http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/07/018063.phpserving time not for any act committed against the United States, but for violating a Clinton-era presidential order that prohibits providing "services" to the Taliban. Lindh, who converted to Islam as a teenager, joined the Taliban before Sept. 11, not after; he did so to fight the Northern Alliance, not the United States. Lindh never took up arms against this country. He never engaged in terrorism; indeed, his commitment to Islam leads him to oppose the targeting of civilians.
This is the version of the facts that Lindh's family has promoted in its campaign to get him released from prison. The Times swallows it whole; but it is misleading at best. The grand jury's indictment of Lindh is here. The charges against Lindh included the following:
* In or about June and July 2001, LINDH remained at the al-Farooq camp and participated fully in its training activities, after having been told early in his stay at the camp that Bin Laden had sent forth some fifty people to carry out twenty suicide terrorist operations against the United States and Israel.
* In or about June or July 2001, LINDH met personally with Bin Laden, who thanked him and other trainees for taking part in jihad.
* In or about June or July 2001, LINDH swore allegiance to jihad.
* After learning about the terrorist attacks against the United States on or about September 11, 2001, LINDH remained with his fighting group. LINDH did so despite having been told that Bin Laden had ordered the attacks, that additional terrorist attacks were planned, and that additional al Qaeda personnel were being sent from the training camps to the front lines to protect Bin Laden and defend against an anticipated military response from the United States.
* From in or about October through early December 2001, LINDH remained with his fighting group after learning that United States military forces and United States nationals had become directly engaged in support of the Northern Alliance in its military conflict with Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
* In or about November 2001, LINDH's fighting group retreated from Takhar to the area of Kunduz, Afghanistan, and ultimately surrendered to Northern Alliance troops. On or about November 24, 2001, LINDH and other captured fighters were trucked to Mazar-e Sharif, in Afghanistan, and then to the nearby Qala-i Janghi ("QIJ") prison compound.
* On or about November 25, 2001, LINDH was interviewed in the QIJ compound by two Americans, CIA employee Johnny Micheal Spann and another United States Government employee, who were attempting to identify al Qaeda members among the prisoners.
* On or about November 25, 2001, Taliban detainees in the QIJ compound attacked Spann and the other employee, overpowered the guards, and armed themselves. Spann was shot and killed in the violent attack. After being wounded, LINDH retreated with other detainees to a basement area of the QIJ compound. The bloody uprising took several days to suppress.
* From on or about November 25, 2001 though on or about December 1, 2001, LINDH remained in the basement area of QIJ with other Taliban and al Qaeda fighters until their recapture. (In violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2332(b)(2).)
Robert Pelton, the CNN journalist who "discovered" Lindh, tells the bloody story that lies behind those dry paragraphs, beginning with the fact that it was al Qaeda that Lindh served:
John Walker Lindh was an Arab speaking member of bin Ladens terror legions. He called it Al Ansar (the correct term) we call them al Qaeda. He was never a member of the Taliban. Why[?]
ecause Lindh only spoke Arabic and English he would have been useless in a combat situation among Pashto or Dari speaking troops.
The chilling story of Lindh's treason begins with his group's fake "surrender:"
Dostum drove by on his way to Kunduz and told them to be disarmed and taken to his garrison called Qali Jangi. Lindh during that entire time was within feet of western journalists and US forces and could have simply identified himself as an American. But he chose to stay in the company of killers. Lindh also knew that his cohorts were still secretly armed with pistols, rifles and even grenades tied by shoelaces and dangling around their groin area. ...
The Uzbek terrorists among Lindhs group were ecstatic. Qali Jangi was where they had trained under the Taliban and the storage rooms of garrison were literally overflowing with weapons confiscated and stored by the Taliban. Upon arrival one of the Uzbeks immediately killed himself with a grenade while trying to murder what he thought was Dostum. It was Dostum's Intel officer (who survived) and a Hazara general was killed. ...
Terrified and outnumbered by the false surrender the Afghan guards (there were only about 100 guards for the 460 prisoners) pushed the killers down into the basement of a fortified schoolhouse until they could be searched in the morning. That night in the cramped five-room basement there was an angry and desperate argument among the prisoners. The Saudis and Uzbeks planned an attack; they just needed a diversion to get to the weapons stored a few yards from the pink schoolhouse. The Pakistanis wanted to just surrender and go home. According to the survivors I interviewed, Lindh was an Arab speaking al qaeda member and had full knowledge of this discussion and he has yet to admit which path he was going to choose. ...
The next morning two CIA officers went to Qali Jangi to interview the prisoners. Mike Spann and Dave Tyson arrived in separate vehicles. Tyson spoke a number of languages but Spann only spoke English. The prisoners were brought up one at a time. They were searched, bound with their turbans and then marched into lines inside the southern courtyard. Spann walked up and down the lines of prisoners. He asked an Iraqi mechanic who spoke English if there were any other prisoners who spoke English. The Iraqi pointed out the Irishman . Lindh had been told to say he was Irish in the camps to avoid problems. Spann had Lindh brought over away from the main group and put out a blanket for him. ... Mike pleads with Lindh to talk. Lindh remains hostile and silent.
- ne thing is clear; they offer Lindh a way out. Lindh is alone with two of his fellow countrymen with full knowledge of the violence that is about to happen. He says nothing. If there was ever one moment that will define one man and damn another this was it.
Lindh is put back into the lineup, and Mike Spann will die in the next few minutes as Uzbeks rush up from the basement, yelling Allahhuakbar [and] detonat[ing] hidden grenades. The fighting begins. Lindh has once again has been given a clear choice between right and wrong and once again. He makes that clear choice again.
It is not known what Lindh and his fellow terrorists did for the next few days while fighting raged and Mike Spanns still body lay there with two AK 47 bullet holes through his head - one straight down, and one from left to right. When the Afghan Commander Fakir used pleading, threats, then finally flame, explosions and flooding, to roust the killers, the first person that came up to negotiate on behalf of the jihadis was John Walker Lindh. The same murderous group that had shot and killed a clearly identified elderly Red Cross worker who went down to look for bodies a week earlier.
So much for the L. A. Times's claim that Lindh never took up arms against Americans. I've saved for last, however, what I found most galling about the Times's editorial--the way it began:
The president's power to grant clemency -- in the form of either a pardon or a commutation -- is much maligned and occasionally abused, as was the case when President Bush used it to keep his colleague, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, from facing even a day in prison for lying and obstructing justice. But the power has its appropriate uses as well, and the case of John Walker Lindh calls out for it.
Lewis Libby devoted his life to public service. As Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Libby was among the leaders of those charged with keeping this country safe from the likes of John Lindh after September 11. He and his colleagues performed that task flawlessly. Yet it is not Libby's public service that merits clemency, in the Times's view; on the contrary! That clemency was misguided at best. In the world of the Los Angeles Times--which I think can fairly be seen as the world of American liberalism--Libby should be fed to the wolves, while mercy should be reserved for the disciple of bin Laden who participated in the murders of an American officer and a number of allied Afghans. This sums up quite well, I think, the perverse world-view that contemporary liberalism has become.
Via Lucianne.
