Is it time to release John Walker Lindh?

[OutsidetheBox]

The guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that much is obvious. He was a very low ranking peon in the Taliban's little ragtag hierarchy, and had no clue what was going on in the world when 9/11 happened.

He never rose against the American invading army and was simply captured and made an example. He was a lost soul and found that Afghanistan, and the Taliban religious doctrine, gave meaning to his life.

It is about time people start demanding his release. He was neither a terrorist nor a treasonous traitor. He did nothing wrong except pursue a theology in a part of the world BushCo. coveted and had planned to invade months before 9/11.

Is it time for Mr. Lindh to get justice? I believe so.

[WildEyedLiberal]

1. Why

Are you trying to goad DUers into saying they support someone who was captured fighting with the enemy in Afghanistan? Gee, that's not suspicious at all.

Hopefully no one is dumb enough to take your bait. :eyes:

[IselaB]

3. Try not to be so paranoid

It's not like the kid killed anybody or participated in 9/11. He just got caught up in something he didn't fully understand.

[OutsidetheBox]

5. I see the propaganda from four years ago still works

The guy wasn't fighting with the "enemy". He didn't have a freakin clue about 9/11, nor that the US would invade. At the time he was with the Taliban Bush was giving millions to them, while negotiating a pipeline in US interests through Afghanistan. This is not mere black and white myopic diatribe.

According to your theory, if he is the enemy, then so are the majority of prisoners in Guantanamo, 90 percent of which did nothing and were never "terrorists", simply sold to the US. Also, the tens of thousands of rebels in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons are all "the enemy". Bull biscuits. They are no more the enemy than George Washington and his army fighting against oppression.

Lindh was no enemy of America.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. I've been saying he was scapegoated for four years.

However, some people here may question your motives since you have a low post count AND have a disabled profile, which are commonly found with freeper instigators. We all had low counts, at one time, but the profile is suspicious.

I give the benefit of the doubt - particularly when it is something that I've been thinking for a long time myself.

If you had asked the same about Moussaoui (sp?) it would have rung my freeper alarm, too (though I think he IS crazy and doesn't deserve the DP, when he had no direct involvement with 9/11, he is still committed to OBL and is dangerous - should stay in prison for the rest of his miserable life).

But Lindh was young, and dumb, and scapegoated. He shouldn't have gotten more than 4 years in jail - though I'm not sure what crime he committed. If fighting for a foreign power, not against the US, is a crime then aren't the mercenaries in Iraq, fighting for the Iraqi government, committing the same crime?

Seems to me.

[OutsidetheBox]

21. No freeper here...

Just cause I have a low sperm count still doesnt mean I don't produce wonderful kids. :>) I understand the low count rationale. We have to be cautious. Fact is I have been a lurker for about 2-3 years and did have an account until I said something the mods didn't like and the rest is history. I think freepers hate Lindh for the usual bullcrap reasons. I don't think many tards defend him and most in fact wish him death. I say even if he was fighting the US (hypothetical) that it is his freedom and right to do so. We are a free country. Just because he is born here doesn't mean he can't take up arms against whomever he wants to. If he gets caught, well then he will get to be a POW or in today's messed up semantics, an enemy combatant.

Look at big tobacco, for example. They have taken up arms (albeit silent killers) against Americans for decades yet they are not put in prison for waging war against us. Depends who you are and how much money you have, I guess.

[WildEyedLiberal]

52. Actually, treason is in the Constitution

It is not your "freedom and right" to take up arms against the United States. I wonder why you're saying such extreme things?

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SidDithers]

57. So, you've been banned once before ...

and it took you all of 70 posts this time before calling another DU'er a freeper.

Curious.

Sid

[OutsidetheBox]

59. Hell no, I've been calling DUers freepers since the beginning

How can you not with all these immigrant bashing, Mexican flag fearing and terra fearing posts going around? If it sounds like a duck and quacks like a duck.....

Defending Bush's decision regarding Lindh is not liberalism in my book...

Man, how far liberalism has fallen for so many so-called liberals.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Fighting with the enemy?

