John Walker Lindh, Revisited

Great article, from a great site.

www.counterpunch.org...

Initially threatened by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft with being tried as a traitor, Lindh was eventually charged with terrorism, consorting with Al Qaeda, and attempting to kill Americans. But he never went to trial. Instead, he pleaded guilty to just two relatively innocuous charges. But for those two charges-the first of which (carrying a grenade), probably innumerable Americans are guilty of, and the second of which (providing services to an enemy of the U.S.), could more properly be brought against a number of major U.S. corporations--Lindh had the book thrown at him by a compliant federal judge in Virginia. The judge, at the government's request, also hit him with a gag order barring him from talking about his experience. As part of his plea bargain agreement, Lindh was even forced to sign a statement saying: "The defendant agrees that this agreement puts to rest his claims of mistreatment by the United states military, and all claims of mistreatment are withdrawn. The defendant acknowledges that he was not intentionally mistreated by the U.S. military."

This outlandish and over-the-top effort to legally muzzle Lindh appears in a harsh new light now that we know the criminal nature of U.S. prisoner-of-war policies....

...In truth, the government's case against Lindh was always spurious at best. A 20-year-old, white, middle-class convert to Islam from Marin County, California, Lindh had only gone to Afghanistan in August 2001, scarcely a month before the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. At the time of his arrival there, the Taliban government, far from being an enemy of America, was still receiving funding from the U.S. government. Lindh, to the extent that he was ever a fighter with the Taliban (he hadn't had time for a decent "boot camp"training in weapons use), was in fact fighting the Northern Alliance, not America, at the time of the U.S. invasion. His attorneys maintain that he never was an enemy of his own country, and in fact had been trapped with the Taliban in Afghanistan by the surprise U.S. invasion.

What appears to have led Ashcroft and the U.S. government to drop its serious charges against Lindh, and to agree to a settlement on minor charges, was his defense attorneys' plans to go after testimony about his treatment from other Afghani captives being held at Guantanamo who had witnessed it.

Had those witnesses been permitted to testify in his case--as the judge had already said he would probably agree to, given Lindh's constitutional right to mount a vigorous defense--there would have been plenty of embarrassing evidence presented about torture and abuse at the hands of U.S. troops.

This sorry legal history raises a couple of very troubling questions...

For me the most telling quote is

Last, but certainly not least, Lindh himself, terrified at being railroaded to a potential death sentence or a sentence to life in prison without parole, and already a victim of torture and abuse at the hands of his federal captors, remains almost certainly wrongfully imprisoned-just one more victim of America's criminal violation of the Geneva Conventions and our own constitutional right to a fair trial.

Because that's what it's about. If you are accused of being a terrorist FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, it is now up to you to prove your innocence. You and your lawyer against a lying, cheating, dishonest administration.

This isn't even as bad as the Jose Padilla case, in which he was arrested for a "thought crime".

The current day United States resembles East Germany to me. You have your Stasi to spy on the populace, and you have your government to strip away your freedoms.

What do you folks think about this Lindh issue after all this time has gone by.

Let's hear it from the rednecks first

Look hear you blleeding heart, MR WALKER LYND is a damm traitor, he should have been shot as soon as they figured out he was " american"

he was caught red handed....i seem to remeber a cia guy who lived near me has a couple o daughter who are gonna grow up w/out a dad..

the riots during the prison uprising.....get off this he is not gulity crap,thats what it is...he is very very lucky he is still breathing....and like a parasite

he is living off the very people he betrayed.....

if they didnt put that gag order on him the next thing you know he would be writing a book or be involved in making a movie of "his story". all his story is, is that of a traitor to the us. imo he is lucky to be alive, many other countries he would be dead without a trial.

The day this young man took the muslin life and change his name to Abdul Khamid and went against US he stopped been American and his a traitor.

[edit on 9-6-2004 by marg6043]

The uniform of a traitor terrorist are a pile of filthy rags he was found wearing. The military tribunal system as we all know is the only reasonable way to pursue this kind of stinking terrorist traitor. Death is too good and too quick a form of justice to apply to his ilk.

This sniveling little coward deserves to be put out of his misery very slowly and deliberately one piece at a time minus any morphene or pain killers. The exquisite pain involved would certainly allow him time to think.

My native American Ancestors applied critter justice very effectively. Find a nice red ant bed and stake him out over it and stir them up real good and watch them go to work. Up the nose in the mouth and out the ears while he screams his bloody head off. My kind of Justice is very effective and most necessary!