Former Taliban Fighter To Accept 20-Year Term. Snippet: But defense lawyers say a related matter of utmost concern to Lindh and his family is where he will serve his sentence. They have asked Ellis to recommend that Lindh be placed in a federal prison in California where he could receive regular visits from his parents, Marilyn Walker, of Fairfax, and Frank Lindh, of San Rafael, and continue his education through university distance learning programs.
You mean, besides being an overprivileged brat who decided to "find himself" by levying war against his own country?
I admit that I haven't been interested enough to read any stories on this guy but the only thing I heard that he actually did was not tell the interrogators that the captives were talking about trying to escape/riot/whatever? Was there more?
This gentleman traveled halfway around the world in order to engage in "Jihad". To further that aim, he joined Al Qaeda, and received military training from them. Subsequently to receiving his training he fought for them against the enemies of the Taliban. He did all of these things after the organization that he had sought out and joined had already bombed the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and had attempted to sink the USS Cole. During the period of his service, the organization he served conducted the largest attack against the United States since Pearl Harbor, and the first attack on our capital since the War of 1812. TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 115, Sec. 2381 of the United States Code reads: Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
distance learning for John Walker? Hello, I find this extremely disturbing realizing the potential this person has for portfolio assessment. I will be very uneasy if he is associated with TESC. Hille
You mean besides Treason? You know, that quaint little law that's punishable by death and is the only non-bailable crime??? Bruce
I can easily imagine that when this fellow left the USA and traveled halfway around the world he was unaware of the connection with the embassy bombings and the Taliban. The Taliban was fighting the Northern Alliance, not the USA when he joined them. So if I understand what he was convicted of doing, he was an active member of an organization that I'm sure was routinely bad mouthing the USA and probably also talking about how they were going to punish the USA and eventually an organization that was actually getting the snot blown out of them by USA air power. This whole time he remained a member of this organization and therefore he plead guilty to something (giving aid and comfort to the enemy?). I tended to believe his claim in court that he didn't know about or support the terrorist activities being carried out against the USA. As an example as to how clueless (read lack of good news coverage) some of these people can be in these countries, the news interviewed the father of a member of the cell just broken up in Portland. The father is in Saudi Arabia and he said that he didn't believe that two airplanes brought down the Twin Towers.
Although you are confusing al Qaeda with the Taliban, I'm entirely confident that Mr. Lindh would not have made that same mistake. From California Lindh locates an obscure Arabic language school in Yemen, where he goes in October 2000. According to the reports of other students there, as soon as Lindh arrived, he began seeking the most militant Yemeni Muslim clerics, even though he had been warned that it could be dangerous. By May 2001, Lindh had relocated to Pakistan where he joined a training camp run by a terrorist organization called Harakat ul-Mujahideen, hoping to fight in Kashmir. By June 2001 Lindh had relocated to Afghanistan. Once there he entered al Qaeda's al Farooq camp. During his seven week course there, the trainees were addressed by Usama bin Ladin himself on several occasions. Upon graduation, he along with others from his camp was sent to fight for the Taliban in the North of Afghanistan. Assigned to Takhar, his group came under US air attack after September 11, and they retreated into the city of Konduz. A siege ensued, Konduz surrendered, and along with the other captives Lindh was tranferred to Mazar e Sharif, where he joined many of his associates in the battle at the prison-fortress there where Mr. Spann lost his life. Lindh located this obscure school in Yemen and managed to travel there. Once there he started seeking out radical clerics. Soon he was thousands of miles away in a succession of terrorist training camps. Do you see a pattern here? But he didn't have any idea what any of these groups intended? He was just a clueless kid? Right. And I believe that Kennedy Western is a fine university and a good choice for any distance learner. If somebody can travel from Marin to Yemen, to Pakistan and Harakat ul-Mujahadeen, to Afghanistan, al Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin, is it credible to believe that he was unaware of the embassy bombings or of the attack on the Cole? Those acts of "holy war" were probably among the reasons that he was there.