What enemy? He was fighting with the Taliban - who * had been courting at the time he went to Afghanistan - against the Northern Alliance warlords -- read that, opium lords -- whose prime source of income was the poppies with which they made heroin that was smuggled into America.

Before 9/11 he was on the side we supported. After 9/11, he was already there doing the same things he was doing before 9/11. The world shifted under his feet, through no fault of his own.

And he never, never took arms against the US.

He was scapegoated.

[WildEyedLiberal]

8. Good God, now he's a hero?

The Taliban SUCKED. I don't care if we didn't bomb them before 9/11 - they were a brutal, repressive, regime and I don't hold anyone in high regard who served it. They treated women worse than you're allowed to treat dogs in America.

Do I think Lindh was a convenient poster boy for "OMG, al-Qaeda in our neighborhood, be scared!" propaganda? Sure. But if you don't see the aim of this thread... well, it's just pretty obvious to me what its intention is.

[OutsidetheBox]

10. I smell paranoia. Just wanted to see what other DUers think re: Lindh

If I remember correctly he was labelled the "American Taliban". Poor fellow, tortured, imprisoned, clueless and scapegoated in order to quell the seething anger and thirst for vengeance of millions of Americans. Ashcroft went straight for the political jugular with him...Must appease the blood thirsty masses. Now that animalistic emotions have subsided, a reflection of what was done to this man seems reasonable...

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Strawman.

You claim I say he's a hero, then knock down that phony argument.

I said he was a scapegoat. I made no claims about the Taliban - only pointed out that at the time Lindh went to Pakistan, Bush was talking pipeline deals with the Taliban and offering them 40 million dollars for their poppy eradication (which means, Northern Alliance eradication) program.

The Taliban, for all their faults, did cut down the poppy cultivation by 90%. When our allies of the Northern Alliance gained the upper hand, poppy production soared to historic highs, resulting in a flood of cheap heroin into this country.

The Northern Alliance is no better than the Taliban. They are the ones who let OBL escape from Tora Bora.

Lindh was scapegoated.

[Cleita]

27. I read a different version of whom let OBL escape.

The Afghanis allied with the Americans (could have been Northern Alliance :shrug:)cornered OBL and told the Americans where he was who never came to capture him and he got away. Of course this version has subsequently disappeared from the universe. There were rumors that the Americans were told not to go in and get him by higher command. Knowing what I know about the Bush regime, it seems plausible.

I hope one of these days the whole truth comes out.

[OutsidetheBox]

64. Kicked

[wuushew]

40. Amerika has no power over "sucky" people or countries

Afghanistan did not attack us nor should the United States feel empowered to intervene in ongoing civil wars that do not affect us.

9/11 was perpetrated by a group of like minded men bankrolled by Saudi petrodollars who are now dead and beyond the Amerikan justice system. The farce which is the War on Terror is merely another illustration of the arrogant and reckless imperial intervention which has fueled ongoing anti-Western/Americanism since the end of the Cold War.

Your righteousness is neither helpful nor pragmatic.

[IselaB]

2. His is a sad story of a good-hearted, earnest, liberal kid

led astray by a bunch of gun-toting, right-wing, religious wackos. I'm sure he regrets the path he went down, never imagining where it would lead.

I assume his lawyers agreed to his sentence at the time knowing that once the emotion had subsided they could have his case reviewed or at least get him out on parole.

[Xithras]

28. ROFL! You're joking, right?

This was a man who "found himself" by devoting his life to supporting a regime that beat women for showing their ankles in public, shot them if they were raped, blew up irreplaceable archaeological treasures, gave shelter to murderers an terrorists, tortured people for listening to MUSIC, and regularly shelled civilian areas if ANY dissention was found in them. We can debate Iraq and Saddam and argue about how evil that situation really was, but Afghanistan was a tragedy and the Taliban were instrumental in making it so.

