy, like hims out the wazoo, out the wazoo 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.760 every now, and just enough credibility to some of them 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:07.800 to where it's like, what's going on? Is there something 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.840 I'm missing? Very hard to say that will continue, but 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.080 the scams get a lot bolder from here on out. 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.200 It's like he's snuck in the back door of so 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.520 many war scenes in there, like what the funk are 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.319 you doing here? And I was like, let yeah, yeah, 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:24.640 Like he really traded on the fact that he was 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.520 technically a Green Beret because people are like, well, I 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:29.440 guess he knows how to train cops. He was a 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.240 Green Beret. I guess he knows how to run a 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.039 counter terrorism school. He was a Green Beret. I guess 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.840 he can lead us into Afghanistan. He was a Green Beret, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.520 and nobody like did the work to realize, like, oh, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:42.240 all you did is a green Beret? Was like pack 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:48.160 parachutes anyway, it's cool. So the history of the modern 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.080 US Special Forces began on June ninety two at Fort Bragg, 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.000 North Carolina, with the establishment of the tenth Special Forces 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.080 Airborne Group. Now obviously, elite military operators had existed since 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.640 the Dawn of Time. Story the Trojan Horse is kind 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:06.920 of like the story of a of a special Ops raid. Basically, um, yeah, 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.400 it's it's kind of yeah, more or less, and elite 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.200 German airborne units in World War two, the Falschworm Yeager 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.360 pioneered many of what we would consider like modern special 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.119 forces strategies, But it was not until the Vietnam War 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.240 that's special operators in the modern sense of the word, 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.800 really burst onto the modern stage. So suddenly in Vietnam 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.560 you have and you know, these guys are actually doing 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.680 ship but they're also like showing up in the media, 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.600 these elite, heavily armed badasses with special skills carrying out 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.960 these unbelievable death defying missions. Um So like the movies 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.399 we get on there, like Rambo and Commando and fucking Predator, 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.080 like these are all right. When America, like kind of 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.280 in the wake of Vietnam, America started to really fall 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.000 in love with the idea of special forces guys because 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.520 it seems really romantic, like it's a job that's very 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.440 fit to to to make movies about. I actually had 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.080 an uncle who was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.960 his job was basically to be alone in the jungle 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.519 trying to lead groups of envy A patrols into ambushes. 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:07.200 And it's like fucked him up for the rest of 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.160 his life. And it's not a cool story, um but 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.520 it made for good Uh, it made for good media stuff. Um. 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.320 And so journalists, obviously, as soon as stories about green 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.760 Berets and Navy seals start like hitting uh, the world, 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.679 like journalists who embed with soldiers start wanting to try 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.480 and embed these guys, which was not an easy thing 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.119 to do. US special Forces from the beginning have had 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.119 a very adversarial relationship with the media. They build themselves 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.840 as quiet professionals who were as exceptional in their discretion 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.160 as they were in their fighting ability. And that's all 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.080 died out now because the assassination of Osamba and Lauden 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.480 meant that you can make millions of dollars uh if 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.440 you were like a Special Forces guy who wrote a 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:50.800 book afterwards. Yeah. But back in the day, you weren't 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.880 supposed to talk about the ship you did in Special Forces, 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.920 and so journalists really couldn't get an angle on these guys. 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.360 And back in two thousand one, special Forces dudes were 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.520 still quiet professionals, and the idea that any of them 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.480 would speak directly to the media was nearly unthinkable. There 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.760 was only one journalist who actually had a shot at 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.480 getting that kind of story. Uh. He was the only 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.960 US journalist who ever had a real in depth in 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.120 bed with US Special Forces. Robin Moore now More was 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.240 the author of the book The Green Berets, which that 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.440 John Wayne movie that Jack Adema had loved as a 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.000 kid was based on. And in order to write The 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.600 Green Berets More, it had to do something no civilian 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.000 journalists had ever done. He went through Special Forces training 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.160 and qualification and like qualified as a Green Beret, and 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.640 because of his skills, he was allowed to travel with 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.520 the Green Berets and report on what they did. And 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.960 it's kind of debatable as to what he did is 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.400 whether or not what he did was even really journalism 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.400 because he took part in firefights and killed a shipload 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.279 of people. A lot of journalists will say you shouldn't 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.360 do what Robin Moore did, but it's fair to say 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.520 