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Obituary；Jonathan Keith “Jack” Idema
訃告；喬納森·凱因斯·“杰克”艾德馬
Jonathan Keith “Jack” Idema, American fortune hunter and confidence trickster, died on January 21st, aged 55；
喬納森·凱因斯·“杰克”艾德馬，美國的一位財富追求者、詐騙犯，1月21日去世，終年55歲。
Nobody who met Jonathan Keith “Jack” Idema could doubt his self- belief. It hit you as forcefully as his rocky good looks, his patriotism and his prickliness. But who was the self he believed in?
見過喬納森·凱因斯·“杰克”艾德馬的人都會對他的自我信仰表示懷疑，這種懷疑與他粗獷的外形、愛國的激情、桀驁不馴的性格一樣，都給人留下深刻印象。但他信仰的這個“自我”會是誰呢？
Was it Jonathan, the rather spoilt single child from Poughkeepsie, fond of fast cars and prone to collecting speeding tickets, who was inspired by John Wayne in “The Green Berets” to join the American special forces? Was it Keith, the ex-soldier who went into business selling paintball equipment and then military clothing, before being convicted of defrauding 59 companies and sentenced to six years in prison? Was it Jack, the tough guy who rocked out to Afghanistan in 2001 after the September 11th attacks to do humanitarian stuff, capture Osama bin Laden and work undercover, he said, for the Pentagon? Or was it Black Jack, the swashbuckling captain of a tour boat in Mexico who, before he succumbed to AIDS, saw himself as Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, flew a pirate flag from a minaret, held constant orgies and liked to play the score of “Apocalypse Now” and Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”?
是喬納森嗎？他出生于紐約的波基普西，是家中獨子，自幼得到父母嬌寵。他喜歡飆車，常常收到超速罰單，受約翰·韋恩主演的《綠色貝蕾帽》的啟發參加了美國特種部隊。是凱因斯嗎？這位退役士兵，銷售過彩彈設備，倒賣過軍用服裝，后因詐騙59家公司被判六年監禁。是杰克嗎？這個殘暴的家伙2001年9·11之后驚現阿富汗，從事人道主義工作，自稱為俘獲本拉登，并為五角大樓從事間諜活動。或者是布萊克·杰克，墨西哥一條游船上那位神氣活現的船長，被艾滋病擊倒之前，自詡自己是《加勒比海盜》中的杰克·斯派羅，常在塔尖上懸掛一面海盜旗幟，生活放蕩不羈，喜歡演奏《現代啟示錄》以及路易斯·阿姆斯特朗的《世界無限美好》。
No doubt it was all these selves, and others too, for Mr Idema was a man of many parts, and his lack of self-doubt helped him both to ignore setbacks and to gain the confidence of those who should have seen through him. The real and the imaginary were as one to him, just as right and wrong were. And he moved in a world peopled by others with as many fantasies, as few scruples and plenty of motives for inventing tall stories.
無疑，他的這個“自我”囊括了所有這些人，當然還有其他人，艾德馬先生具有多面人格，他缺乏自我懷疑的能力，這使他無法反省，卻使他能從那些不愿點破他的人那里獲得自信。他分不清真實與想像，他將正確與錯誤混為一潭。他帶著無限幻想進入到一個由他人組成的光怪陸離的世界，他百無禁忌，一心想著驚天動地。
Some of the stories made Mr Idema seem almost lovably heroic. He preserved genetic material from his dog, for example, so that he could later be cloned. Sarge was, after all, no ordinary dog but a Tibetan shepherd that would jump out of aircraft with his soldier master and help sniff out bombs (when not scuba diving). Other tales cast Mr Idema in a more Bond-like guise. Thus in 1991 he told the FBI that among the detritus of the Soviet Union he had discovered a Russian mafia gang bent on smuggling suitcase-sized nuclear weapons out of Lithuania; no details could be revealed, though, because the FBI was riddled with KGB agents.
他的一些故事“英雄”得可愛，比如，他把他的狗的基因物質保存下來，為的是以后要克隆它，畢竟“沙吉”不是普通的狗，而是一只可與它的兵主人一起跳傘的西藏牧羊犬，并能嗅出炸彈（當不要水肺潛水時）。其他故事為艾德馬蒙上一個更加Bond式的假相。因此，1991年，他告訴FBI在蘇聯的加盟共和國中，他發現一個俄羅斯黑社會組織決定把一個文件箱大小的核武器帶出立陶宛。但細節不可能披露，因為FBI滿是克格勃特工。
He could be a victim, too. Was he not the object of a vendetta by the FBI? And had his story not been stolen by Steven Spielberg for George Clooney in “The Peacemaker”? He sued Mr Spielberg, and others who had crossed him: journalists, an aid worker, a colonel, even his father.