Pity for people like Lindh is like pity for Nazi SS guards at the concentration camps. I'm sure there were plenty of SS who had good childhoods and tolerant families, who only joined up for legitimate ideological reasons, but what MATTERS is that when push came to shove, they put their humanity aside and reveled in the death they helped to create. Lindh willingly became one of the oppressors, and in so doing FOREVER gave up any chance at earning any pity from me. If the US hadn't invaded, Lindh would probably still be there today, happily beating women and imposing his ultra-right wing orthodox views at the point of his gun. If anything, Lindh is far WORSE than the rest of the Taliban we picked up. Unlike those fighters who had spent their entire lives in that war torn, oppresive land, Lindh KNEW there was a better way, that women were human beings with rights, and that oppression and murder were evil. He knew of these ideals, and yet he still turned his back on them and joined the fascists. He knew full well that he was supporting a government that opposed EVERYTHING his good-hearted, earnest, liberal upbringing had taught him.

No pity, no freedom. Let the bastard rot.

[RaleighNCDUer]

33. How much of that was he aware of?

He went straight from a men-only religious school in Yemen to a men-only religious school in Pakistan to a Taliban training camp and then to the front lines in north-west Afghanistan. He would know only what he was told. There's no reason to think he ever witnessed a summary execution, ever saw a woman beaten for an imagined impropriety, or participated in brutality against civilians.

And if you knew something of Afghan history, the Taliban was welcomed as a force that all but ended the internecine warfare that wracked Afghanistan from the time the soviets were driven out. The warlords, the drug lords, were every bit as brutal as the Taliban and in most the country that all ended when the Taliban gained control.

What evidence do you have that Lindh ever beat a woman? That he ever executed a civilian? That he even knew about the abuses of the Taliban? He was fighting what he thought was the good fight against drug dealing criminals. Is there any evidence that he approved of the excesses of the Taliban? Once in Afghanistan, what could he do if he did not approve? Object, be declared an apostate and be executed?

He was a stupid kid who was in way over his head. And the government piled all our disgust at the Taliban regime on his head, because the government wanted a scapegoat.

[OutsidetheBox]

34. Here, here!!

Nice post.

Guess who the Taliban is: our great mujahadeen freedom fighters that won our proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. They are the ones we were giving millions in aid, while we did not care an ounce about their policies or ideals, because we wanted them in our pocket. Shouldn't this make Lindh one of our boys? If the Taliban were our buddies, shouldn't Lindh be one too? Oh, but Bush decided the Taliban had to become the bogeymen, in order to control the nation and thus the pipeline, so we made them the great evildoers in order to condition the gullible into war. Hence Lindh became evil incarnate as well.

[SidDithers]

58. The Taliban didn't form until 1994...

5 years after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan. They formed amid the Afghan civil war that raged through the mid 90's, where warlords battled each other for control of the opium trade.

While some of the players may be same, the Taliban that ran Afghanistan after 1996 are not the same mujahadeen that fought the Soviet Union through the 1980's.

Sid

[OutsidetheBox]

60. Tell that to Mullah Omar and his followers

They were all mujahadeen fighting our proxy war against the Russians. Afghanistan was in shambles after the Soviets left, they fought their civil war, the Taliban were victorious after being supplied by us during and after the Soviet war (we armed them during the civil war because we wanted them in power). Obviously the mujahadeen were many groups brought together, but the leadership and many of the fighters were indeed Taliban...The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

[Xithras]

36. Why would he have joined the Taliban?

He had been to the middle east, he had been to Pakistan, he knew of plenty of places that a devout Muslim could have gone to demonstrate his faith and live according to the Koran. So why did he go to Afghanistan? Why did he join the Taliban? NOBODY goes to another country and joins their military without knowing what they're about. Or do you believe that there was some kind of grand conspiracy to lie to Lindh to get him to join? That he was somehow the victim of plotting extremists? Quite frankly, it's too much to buy. The Taliban not only didn't hide their actions, they openly touted them. People in THIS part of the world knew what the Taliban was all about, and few westerners ever actually met one of them. In Pakistan, where he spent considerable time, he was not only exposed to genuine Taliban hardliners on a regular basis, but he would have been exposed to their propoganda over the radio, on television, and in the newspapers (the Taliban were openly critical of the Pakistani governments secular nature and were well known in Pakistan).

Did he ever beat a woman or execute a civilian? No, but plenty of SS guards never shot any Jews either. We locked them away anyway, because being a willing part of a crime against humanity is itself criminal.