Absolutely Bruce. He comes across as a spoiled and wimpy rich kid dabbling in rebellious activities that had serious consequences. I have forgotten what sort of game Berne would have called it but there was a category of games that was serious and ended in prison, death etc. Whether or not he actually shot the CIA operative he was participating in a prison rebellion and with an organization plotting to destory western civilization specifically the US. I am not CJ major but in the US are you not held responsible for a death if you are committing a crime and a death occurs even if you did not pull the trigger. I believe he needed more serious punishment. On another note Walker is one thing but those Muslims from the Middle East who taste the freedom of the United States and yet plot to harm civilians in this country is another. What kind of brainwashing occurs. It is amazing that someone would surrender their freedoms in these Middle Eastern countries to a brutal system that routinely publishes behanding & beheadings in the paper. One person I met who had been in Saudi Arabia mentioned a princess (?) who was stoned to death because she was single and rode in a car with a married man (her father began the stoning). These countries are living in a time long gone and quite horrible to imagine living in. Muslims are able to practice their faith in this country like anyone else. This is a freedom not granted in Muslim countires who are evidentally concerned that their faith cannot stand any competition in the world of ideas. I do not agree with everything people in the US do or say but they have the freedom to say it and that is the only thing that guarentees my right to say things as well. Even in Canada which is a wealthy country with much freedom you do not have the same free speech protections. When I was in Canada they had 'hate speech laws' which curtailed freedom of speech. Excuse my venting but we live in a great country and that is one reason everyone seems to want to risk life and limb to come here. North
I can only remember one conviction in the last 30 years. There might be one or two more in Canada. The one I remember, in Alberta, was a teacher teaching his opinion about Jews in class. It took three trials to convict him because of appeals. We do take our freedom of speech seriously and the courts have proven extremely and I mean extremely reluctant to convict. Not too many storm troopers around here controlling thought. Lindh was a soldier in what essentially was the Afghan national army. He was a prisoner of a rebel group, the Northern Alliance. I don't believe there is any evidence that he fought against American forces because the only contact he had with Americans was as a prisoner. He may have been a cheerleader for the Taliban, the legal government of Afghanistan, but isn't that just exercising his guarantee of free speech.
I think the death part is only applicable in times of war. I remember something to that effect from my Military Law classes. ...R
That statement ignores the difference between the Taliban and al Qaeda. He was trained in Osama bin Ladin's al Farooq training camp. During his training his group of recruits was addressed by bin Ladin on several occasions. While he may not have personally fought American troops, he sought out, enlisted with and trained as a soldier for the same organization that had already bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (August 1998), and which had attempted to sink the USS Cole (February 1999). These events took place while Lindh was still in California and it is inconceivable that he was unaware of them. During his period of armed service for al Qaeda, that organization launched the largest attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor and the first foreign attack on the US capital since the War of 1812. Two problems with that. First, the leader (at least the figurehead) of the Northern Alliance was Burhannudin Rabbani. Rabbani had been the internationally recognized president of Afghanistan before the Taliban finally took Kabul on September 27, 1996. After that defeat Rabbani and the loose collection of warlords that supported him regrouped in ethnic Tadzhik territory north of the Hindu Kush, eventually being pushed back to about 10% of Afghanistan's land area. While the Taliban held the capital and could claim to be the de facto rulers of the country, the United Nations continued to recognize Rabbani, and his people continued to occupy Afghanistan's UN seat. Only a handful of nations granted diplomatic recognition to the Taliban. But that's not really the issue. Second (and this is the issue), Lindh enlisted with and was trained by al Qaeda, not the Taliban. The Taliban are/were a pecularly Afghan phenomenon, the product of militant Islamist madrasahs that have been agitating in Afghanistan for decades. Al Qaeda is an international organization that was the "guest" of the Taliban and under their protection (and apparently vice-versa, since al Qaeda provided the Taliban with some of their most hard-core forces.) But as we have all seen, al Qaeda operates in many countries besides Afghanistan (although only that country seems to have let them operate like a state within a state). The bottom line is that Lindh sought out and enlisted with an organization that he must have known was conducting attacks on the United States. During his service, his forces conducted what can only be described as an act of war against the United States. That seems to make him a traitor as defined in the United States Code. Twenty years in federal prison is lenient treatment for actions that could easily have gotten him shot.
I figured that they must have had some really good evidence for him to plead guilty and get 20 years. I just wasn't aware of the details. Actually I didn't know that he had joined al Qaeda. I thought that he'd just joined the Taliban. I've known some people from work that are Islam. It seems to be a good religon. There's a number of groups (like the PLO, Taliban and al Qaeda) that have really twisted it though. Both a big strength and a weakness of Islam is that the Koran was all written down by one man. It's a strength because it makes it much more consistent. It's a weakness because it is much harder to adapt the teachings to be more consistent with different and developing cultures.
