The Real Jeff Gannon?

I received a most surprising e-mail today. I have not been able to research the matter and determine whether or not it is accurate, but I thought that its contents were so explosive that they needed to be shared more widely.

If you can shed any light on this story, by all means please let me know. -- John

"Now that Jeff Gannon has suddenly departed, under mysterious circumstances, from the prestigious Talon News Service, a lot of crazy stories have been circulating. Some people are even trying to claim that no such person as Jeff Gannon exists, that he is really an escort-for-hire named Jim Guckert. Yeah, some people will believe anything.

"Jeff Gannon is a real person, he is NOT the same person as Jim Guckert. Jeff Gannon is abusing that poor man, making him the fall guy for Gannon's sleazy activities.

"I repeat, this story has NOTHING to do with Jim Guckert, it is the truth about Jeff Gannon, and what kind of man he really is:

"Samir Hamdi was a teacher at a small high school in Kabul, Afghanistan, swept up by U.S. forces in December of 2001 and detained at a torture camp in Pakistan. In 2003, he was dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJs, then ordered to describe for a visiting American "journalist" the "lenient and humane treatment" he'd received. He spat at Mr. Gannon, and was clubbed and dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward upon the camp Commandant's feet, which sent that officer berserk. In 2005, he still suffered from double vision from the Colonel's frenzied application of a wooden baton.

"Karim Musharrak, an Iraqi shopkeeper detained since 2002, was not even on the books at the prison camp in Egypt where he was detained, one of the "phantom" prisoners whose presence is not recorded or acknowledged, even to the Red Cross, for "security" reasons. His group, too, got the cleaned/fed/clothed routine in preparation for a visit from an "independent journalist". They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his name and home town on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Mr. Gannon and a camera man, he walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: "Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?" and "Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?" Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed Gannon their slivers of paper. He took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, he turned to the officer in charge ... and handed him the little pile of papers. Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Musharrak was almost number four. But he survived, and was one of a handful of prisoners who were finally recognized as innocent and released ...which is the only reason we know about Gannon's actions that day.

"This is the truth about Jeff Gannon, and anyone who doesn't believe it can just go ask Jeff Gannon!"