And stupidity is no excuse for his crimes. Most criminals are fairly stupid, but unless you can show that he is genuinely mentally incapacitated, it's not a valid defense. He was an adult, with all of the responsibilities of adulthood. He was not a child and made his own decisions.

[WildEyedLiberal]

50. Thank God for your sane post

It's pretty fucking sad that I can't criticize the TALIBAN without getting flamed by leftist tyranny-apologists.

[mike_c]

4. notwithstanding #1, I agree with you....

Welcome to DU, BTW.

I don't think John Walker Lindh is actually guilty of anything criminal.

[Pharaoh]

7. he was a stupid kid

he should be let go............

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. You're a disgrace to all the wild-eyed liberals in the world,

WildEyedLiberal... I bet your eyes are plum conventional!

[WildEyedLiberal]

12. Thanks.

I appreciate the personal attack. I guess everyone else in this thread would rather be played by someone of very dubious motivation?

Unless you're being sarcastic, in which case, I'm sorry for the overreaction.

BTW, the Taliban still sucked.

[OutsidetheBox]

15. What "dubious" motivation you talking about? Spell it out, bro....

By the way, women today are no better off in Afghanistan than they were under the Taliban. If you believe that kool aid story I have a 50 story steel and glass skyscraper in downtown Kabul to sell you.

And I guess you know now that women's rights in Iraq have also gone downhill since BushCo invaded. Under secular Saddam women had many rights and a voice. Under Bush, they are being Talibanized.

[WildEyedLiberal]

17. Are you defending the Taliban's women rights record?

I said nothing about whether its improved or not - but it can't have gotten a whole hell of a lot worse.

Look, *bro.* I hated the Taliban when CLINTON was president. Why are women's rights so disposable to so many here? You'd defend their atrocities because Bush attacked them? The Taliban's brutality is far from kool aid, and by the way, you aren't making me trust you any more.

I'm done with this thread. You can lead as many sheep around as you can drag in, but I'm outta here. Have fun.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. He had a right to be there, our troops didn't. Couldn't be simpler.

And I bet Johnno's pet hamster's got more wilderereyesnyourn. Ain't that right, Johnno? Cain't hear me, coz he's probably being kept in the baddest part of Cuba.

[demosincebirth]

23. I agree with you.

"Why are women's rights so disposable to so many here? You'd defend their atrocities because Bush attacked them"? Exactly!!

Their hatred of bush, sometimes overcomes their own logic. RW'ers aren't the only ones who can have blinders on.

[OutsidetheBox]

25. Who's wearing the blinders??

What was said was that women's rights are no better off today than they were in 2001, which is a fact that cannot be denied. Did it suck under the Taliban, especially for women? Of course, but you are talking about Afghanistan, where women have been mistreated for millennia. America invading and "liberating" did nothing for women. Yes the Taliban made life really bad, but so do the leaders in Sudan, or Somalia, or Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, but we aren't invading those nations are we? Fact is Afghanistan has not improved and had probably been made worse now that tribalism permeates and rules. I bet women in Afghanistan see no difference now than in 2001. The same can definately be said about Iraqi women. They have it much, much worse now than under Saddam. Bringing freedom and democracy, though, that's what it's all about.

And by the way, only 5 percent of rebels in Iraq are foreign. The rest are native as you say, "freedom fighters", so I doubt Lindh would be there. A good bet is that had Afghanistan remained the same, never being invaded, he would have woken from his doldrums and returned home, like so many other lost souls.

[demosincebirth]

26. 'nuff said. Not getting in a pissing match, here.

[IselaB]

43. You know, I don't have to be contemptuous of women's rights

to believe that Lindh doesn't bear moral responsibility for what happened in Afghanistan under the Taliban. He was just a confused kid trying to find himself and he fell in with the wrong crowd. Basically, he fell in with a cult, and before he knows it he's on the other side of the planet squatting in a dungeon flooded with gasoline while people throw grenades through the grates in the ceiling above. He was a confused, sensitive young man who was exploited by a ruthless cult which promised him real truth and meaning. By the time they got him back to America he had sorted it out. He apologized and accepted the punishment dealt him. The kid doesn't deserve to rot in jail until he's 40 for being young, deluded, and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Neil Lisst]

14. Only if Fox can have a reality show where he and Taliban guy ...

are roommates with a son of a Minute Man, the daughter of an RNC member, and a greased pig named Arnold.

