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COMMENT & ANALYSIS: A Californian dreamer: MAN IN THE NEWS JOHN WALKER LINDH: The trial of the American national caught fighting with the Taliban has divided opinion at home and added to the sense overseas that other prisoners held in Cuba are being treated unfairly, writes Gwen Robinson: Financial Times; Jan 26, 2002 By GWEN ROBINSON Depending on whom you believe, John Walker Lindh is either a traitor, or some kind of tragic hero. From Washington dinner parties to angry phone-ins on morning talk shows, Americans are reviling, praising or weeping over the naive idealism of their compatriot captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban. On Thursday, the day of Mr Lindh's first appearance in a federal court in Virginia, CNN's Paula Zahn and Connie Chung commiserated with each other about the fate of the "poor kid". "What mother out there wouldn't be heartbroken, having not seen her son for two whole years?" asked Ms Chung. But on other channels angry commentators were denouncing Mr Lindh as "a total disgrace to America" and demanding he pay with his life. The moment last December when a grimy and bearded Mr Lindh was discovered among captured Taliban fighters cowering in the basement of a medieval fortress in Afghanistan has become one of the most played pieces of TV footage of the war. No one in the US administration had expected to find what one official bluntly called "white boys" among al-Qaeda prisoners. Since then, Mr Lindh's upbringing, motives and fate at the hands of the US legal system have become a emblem of wider attitudes to the war. The charges filed against Mr Lindh, of conspiring to kill US nationals overseas and assisting foreign terrorist organisations, carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Treason - his true offence, say some - carries the death penalty. Outside America, and among some US liberals, the treatment accorded to Mr Lindh is compared favourably with the conditions of 160 al-Qaeda prisoners - three Britons among them - held in a maximum-security jail in Cuba. Military tribunals, conducted in secret, are all these prisoners deserve but an American national is entitled to due process, the critics complain. The response in conservative circles is to point to Mr Lindh's indulgent "alternative" upbringing in wealthy northern California. According to this view, his transformation from restless teenager to armed fanatic typifies much of what is wrong with modern America. The second child of Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh, Mr Lindh, 20, was named partly after John Lennon, the Beatle, and John Marshall, the 19th-century Supreme Court justice. The family was Catholic, although Marilyn Walker later converted to Buddhism. Chris Madison, who lived near the Lindhs at one time, describes them as a "Birkenstock family", after the stocky sandals worn by backpackers and holidaymakers. "They were very earnest, very nice, very intellectual," he told The Washington Post. On one occasion, according to a neighbour, the parents took young John to see a therapist to cope with the death of a pet. Having lived in Washington DC during Mr Lindh's early years, the family moved west, to affluent, trendy Marin County, around 1992. John attended Tamiscal High School, an experimental institution that opened in 1991 with a free-wheeling system of no formal classes and an almost boundless curriculum, based around several meetings a week with teachers. After reading the autobiography of Malcolm X, the radical American Muslim leader, John began delving into the teachings of the Koran and showing growing contempt for his parents' laid-back suburban lifestyle. He dropped out of school and started dressing in long, flowing white shirts. Visits to mosques followed. One friend, Abdullah Nana, was struck by his intensity. Mr Lindh, he recalls, was an "intelligent person, and a person who could think for himself. He was quiet . . . and shy . . . and, in my opinion, a devout Muslim." He conducted a "thorough study" of comparative religion "and I think he decided on his own . . . to pick Islam." His friend seemed to be "on that path, looking for a cause, or a group, which he could fit into and he could find peace and satisfaction". Mr Lindh converted to Islam in 1997, adopting the name Suleyman al-Lindh. He persuaded his parents to finance a trip to Yemen, where he enrolled in a school to study Arabic and Islam. His father has since said he was reluctant to give permission at first but was impressed by his son's zeal, which reminded him of a "Catholic seminarian". After a brief return to California, around the time his parents separated, Mr Lindh went to Pakistan to continue his studies, ending up in a fundamentalist madrassa, or religious school, where he came into contact with extremist groups and joined their "jihad" or holy war. He later told US interrogators that he was given a choice of joining a group in Kashmir or joining the Taliban to fight in Afghanistan. He spent seven weeks in an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, receiving instruction in weapons, explosives and battlefield combat. Mr Lindh told interrogators that Mr bin Laden visited the camp on about five occasions and, at one point, greeted him and "thanked him for taking part in jihad". Despite, or possibly because of, the looming legal battle, John Ashcroft, US attorney-general, has repeatedly stressed the voluntary nature of all of Mr Lindh's actions. He waived his right to legal representation and to remain silent when he was interrogated after his capture, Mr Ashcroft says. Mr Lindh's parents have hired lawyers who firmly reject some of Mr Ashcroft's main assertions. According to Mr Ashcroft, "he went to Afghanistan and presented himself to a Taliban recruitment centre, telling the individuals there - and I'm quoting - he was a 'Muslim who wanted to go to the front lines to fight'." That freedom of choice, a right held precious by all Americans, goes to the heart of the betrayal Mr Lindh's compatriots feel. As Mr Ashcroft puts it: "He chose to embrace fanatics, and his allegiance to those terrorists never faltered. Terrorists did not compel John Walker Lindh to join them. John Walker Lindh chose terrorists." --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