that he was a legend. We're gonna talk more about 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.960 him later. What matters right now is that the important 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.880 of Special Forces ramped up hugely during the start of 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.279 the War on Terror. These guys were the bulk of 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.600 the early effort in Afghanistan, and journalists were starving for 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.400 information about what spec ops guys were doing and seeing 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.400 as ed artists of Knightsbridge International told the Columbia Journalism 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.720 Review quote, the media were in a frenzy. They were 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.440 interviewing each other about what they'd interview someone else about 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.240 if they had someone to interview. So they're just like 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.680 desperate to talk to any of these guys, and none 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.880 of them will talk. And Jack Odema sees this feeding 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.279 frenzy and knew he had found the perfect grift because, 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.400 after all, he had technically been in Special Forces and 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.000 he was currently in Afghanistan, so why shouldn't he present 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.640 himself as an expert on what U S Special Forces 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.360 were doing in Afghanistan. So within a matter of weeks 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.720 of the invasion, Adema has managed to establish himself as 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.320 the mainstream media is leading expert on special Forces and 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.920 as one of its leading experts in Afghanistan. The Columbia 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.360 Journalism Review later noted quote he was read it as 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.320 an expert on all three networks, was a terrorist hunter 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.039 on Don Imus's radio show, a Northern Alliance advisor on 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.880 Fox News, and a key source for Merely Mapes and 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.960 Dan Rather in sixty minutes to the fact that he 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.560 is calling in from Afghanistan on the phone and had 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.599 once been in Special Forces is all the backup anybody does, 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:21.400 and they're like, yeah, fucking listen to whatever he has 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.200 to say. He was a special He was there in 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.599 January f twos in two US Special Forces cornered Osama 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.120 bin Laden for what they were absolutely sure was the 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.760 last time, spoilers they were It took about another decade. 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.960 Jack Adiema began shopping around a set of tapes at 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.920 the same time that held seven hours worth of videotaped 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.720 Al Qaeda training sessions. You've seen pieces of these tapes. 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:46.320 There's like a lot of like the guys going on 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.159 jungle gyms and running around with rifles and stuff. He 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.480 first sold stills from several of these tapes to a 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.600 number of media organizations, and a lot of them were 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.840 like scary images of terrorist commandos doing armed drills. Now, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.280 once the skills had wetted everyone's appetite, Adema contracted the 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.799 William Morris PR Agency to auction off what he claimed 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.800 was the first ever US broadcast rights of like terrorist 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.360 training videos from al Qaeda that would like reveal what 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.720 al Qaeda was planning to do in the United States. 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.160 So he delivered letters to all of the may or 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.720 his PR agency delivered letters to all the major networks, 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.160 setting a minimum price of a hundred and fifty thousand 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.160 dollars in demanding that Jackadema be credited. When the tapes 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:28.560 were aired. Surprisingly, Fox said no, and so did NBC. 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:31.160 They were put off by the Yeah, they were put 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.680 They thought it was too expensive and there was also 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.520 there was no supporting evidence that these tapes actually showed 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.640 an al Qaeda training base. There were just guys with 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:46.640 guns running around, running around. Yeah. An NBC producer later recalled, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:48.360 there was no way to verify them. It was either 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.280 you trust Keith Adema or you don't. CNN backed out too, 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.240 after their national security analyst did a cursory amount of 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.680 googling and discovered Keith ademonst criminal record in history of 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.840 suing everyone he's ever talked to. They were the only 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.000 network to blacklist him as a source as well as 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.520 turned down his offer. Now, some of the distrust of 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:09.680 Adema and his tapes came from the fact that he 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:11.840 seemed to have a different story about where they came 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.760 from for every news agency that asked. He told the 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.640 Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he bought the tapes from an 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.640 intelligence asset. After several back alley meetings. At midnight, he 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.040 told NBC's Today Show that he got them after he 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.560 filmed a group of Northern Alliance fighters taking over a 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.640 compound where the video was filmed. Adema then claimed to 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.080 have tracked down the camp's commander at home and hunted 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.720 down other al Qaeda recruits to find more footage. These 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.720 obvious lies fooled no one, no one that is besides 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:49.120 Dan Rather. Yeah, yeah, Dan Rather in sixty minutes fall 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.440 immediately and hard for Jackadema's tapes, and in fact, Rather 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.480 flies immediately to Afghanistan to interview Keith Adema and visit 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.640 the