[OutsidetheBox]

16. How about adding one of the Bush twins and Cheney's daughter?

[Neil Lisst]

22. DONE! Get this person a Production Assistant!

[mitchum]

38. The greased pig could stand in for one of them

[demosincebirth]

20. He knew what the fuck he was doing.

Where do you think this guy would be now if he wasn't caught. Maybe fighting in Iraq...with the terrorist? Oh, I'm sorry..."freedom fighters."

[RaleighNCDUer]

29. Or maybe, when he got the chance, he'd have fled the country

and tried to make his way back to the states where he could re-think getting mixed up with a fanatic regime.

He didn't sign up to fight the US. He went to fight the drug lords of the Northern Alliance. By his own words, he was aghast at 9/11, and as soon as he learned of it started planning to go home, but the war caught up with him before he could escape.

I frankly can't understand why anybody still believes anything this administration has said about anything over the past five years. But even the government doesn't say he fought against US troops. Regardless of what * says, the Taliban was not Al-Queda. Two different groups with two different agendas and using different methods. Lindh was not a terrorist - he was a foot-soldier defending the Taliban against the Afghan warlords.

Yes, the Taliban was a terrible regime - but essentially no different than our allies, the Saudi regime. Absolute repression of women, summary execution of heretics, all that. Lindh was a moron for getting caught up in it. But he was never a traitor or a terrorist. Might he have become one? Possible. But in America we do not convict people for what they might do, but for what they did do.

[mike_c]

44. "the terrorists...?"

What "terrorists?" That's a right wing neocon talking point. "We're fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them here." "They" are a myth-- a boogie-man ordered up by the WH propaganda ministry to give the cable news "journalists" something to talk about.

[WildEyedLiberal]

51. Ah yes, the peace-loving gentle Taliban

You have got to be kidding.

[ronnykmarshall]

24. Oh THIS should be good.

[LostInAnomie]

30. Fuck him.

He knew where he was and what the Taliban was about. I'm not buying the whole "confused kid" shit.

[OutsidetheBox]

32. Spoken like a true progressive...

He was not imprisoned for being WITH the Taliban, as outrageous as a regime that they were. He was imprisoned on American soil for FIGHTING against US forces and against America, something he never did. Regardless of what you think of the Taliban, and we all despise what they were all about, he was not sent to "rot" for being a member of the Taliban, or for promoting the Taliban way of life. Seen in this light, and knowing that he never raised a fist against the invading Americans, what we are saying is that he was wrongly imprisoned without justice. Perhaps in another realm he will be judged for believing Taliban ways, but on Earth he was imprisoned unjustly. That is the argument. If you hate him for what he believes in great, but the rule of law was not applied correctly here, and that is why some of us think he should be released. Differentiating between the two is perfectly sensible. There are many unjustly imprisoned people who were scumbags outside of prison, yet liberals have sought and gotten their release for decades. It's the principle.

[LostInAnomie]

35. Actually he's imprisoned for serving in the Taliban and carrying weapons.

All of which he has admitted he did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_Lindh

Whether he ever took up arms against his countrymen is up for debate, but I'm willing to be that given the chance he would have. I don't feel like going to the mat and fighting for some religious nut who helped out a disgusting group of thugs like the Taliban. Whether he is charged correctly or not I still say "fuck him".

[RaleighNCDUer]

37. Did you read the article you linked to?

The government had no case, and dropped all but two insignificant charges because they needed to keep him quiet about how he was tortured. He accepted the plea bargain probably because he was scared shitless and was totally in the government's power - probably told that he would face the DP if he didn't. The taliban, despite the charge, was not a terrorist organization. Just months before 9/11, at about the time Lindh went into Afghanistan, * was negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline route -- that's how you deal with a government, not a terrorist organization. Lindh probably hopes that when this country regains its senses that a judge will revisit the charge of 'supporting a terrorist organization'. That leaves, carrying a weapon in service to a foreign power. That is worth a 20 year sentence? Notably, he was forced to accept a gag order for the duration of his imprisonment, which means that this administration will be long gone before he can tell his side of the story. And then, if he does tell it, the government can claim all the revenues from any publication that tells it.

