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John Walker Lindh Arrives in Court
By Mitra Thompson, TheWorldJournal.com

John Walker Lindh appeared in court Thursday to hear charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism read out against him.

Lindh, 20, is an American who was training to fight with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network in Afghanistan. He was captured by U.S. troops during an armed uprising in a prison near the Afghan town of Mazar-e-Sharif in late November. The shocking TV footage of Lindh's thin, grimy frame being brought out on a stretcher (he was hiding in a flooded basement without food for days) was the first his parents had seen of him in more than two years.

Lindh then spent over 50 days aboard the U.S.S Bataan, a Navy warship in the Arabian Sea, before finally being flown back to the U.S. on Wednesday.

Charges of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals overseas, providing resources to designated terrorist organizations, and participating in "prohibited transactions" with the Taliban were read out against Lindh at a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Unlike the Taliban fighters being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Lindh's trial is being held in the United States because of his American citizenship. Until 1998, Lindh lived with his parents in Marin County, California.

After converting to Islam at age 16, Lindh travelled to the Middle East two years ago to learn Arabic and study the Qur-an. He attended a religious school in Pakistan called a madrasah, an institution known for being sympathetic to the Taliban cause. From there, Lindh decided to join the Taliban, and was made to train for several weeks in camps belonging to two different terrorist organizations. One of them was al-Qaeda. Bin Laden himself is reported to have visited the camp and thanked Lindh "for taking part in Jihad," the Muslim holy war.

For the past two months, much has been made of the so-called "American Taliban" and his apparent decision to fight against his own country. Lindh's parents have been criticized for their supposed role in bringing up the only known American who joined the Taliban of his own accord. The fact that Lindh told reporters he decided to stay with the Taliban even though he knew they were behind the atrocities of September 11th has not helped his cause.

"I just ask that people have a little mercy and think about what he went through before he made that statement," said Lindh's father Frank Lindh.

The media has tried to explain Lindh's radical behavior in a number of ways. Some reports blame the divorce of his parents around the same time Lindh converted to Islam for his disillusionment. Others have cast him as an intense loner who took studying the Qur-an to an almost obsessive level. Some even say that Lindh's father left his wife because he was gay, compelling his son to start using his mother's name, Walker, and to adopt a religion that denounces homosexuality (theweeklystandard.com).

The explanation put forward by his family and friends, however, is that Lindh was simply an intelligent but highly impressionable young man. Lindh's family supported his religious conversion, encouraging him to learn more about Islam. Abdullah Nana, who attended the same Marin County mosque as Lindh in 1998, said that "new Muslims are influenced by the people around them. Whoever they lean on for their Islamic advice (...), they will be influenced by these people." It would appear that this is what happened to Lindh at the madrasah in Pakistan.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft made it clear that the American government is taking a hard line approach to Lindh's case, saying "misdirected Americans cannot seek direction in murderous ideologies and expect to avoid the consequences." Ashcroft said that Lindh could not be charged with treason as yet, since the U.S. Constitution requires the testimony of two witnesses to prove that charge. He also refused to dismiss the possibility entirely. "We have not ruled out filing additional charges against him," said Ashcroft.

Meanwhile, Frank Lindh defended his son's actions by saying that he never actually harmed any American. "John loves America," he said. "John is innocent of these charges."

A preliminary hearing is set for February 6th.

© January 27, 2002

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