 In some ways, he's like a lot of 25-year-olds: After years of running from his upbringing and trying to blaze his own trail, he has become studious, stable and settled. But there's really no other 25-year-old like John Walker Lindh.
| Oh, I'm sure there are. They're either dead or not arrested yet. |
He will be forever tagged as the American Taliban, a California kid who converted to Islam and left home to find himself - and joined the radical Taliban to fight in Afghanistan. Now Lindh is serving a 20-year prison sentence, and is under a court-imposed silence.
| My heart bleeds... No. Wait. It's the chili again... |
But Lindh's family and supporters say he deserves a break, and America needs to take another look at what he really did. "His story is indeed a story that needs to come out, and needs to be shared with the world," said Shakeel Syed, who served as a religious adviser to Lindh in prison.
| Yeah. He's just a poor, misguided kid. And he's still got his Muslim religious advisor in jug. |
In his first-ever account of Lindh's life in a medium-security federal prison in Victorville, Calif., Syed said Lindh is a model inmate who lives as normal a life as possible behind bars - but also is a spiritual beacon to other Muslims there. "Prison has helped him become a better Muslim," Syed said. "He is a Malcolm X with a softer tone."
| Just can't stay away from the turbans, can he? |
Lindh lives with a lover cellmate, works a prison job and is allowed to mingle with other inmates, Syed said - but he is prohibited from talking about his experiences in Afghanistan, can't see visitors who aren't relatives or lawyers, and isn't allowed to conspire speak Arabic.
| But come the caliphate, how will he be able to communicate with the master race? |
While Lindh was taunted with cries of "Traitor!" when he first came to Victorville, and was once attacked by another inmate, he now faces no threats to his safety and even has gained a measure of respect, Syed said. "He is an extremely well-liked, well-respected, model inmate in the system by the authorities as well as by the inmates," said Syed, now executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. "Some of the inmates have come to sympathize with him because of his special restrictions."
| Time passes, doesn't it? The 3000 dead are cold in their graves. Their names are forgotten... |
Federal prison officials would not comment on Lindh or release information about him, citing privacy rules.
| I'm guessing that if they did the story would be different than what his Islamic mouthpiece is putting out. |
He burst into the public eye in November 2001, when CIA commandos working with the Northern Alliance, an Afghan group opposed to Taliban rule, found him among wounded and bedraggled Taliban fighters, who soon killed CIA operative Johnny (Mike) Spann.
| That was at Qala-i-Jangi, where they sent the surivors of the siege of Konduz, and the survivors decided to unsurrender. Dostum, bless his vicious little heart, solved that problem by killing most of them. |
The image of Lindh, filthy and exhausted, was beamed around the world - shocking the country with his unbelievable journey and stunning his parents, who hadn't heard from him in months. Lindh had converted to Islam as a teen and traveled to Yemen to study the Koran and Arabic. When his visa expired he went to Pakistan, then sneaked across the border to Afghanistan - where he trained in an Al Qaeda-funded camp and twice met Osama Bin Laden.
| That makes him a traitor in my book. Binny declared war on us well before 9-11-2001. There were attacks on the WTC, our embassies in Africa, and the USS Cole, but here was young Johnny Jihad, hob-knobbing with him. |
Lindh's father, Frank Lindh, said his son was well-meaning but misguided, never taking up arms against America or joining Al Qaeda in its destructive quest. "In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man who became involved in a spiritual quest and became the focus of the grief and anger of an entire nation over an event in which he had no part," Frank Lindh told a San Francisco audience earlier this year.
| It's the story of a man who loved his country so little that he went and fought against it, joining with the Chechens and Uzbeks and other riff-raff at the Battle of Konduz. |
But in the angry months after Sept. 11, Lindh was held up as a candidate for the death penalty.
Barely 10 months after he was seized on the battlefield, Lindh accepted a plea deal admitting he aided the Taliban - not plotting terror attacks or battling the U.S. He agreed to a 20-year prison term with no opportunity to appeal or challenge the government's restrictions while he's in prison.
| Too cowardly to fight it out to the end with the other Islamic fanatics, he was also too cowardly to take the risk of the death penalty. |
Lindh's last public statement came when he was sentenced, where he tried to explain how he ended up in Afghanistan. "I did not go to fight against America, and I never did," Lindh said. "I understand why so many Americans were angry when I was first discovered in Afghanistan. I realize that many still are, but I hope that with time and understanding, those feelings will change."
| I hope to God they never do. I hope that Johnny Jihad remains what he is, a symbol of the soullessness of a segment of our society that sees nothing wrong with turning on the rest of us... |
His parents have said little since then, but his lawyers are hoping a change in public mood could help him. With few legal options available, they've petitioned President Bush in a long-shot bid to shorten Lindh's sentence. "I think we all have to realize that the odds are against it," Frank Lindh said in his San Francisco speech. "It is difficult to envision a situation where all those hotheads in Washington can turn around and recognize the kid got a raw deal and should be released."
| First you'd have to convince the rest of us that he got a raw deal. We think he got off lightly. |
Legal observers said the sentence was the byproduct of the national mood at the time, and note that many subsequent terror prosecutions in the U.S. have led to much shorter prison terms.
| None of the subsequent cases were caught at Qala-i-Jangi, were they? |
"He became an almost cathartic criminal case for the public," said George Washington University law Prof. Jonathan Turley. "Just as the public emotion was at a fever pitch, John Walker Lindh walked right out of central casting as a vicious traitor who betrayed his country. Upon further examination, he appears to be a confused kid playing a low-level role."
| He was just cannon fodder, but he was willing cannon fodder, and he left his own side to join theirs. Piss on him. |
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