He's been silenced. So snipe away at him all you want. He can't fight back.

[LostInAnomie]

42. So far I counted three "probably's" in your reply...

... in comparison to the fact that he pleaded guilty to illegal things that he factually did. He did serve in the Taliban, who were one of the most repressive regimes I have ever read about. The fact that you are using the fact that * dealt with them to try to mitigate that fact is laughable. Reagen dealt with Saddam in the 80's. Does that mean that Saddam wasn't a monster? We deal with all kinds of wicked men to get what we want.

As far as the charge of carrying a weapon in the service of a foreign power. If that foreign power happens to be one that we are currently fighting, and the Taliban were, then you are damn right he deserve twenty years.

It all comes back to the same place. He knew where he was, he knew what he was doing, and he knew who he was serving. I'll save my indignation for someone more deserving.

[RaleighNCDUer]

45. You are not listening to me.

I guess facts are just too inconvenient.

WHEN HE JOINED THE TALIBAN, WE WERE NOT FIGHTING THEM.

Sure, they're despicable. So's the KKK, but we don't imprison people for belonging to the clan. They have to actually commit a crime. At the time he joined the taliban they were not a declared terrorist organization, so there was no crime there. And there are thousands of American men currently under arms in service to foreign powers, but they are not being prosecuted for it - they are praised for it. When Blackwater provides bodyguards for Iraqi politicians, they are doing just what Lindh did. Are we going to arrest all them?

'Probably.' That means I am willing to admit that there are circumstances that I am not sure of.

To be so absolutely certain of things you do not know require a closed mindedness that is an ill fit to any rational person. How do you know what he knew? Would you agree that a homeschooled fundie kid who then goes to a fundie seminary would be somewhat out of touch with the real world? I see that every day. This kid was immersed in fundie muslim religious studies. When you are trying to memorize the Koran, I don't imagine that leaves a lot of time for browsing the net - if it was even available. So what did he know about the Taliban? What did any of us know? The Taliban, meaning "Students" didn't even exist until '94. They were just one of the factions in Afghanistan. In just two years they had rolled back the warlords and taken Kabul. That's '96. Lindh converted in '97. Traveled to Yemen in '98. Back to the states, then return to Yemen in '99. All that time, devoting his energies to his studies. The word, then, was that the Taliban was ending the civil war in Afghanistan, and were developing a Koran-based government. There were no big stories about Taliban atrocities. Nobody seemed to know much at all about Taliban until they got the world focused on the because of the Bhuddahs they destroyed. You think he was reading Time and Newsweek at that time, or getting all his information from his fellow students and teachers?

He made bad decisions based on bad information. Then what happened?

He was tortured by his own government. That would tend to vindicate everything that the Taliban was teaching him about the decadent west. After being raised to the ideals of justice, innocence until proven guilty, he is returned to a country where half the people seem to be calling for his death. Under the same circumstances, wouldn't you plead out rather than risk a trial and a vengeance inflamed jury?

There are too many questions, and he's been forbidden to answer them. So I search for the truth with my two most trusted methods. 1) Put myself in his shoes. 2) Remember that this government lies about everything.

Try it. It's better than hate.

[Igel]

31. He was a stupid kid that fell in with a bunch

of intolerant Pashtun religious supremacist thugs, and yet his quite good Marin Country education and (upper) middle-class background didn't teach him to think that such things were in the least wrong. Cutting down the orchards of those that don't submit and salting fields, razing villages, creating problems for Shi'ites ... not a problem for the righteous Taliban, just following good Islamic tradition, one must think. JWL obviously did.

In fact, JWL thought them respectable enough to go there, dress like them, study with them, and admire them. In so doing he did the usual "lie to the parents, because if I say what I'm doing they'll say no and I'm bound by the medieval code of honor I've swallowed to obey them" thing. But this has nothing to do with the law, just with right and wrong. His rejection and denunciation of them, once he was in hot water up to his scalp, is interesting and certainly better than nothing. But of useless timing.