他也許還是一個受害者。他不是FBI仇視的對象嗎？他的故事不是被斯皮爾博格竊取并塑造成為《和平制造者》中的喬治·克魯尼嗎？他起訴斯皮爾博格以及其他反對他的人：多名記者，一位救援人員，一位上校，甚至他的父親。
Then there was his discovery of an al-Qaeda plot to kill Bill Clinton at a summit in Malaysia (the president wisely stayed away) and two other planned assassinations in Afghanistan. He claimed, too, to have fought with the Northern Alliance, America’s anti-Taliban allies in Operation Enduring Freedom. He had also secured a video of al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists undergoing training, which he sold to CBS and several other broadcasters.
后來，他發現基地組織企圖在馬來西亞的一個峰會上刺殺克林頓的密謀（總統聰明地躲過了），他還發現了阿富汗的其他的兩個案殺陰謀。另外，他宣稱在“持久自由行動”中他與美國反塔利班聯盟“北方陣線”進行過斗爭。他保護了一個基地組織以及塔利班恐怖分子接受訓練的視頻，他將這些視頻賣給了CBS以及其他幾個電臺。
Oh, what a lovely war
噢，多么可愛的一場戰爭
Journalists were not alone in being conned by Mr Idema, especially after he formed Task Force Sabre 7, a freelance group of American and Afghan vigilantes-cum-fortune-hunters who operated with impunity for a while after the Americans had ousted the Taliban in 2001. Afghanistan at this time was an adventure playground for thuggish American ex-servicemen employed or masquerading as security guards. They hung around the Mustafa hotel, wearing wraparound sunglasses and camouflage fatigues, drove about in big Toyotas and carried a small arsenal of weapons. They were not so much the dogs of war as the coyotes, dingoes and hyenas. Mr Idema was one of them.
被艾德馬欺騙的并非只有記者，特別是他組建“重劍7號特遣隊”之后，這個由美國人和阿富汗人組成的自由職業者組織，負責維持當地秩序并借機斂財。2001年，美國人趕走了塔利班，有一個短暫的時期，這個組織得以逍遙法外。這時的阿富汗成為冒險家的樂園，一些殘忍的美國退伍軍人應征或假裝成保安人員，他們在穆斯塔法酒店前游蕩，戴著封閉式的太陽鏡，穿著寬大的迷彩服。開著大豐田、攜帶著武器橫沖直撞。與其說他們是戰爭烈犬，不如說他們是一群虎豹豺狼。艾德馬就是這樣的人。
Some of these people operated with the complicity of the American authorities, who had contracted out so many of the tasks once performed by soldiers. No wonder that on three occasions in 2004 Mr Idema found it easy to con the NATO force into providing him with support for raids on compounds. He even conned the Americans into taking into custody a captured Afghan alleged to be a Taliban loyalist. He was nothing of the kind.
他們中有些人便與美國當局串通，因為美國當局把很多原來由士兵執行的任務進行外包。難怪2004年，艾德馬先生三次發現，欺騙北約軍隊支持他襲擊一些地方并非難事。他甚至誘使美國人將一名據說是忠誠于塔利班的阿富汗俘虜投進監獄，實際上根本就不是那么回事。
Far more serious was the private prison run by Mr Idema and his friends. When it was discovered, complete with torture chamber and eight captives, bound and hooded, some hanging by their feet, the Afghans said Mr Idema was trying to extract information that would lead to bounties. He said it had all been okayed by the Pentagon, even by Donald Rumsfeld. But he was tried nonetheless and given ten years. After three, spent in extraordinarily comfortable conditions in the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi jail, he was inexplicably pardoned by President Hamid Karzai.
更為嚴重的是艾德馬和他的朋友設立私人監獄。與此一起曝光的還有他的酷刑室， 8個俘虜，手腳被綁，套上頭罩，一些人倒懸室內。阿富汗人說艾德馬刑訊逼供，是為了領取賞金。他說他的行為得到了五角大樓的同意，甚至是拉姆斯菲爾德的首肯。但他卻受到了審判，被判刑十年。在臭名昭著的Pul-e-Charkhi監獄度過三年異常舒坦的日子，卡爾扎伊莫名其妙地赦免了他。
By this time, though, Mr Idema was beginning to look less plausible, his luck less inexhaustible. His loyal wife, Viktoria Runningwolf, had been abandoned, along with the Ultimate Pet Resort that he had helped her set up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And his past, including 36 arrests (though no convictions) in the 1980s and 1990s, had come to light. He was still wanted in North Carolina for impersonating a policeman and, despite claims to “superblood”, he was to contract AIDS. His life ended in a haze of vodka and cocaine, the self-belief perhaps slightly dented, the self-delusion as strong as ever.
雖然現在艾德馬看起來越來越不可信，他的好運漸漸走到盡頭。他忠實的妻子Viktoria Runningwolf，以及艾德馬為她在北卡州法伊特維爾建造的“終極寵物圣地”都曾被他拋棄。他的過去，包括上世紀80和90年代他曾36次被拘（盡管沒有判罪），也已大白于天下。他因在北卡州冒充警察依然在通緝之中。雖然宣稱他身上流淌著“超級血液”，他還是感染上了艾滋病。他在伏特加和可卡因作用下結束生命，他的自我信仰也許減少了一點，但自我幻覺依然堅強如往。