compound where the videos had been filmed. Yeah, it's 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.320 he just is immediately on board with this ship. I 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:09.320 am so down. The journalism school building at the college 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:11.840 that I went to but didn't go to journalism school 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:16.079 at was the Dan Rather School of journalism. And maybe 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:26.240 not the guy to take super details. I'm gonna quote 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.640 about the from the Columbia Journalism Review talking about this 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.559 particular grift at a time when workers were still sifting 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.880 through the nural wreckage of the World Trade Center, the 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.480 story reinforced the prevailing sense of Panic men in camouflage, 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.000 tunics and ski masks were shown storming buildings, staging drive 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.079 by shootings, and laying siege to golf courses. Sometimes the 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.160 men laughed as they rehearsed maneuvers, which Rather interpreted as 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.320 evidence that they approached their grim mission with glee. The 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:55.120 footage also contained numerous exchanges in English. A sign Rather 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.640 told viewers that they want to take scenes like this 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.920 to the West. Now. The reality is that these tapes 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.400 were absolutely a forgery made by Jack Adiemo, which is 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:12.280 why people were speaking in English. Yeah, gosh, good, disgracious, 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.200 Dan No, buddy, Yeah, that's that's really, that's really. That's 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.959 real bad. That's real bad, and you gotta do better. Yeah, well, 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.640 he spoilers for Dan Rather's career. He would not, he 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.920 would not, he would he would not. He would go 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.920 on to fall from more fake bullshit. Hell yeah, analysts, obviously, 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.080 I say they're obviously a forgery. It is impossible to 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.240 state that with a perfect degree of confidence one way 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.240 or the other, and you will. You can, in fact, 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.599 find a couple of different interpretations of these videos. But 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:48.960 it is worth noting that the tactics shown in the 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.480 tapes were not the sort actually used by Al Qaeda fighters. 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.599 The video depicted armed raids similar to the kind of 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.240 attacks ISIS would carry out years later in Europe. But 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.720 these are completely different from this sort of bombings that 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.360 all kind of actually engaged in at the time. Um put, simply, 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.640 all kinda never did anything even vaguely like what was 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.120 shown in these tapes. Like, it's just not the sort 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.800 of ship that they pulled off. And yeah, there were 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.040 other reasons to doubt the province of the tapes. The 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.400 place that Keith Adema said that he had rated to 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.960 capture them, the compound where these tapes were filmed, mere Bakt, 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.280 was under coalition control during the time that the tapes 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.240 were actually filmed, and had been thoroughly searched at the 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.360 time when Jack claims to have conducted the raid. Now again, 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.839 the reality of the situation was never conclusively determined one 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.960 way or the other, and Dan Rather's career didn't explode 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.200 for this particular funk up. But the almost certain reality 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.720 is that the videos were staged by Jack. He likely 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.040 found an old compound that had already been liberated by 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.079 the coalition and then hired a bunch of locals to 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.240 pretend to be terrorists. The Columbia Journalism Review talked to 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.360 a special retired Special operations officer with knowledge of the 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:59.000 CIA's investigation into the tapes, and this guy claims they 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.600 did a voice analysis us in a technical analysis. Not 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.440 only were they staged, but you could single Adema's voice 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:09.280 out directly. So the CIA, for its part, disputes having 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.080 done any kind of analysis. But the CIA is the CIA, 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:18.000 so I really don't give a ship what they say happened. Ever, uh, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.839 they are the CIA. Now, it seems pretty safe to 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.680 conclude that these were bogus from the get go, whether 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.000 or not Jack Adema himself actually filmed them. But at 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.360 the time, this took off like gangbusters among a terrified 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.560 American public, and Dan Rather's big scoop helped to solidify 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.400 Jack Adema's reputation who was someone as someone who was 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.120 not a shameful fraud, and for a few months he 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.960 was the talk of the Cabul media set. According to 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.800 New York Magazine, he boasted a war correspondence about the 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.920 many Al Qaeda suspects he had apprehended and embroidered his 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.040 bad his banter with tales of special Forces daring in 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.560 Central America, and it was more than just his speech 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:55.880 that was growing too colorful for its own good. One 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.079 heated argument over war coverage at a party ended with 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.960 a Dimas firing a pistol at a Dalla Morning News 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:06.080 correspondent Todd Robertson and barely missing his left arm when yeah, 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:14.120 he gets drunken shoots shoots at the Dallas Morning news man. 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.400 Many reporters began to regard a demon as a fraud 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.560 in a menace. Still, he was quoted in many major 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.440 newspapers as a Special Forces operative or a Green Beret. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.959 On a representation from the photo agency Polaris. A Dimas 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.920 sold the footage to sixty minutes too for an undisclosed fee, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.560 and the rest of the press corps, including NBC's Dateline 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.839 in the Today Show scooped up the sensational footage in 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.280 the networks wake. So that's great now. In December of 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:42.000 two thousand two, remember that guy Robin Moore who like 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.640 literally became a Green Beret and killed people with the 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.360 Green Berets and then wrote a book about him. That journalist, Well, 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.400 he shows up in Afghanistan in December of two thousand two, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.240 h Now he was no longer the young, fit warrior 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.840 who battled alongside US forces in Vietnam. More was in 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.160 his seventies, racked with Parkinson's disease and reliant to pon 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.800 a cane to get around. So he's not not in 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.840 great shape. Still, Clearly, whatever else you can say about him, 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.520 U a frightening badass to like, go wander on alone 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.200 in Afghanistan in your seventies and two thousand two is 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.400 a it's a tough guy. That's pretty hard. Yeah, that's 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.160 pretty hard. Now. He had a goal of publishing the 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.240 first on the ground memoir from the war in Afghanistan, 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.040 and it would be a book about the hunt for 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.560 Osama bin Laden. When Jack first heard that the author 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.600 of the book that had become his favorite movie was 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.240 in Afghanistan, he knew he had to find him, and 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.200 tracking down More was not difficult. There were not a 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.040 whole lot of old white dudes wandering around the country 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.160 in the wake of US Special Forces. Once there, Jack 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.760 plied More with the same story he'd successfully used on 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.920 many journalists, already putting himself forward as an ideal source 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.120 for Moore's next book. This line of bullshit worked because 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.080 Jack just seems to have had some sort of ability 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.880 to like not all or even most journalists, but there 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.520 were there are these guys like Skirka before him and 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.200 now Robin Moore that just like fall in love with 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.840 a line of ship that Jack is pushing. And soon 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.680 the two men were collaborating, collaborating together on a book 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.760 titled The Hunt for Bin Laden. Now, crucially, while they 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.480 were in Afghanistan, More In Adema spent almost no time together, 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.320 and this is because More was still widely respected by 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.240 US Special Forces dudes, and they gave him real access, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.000 and for obvious reasons, Jackodema did not want to get 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:26.280 anywhere clear near US Special Forces in Afghanistan, not a 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:32.000 good idea, So they didn't really start to collaborate until 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.760 uh they got home to the United States in later 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.800 that year. Jack had to head back after his mother died, 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:40.760 and this is where he and Robin Moore would go 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.280 on to have the bulk of their contact. So More 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.840 was back in his States by the end of that year, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.160 trying to bang out his notes and interviews from Afghanistan 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.520 into a book that people would want to read. Adema 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.160 offered himself up for additional background information and soon more 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.800 was listening with bated breath. Well, Jack Adiema just lied 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.600 to him. This random paragraph from the book they wrote 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:02.840 together gives you an idea of what sort of stuff 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.040 Jack was telling him. And again this is one paragraph. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:10.600 Oh yes. In January, Jack uncovered an al Qaita plot 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.160 to kill President Clinton and march. Standing in the middle 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.400 of a Kabul street. Armed with a Russian assault rifle 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.320 and six hundred rounds of ammunition, Jack held off Islamic 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.040 fundamentalists for four hours as they tried to take eighteen 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.200 four in citizens hostage, keeping them at bay until Engineer 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.600 Ali and the Northern Alliance arrived to back him up. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.840 By the end of March, Oh yeah, that's a character 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.600 right there. By the end of March, Jack was in 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.080 a Northern Alliance helicopter on his way to the Nachman 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.600 earthquake with the Associated Press photograph the lone American rescuing 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.840 a little girl. She wasn't the first child he would 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.920 save or the last. I'm gonna tell you right now, 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.720 Jack Ademon never saved goddamn kid. He definitely posed with 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.840 some sick and injured children, but I think he saved 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:52.680 them in the same way he saved his friend with 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:58.400 the leg injury. Yeah. Now, for his part, Robin Moore 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.240 said that Jack's stories check doubt very well when he 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.080 tried to verify them, and this is almost certainly a lie, 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.280 as Mary Anne Strong, Moore's agent at the time, claims 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.360 that Robin Moore's actual experiences in Afghanistan were just too 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:12.240 dull to make a good book. Basically, he was too 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.120 old to find anything cool, So he came back home 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.560 like kind of bummed out, with like a few interviews 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.720 that were not that exciting and no stories of actual 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.680 daring do because he's seventy and had Parkinson's. So Jack 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:25.560 comes along and it's like, I can spice up this 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:30.720 fucking book for you. Many Strong, He's like, let me 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:35.320 add some con to that ship. Also, Yeah, Moore's agent 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.000 later claimed Jack came along and rewrote the entire thing. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.800 He came up with terribly exciting, excellent copy. Now, she 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.760 claimed that More himself only wrote a few pages of 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:47.159 the book in the end, and the resulting product was 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.840 one of the most ridiculous pieces of FOE journalism in 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.320 the entire history of the War on Terror, which is 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.480 a fucking achievement. The cover of the book features a 0:17:55.520 --> 0:18:04.320 shirtless Jack Adimo wielding an a K forties Yeah Baby Now. 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.720 New York Magazine goes into more detail about precisely how 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.040 bad this book was. It asserts out right that a 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.360 demon was the only Green Beret gathering intelligence on the ground, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.040 and a dema routinely storms the center of the book's 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.040 action to perform herobic feats of bravery. It is as 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.359 though given the chance to influence a Robin Moore book, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.679 Adema had to cast himself in the twenty one century 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.320 sequel to The Green Berets. So he basically finds the 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.159 author of the book that became his favorite movie and 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.199 turns himself into a character in that book, clearly in 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:36.280 the hope that a movie will get made about him, 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.240 which honestly kind of rules a little bit. I mean, yeah, 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.760 I want to see this movie. It'll be it'll undoubtedly 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.399 have like Danny McBride, or like Danny McBride would be 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.320 the right guy to play Jack Adeem a whole ship. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.640 completely overly confident, which is everybody looking around. It would 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:55.760 almost be like a Tommy Boy thing, where you know, 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.320 you have the Chris Farley character and then David's bade 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.399 trying to clean up the mess that's following him. I 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.800 think actually the right way to play this is to 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.600 just have Daniel McBride do his character from Eastbound and Down. 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:11.000 This guy who was just has this completely divorced from reality, beliefs, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.760 beliefs about himself, um, just rolling through Afghanistan and somehow 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.960 not dying but getting a lot of people killed. Yeah, 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.200 I think we should go to an ad break because 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:26.760 you know what won't convince an elderly ailing legend of 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:32.560 war reporting what the products and services in this None 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.280 of them will trick a sick old man into writing 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.400 a fake book about how you shirtlessly fought the Taliban. 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.639 That is a guarantee. We make fucking talk space not 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:52.760 going to do that. Not, no, sir, No sir. We're 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:58.600 back and we are talking about Jack Edema. So it's 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:02.480 a great book. U. Jack Edema cons this guy to write, 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.240 and the book was a hit among an American public 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.800 hungry for stories of military glory after September eleven. Yeah, 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.800 people eat this ship up. It quickly climbed to a 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.359 respectable place on the New York Times bestseller list, and 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:16.720 although it never made its way up to number one. 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.720 It's sold very very well now, Since more the ostensible 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.720 author was elderly and in poor health, the responsibility for 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.280 shamelessly plugging the book landed on Jack Edema. He was 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.200 only too happy to hang out in bookstores doing readings 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.480 from chapters he'd written about things he absolutely did not do. 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.399 During numerous media appearances, he even gave direct advice to 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.119 the Pentagon, making statements like we in Special Forces have 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.159 been lobbying for a lighter, faster army, but General Tommy 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:48.240 Frank's isn't listening. Is It's great? That's I mean, I'm 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.080 loving it. Just catch catch him at book soup. That's 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.280 where I'm trying to see him. It's kind of ironic 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.080 because like there are so many Special Forces grifts around 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.280 the day, like today, like about a third of the 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.719 people who wind up becoming Special Forces operators do it 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.479 to like cash in on some book as soon as 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.800 they get out. Um. But the only kind of Special 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.000 Forces griff that wouldn't work today is like what Jack 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:11.840 Adema is doing, because there's now so many of these 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.040 guys in the media who would be like, now this 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:18.280 this dude's just lying like he was never never did anything. Yeah, 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.840 has never seen goodness, I mean nothing, not a thing. Ye, 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:26.239 well anywhere. Like any great grifter, Jackodema succeeds during the 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.879 only period in history in which he could have possibly succeeded. Yes, exactly. 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.719