Whether or not he was caught on the battlefield, I don't know. It may have been discussed at the time. I couldn't get past contemplating the walking moral wreckage that he engaged in such long, extended exertions to make himself into in order to actually deal with the legal aspect.

However, he plea-bargained his way into where he is now, waiving his right to a trial that might have led to a truly crushing sentence. But it might also have led to so many problems--getting witnesses for the prosecution and the defense, interminable appeals stretching over decades. IMHO, by now some judge would have said he can mount no defense, the evidence against him wasn't sufficiently supported, and he'd have been released. But he agreed to his current sentence, having been provided with proper counsel. He's had due process. His family may reasonably ask for a reduction in sentence; he may not without breaking his word.

Then again, it's not like he has any honor or dignity left.

[mitchum]

39. I have no time for religious nuts of ANY stripe, but that $47 million...

of US aid given to the Taliban in the summer of 2001, certainly gave a hell of a lot more support to "the enemy" than that foolish twit ever did.

[Disturbed]

41. "And stupidity is no excuse for his crimes."

From some of the comments here I would think I was on Freeperville.

What crimes did he commit?

He was a convinient scapegoat in post 911 Attack Hysteria.

btw the Taliban were alright with the bush Regime until they refused the offer for a natural gas pipeline through their country. After that they were a prime target for an owvertrhrow. It's too bad that so many DUers are so patheticaly ignorant!

[Pastiche423]

49. Just a few corrections...

It was Colin Powell who announced the $43 million package in humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people, not the Taliban. That was in May 2001.

Shortly after, the infamous "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." statement was made.

Btw, he most likely was foolish, but the "twit" moniker belongs to this administration. IMHO.

[Jack Rabbit]

46. It's time for a lot of people to get justice

I'll start with Jose Padilla, who still has a right to a trial and, as far as I am concerned, no court can take it away from him.

Mr. Lindh had his day in court, but things in the Bush junta are so corrupt that re-eximining the record might not hurt there, either.

Then there are those in the Bush junta. They each deserve a day in court, too. And about fifty years each in the pen.

[phrenzy]

47. WTF - Freeper DUers?

What's this crap about taking up arms against the US, etc. You are glossing over the fact that he was there WAY BEFORE 9/11 ever happened. We are talking about CRIMINAL activity. The Taliban were NOT a 'declared enemy' of the US any more than Saudi Arabia were.

Go ahead and hate what he did and believes, but jesus, to consider it a criminal offense worthy of 20 years (no doubt some of you would deem execution 'fair') is ridiculous.

Like somebody said, the KKK example is correct. There are many right-wing whack-os in this country and many younger ones who were totally fucked up in the head and end up with them for one reason or another. So, maybe they hate everything the US Govt stands for, and they have lots of guns (militia) and they like to live on their little compound and treat their wives like shit and give racist speeches all day - then they go out and shoot dummies of minorities.

OK. We all agree thats BAD.

But, if the US govt storms in to that compound with guns blazing and this kid is caught in a closet with a gun, but surrenders to police without firing a shot - what in the hell should he be charged with then? Has he 'taken up arms' against the US? Or was he caught up in something that was horrible, but he never thought it would turn CRIMINAL? Maybe he just wanted to 'belong' but would have never physically hurt anybody.

If he had shot at a member of the US military, and it was proven he did so, THAT will be a different story. But to be rounded up simply for being there is ridiculous.

BTW - WHAT was he SUPPOSED to do once the 9/11 shit hit the fan? Turn to his Taliban Jihadist buddies who were now seething with rage at the oncoming American invaders and say "Hey, guys... Ya know.. this muslim stuff is cool and all, but I think I want out now.. could one of you give me a ride to the border so I can go home?"

Tell me how exactly you would manage to get out of that situation.

[ConsAreLiars]

48. Steve Earle's "John Walker's Blues"

It's on his "Jerusalem" album.

Lyrics for: John Walker's Blues

I'm just an American boy raised on MTV
And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads
But none of 'em looked like me
So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
Of Mohammed, peace be upon him

chorus:
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
There is no God but God

If my daddy could see me now ? chains around my feet
He don't understand that sometimes a man
Has got to fight for what he believes
And I believe God is great, all praise due to him
And if I should die, I'll rise up to the sky
Just like Jesus, peace be upon him

chorus

We came to fight the Jihad and our hearts were pure and strong
As death filled the air, we all offered up prayers
And prepared for our martyrdom
But Allah had some other plan, some secret not revealed
Now they're draggin' me back with my head in a sack
To the land of the infidel

A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah

[eridani]

53. It's a travesty that he was ever convicted

His only crime was being born in the wrong year, making him too young to join the Afghanistan fundies when the US supported them. He didn't do anything that Muslim fundies recruited and trained by the CIA all over the world, including the US, didn't do in the 80s. None of the people who gave the likes of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who made his bones in Afghanistan throwing acid in the faces of female university students in Kabul in the 70s) $5 billion of our tax money are in jail. So why is Lindh there? Just being there when the US changed sides is supposed to be some kind of a crime?

[Freddie Stubbs]

55. Release him at an NYC fire station?

;)

[OutsidetheBox]

56. How about releasing Bush/Cheney at an NYC fire station?

They killed a hell of a lot more than Lindh who never even knew 9/11 was going to happen.

[Strawman]

61. Nice bait. No thanks.

Why should anyone launch a crusade for Lindh specifically? Kid was born rich in Marin County with every advantage in the world. Why him of all the young people in jail for foolish mistakes? Why has the time come to demand (of all people) HIS release and nobody else's?

Why pick the most politically charged test case imaginable against the unnecessary imprisonment of "confused" kids who are not a danger to anyone?

Oh yeah, so freepers can reinforce their little memes about how much we liberals "hate America" and "love the terrorists." Hmm. No thanks.

It's so nice when people cynically manipulate other people's tendencies toward justice and compassion.

[OutsidetheBox]

62. Paranoia is gonna destroy ya!!

Isn't taking on this case, with its thrashing of our values, the very essence of loving America?? Isn't fighting for justice liberalism personified?? Lindh was no terrorist by the way. The Taliban became a terrorist bogeyman when Bush conveniently needed an enemy. They were minding their own business, albeit deranged, according to our way of thinking.

There is no cynical manipulation going on here Strawman... Freepers will always think we hate America (if we are not terrorist lovers then we are pinko commies or socialists) but we know that it is those fighting the injustices of the elite that truly love America. We are the real patriots, not the sheeple that easily follow those wolves dressed in sheep's clothing.

If I get labelled a terrorist lover because what I think was done to Lindh is wrong, make my day. If I am told I hate America for protesting, dissenting and debating, so be it. Fuck the freepers and screw libs too chicken shit to stand for their principles, afraid to get labelled sophomoric words by idiot sheeple.

[WildEyedLiberal]

65. THANK YOU

For seeing what I immediately saw. Also, please note that OutsidetheBox ADMITS in a post upthread that he's been banned before, and now is back.

The only mystery here is why the frozen pizza timer hasn't gone off yet.

[Name removed]

66. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WildEyedLiberal]

67. You do realize you're going to be banned?

Enjoy your stay. What an idiot you must be, to admit you've been banned before - that's the best way to get tombstoned here. Also, calling longtime DUers freepers isn't helping your case.

Have fun at Free Republic. You're not even a good troll.

Edit: NA NA NA NA, NA NA NA NA, HEY HEY HEY, GOOOOODBYE!!!!

[realFedUp]

63. Maybe the CIA who worked with the Taliban against Soviet Union

should all be imprisoned also.

[aikoaiko]

68. Although he is not monster, I dont know if he is so innocent either.

I can't say that I know the truth, but it does seem like joined the group knowing they were para-military jihadists.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1779455.stm (made into paragraphs)

According to the affidavit filed against him, Mr Walker told US interrogators that in May he had joined a paramilitary training camp run by a Kashmiri militant group in Pakistan. He told a Newsweek reporter that he entered Afghanistan "to help the Islamic government... because the Taleban are the only government that actually provides Islamic law."

There he was then sent for seven weeks to an al-Qaeda training camp, where he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden who thanked him for taking part in the jihad. Asked by a reporter about his experience in Afghanistan, he replied: "It's exactly what I thought it would be." Did he think he had been fighting on the right side? "Definitely," was the answer.