Give John Walker Lindh, the
"American Taliban," a Chance to Tell His Story
Thursday, January 05, 2017By Shane Ralston, Truthout |
Op-Ed
(Photo: Erika Wittlieb; Edited:
LW / TO)
In November 2001, 20-year-old John
Walker Lindh was captured by Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan and
imprisoned at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress. Once identified as an American, Lindh
was transferred to US military forces and subjected to harsh interrogation (in
his initial statements, he claimed he was tortured). He was then successfully
prosecuted by his own government on two criminal counts, resulting in a 20-year
federal prison sentence.
The road to that prison cell was
fraught with misadventure. The young man grew up in Northern California, converted
to Islam in his teens, made a brief trip to Yemen and then joined the Taliban
forces. In Afghanistan, he hoped to end the atrocities Northern Alliance
soldiers were committing against unarmed Afghani civilians. When the US
partnered with the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban and oust Osama bin
Laden, Lindh would become an unwitting enemy of his own country.
John Walker Lindh initially claimed
that he was tortured but as part of a subsequent plea agreement, he dropped
those claims in exchange for a reduced sentence. In 2009, Lindh's parents
requested clemency for their son from President George W. Bush before he left
office. However, they were denied this act of mercy by a man who would later
call Lindh "some misguided Marin County
hot-tubber." It is unlikely Lindh or his parents will
request the same from President Obama, since he will become eligible for
release in less than two years.
Nevertheless, the "American
Taliban" should be given a second chance, an opportunity to tell his
story.
How the US Military Treated a US
Citizen
In a 2007 opinion piece titled "Free
our Talib," the Los Angeles Times editorial staff
described the government-backed media campaign to label John Walker Lindh a
traitor and terrorist in the court of public opinion:
Known unfortunately as "the American Taliban," Lindh
became a symbol for fanaticism, even treason in the early months of the
nation's response to Sept. 11....
Lindh was pilloried by officials at the highest levels of
government. Atty. Gen. [John] Ashcroft called him an "Al Qaeda-trained
terrorist," and the charges against Lindh originally included conspiring
to commit terrorism.... 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....
He was ordered to spend 20 years in prison, far longer than
comparably situated defendants. Maher Mofeid Hawash pleaded guilty to violating
the same law, and after he agreed to cooperate, the government recommended that
he serve seven to 10 years in prison.
John Walker Lindh's ordeal is
instructive not only for what it says about the government's conduct of the war
on terror, but also for what it tells us about how a US citizen can be treated
by US military forces and the US legal system after being captured in a war
zone. Lindh's experience at the hands of his own countrymen involved illegal
interrogation (including alleged torture), a plea bargain that prevented him
from telling the full truth and punishment that was clearly disproportionate to
the crimes he committed. While in prison, he was prevented from engaging in
group prayer, a ban he challenged in federal court on
the grounds that he is Muslim and Muslims are required by their faith to pray
in congregation.
The "Freedom Agenda"
Ever since President Obama
declared the global war on terror over --
despite ongoing US troop presences and active military involvement on several
fronts -- it has been tempting to wonder what the point of it all was. In the
wake of 9/11, George W. Bush set forth a vision of how to execute an
uncompromising war against terrorists. Several years later, it would be
rebranded the Freedom Agenda to
"promote the spread of freedom as the great alternative to the terrorists'
ideology of hatred, because expanding liberty and democracy will help defeat
extremism and protect the American people." It should not be confused with
the American Freedom Agenda,
an organization formed by conservatives who were opposed to the detention of
American citizens as military combatants and the use of torture to extract
intelligence from suspected terrorists.
As I have argued elsewhere,
Bush's Freedom Agenda is shot through with contradictions. Nevertheless, it
defines the US foreign policy context within which John Walker Lindh was
captured, interrogated, prosecuted and imprisoned. He was not a terrorist.
While he received training in one of Osama bin Laden's camps, he never intended
to commit terrorist acts against the US. In Lindh's father's words,
"John did not do anything against America. John did not take up arms
against America. He never meant to harm any American, and he never did harm any
American." He was a US citizen who joined a foreign army, the Taliban, and
would later find himself on the wrong side in the US-Afghani conflict. The
Taliban harbored Osama bin Laden, and so the Taliban's nemeses, the Northern
Alliance -- on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend -- would
become a US ally on the Afghanistan battlefield. The fact that the Northern Alliance had committed
atrocities against the Afghani civilian population was
discounted in the US campaign to fight terrorism.
A case can be made that once John
Walker Lindh is released, he should be given an opportunity to tell his story
and reveal how he was mistreated and abused after being captured by US
forces. John Walker Lindh's father, Frank
Lindh, has made an impassioned and cogent argument that his son
should be freed. Here are some important points to remember:
1. Torture: Lindh claimed that he was tortured while on board two
military ships between December 2001 and January 2002.
Pictures of him from that time period show him gagged and bound to a stretcher.
He also suffered a gunshot wound during a prison uprising in which CIA
operative Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed. He would only receive
medical treatment for the wound after an entire week had passed with the bullet
still in his leg. Besides coercing a confession, the other possible motive CIA
and military interrogators could have had for torturing Lindh was to retaliate
for Spann's murder. According to Bob Herbert of The New York Times,
"There is no longer any doubt that large numbers of troops responsible for
guarding and interrogating detainees somehow loosed their moorings to humanity,
and began behaving as sadists, perverts and criminals."
2. Illegal Interrogation: While detained aboard the two
military ships and prior to being read his Miranda rights, Lindh repeatedly asked for an
attorney but was denied one. Once Mirandized, he was subjected
to harsh prison conditions and coercive treatment, so that he surrendered his
right to remain silent. The FBI contacted Jesselyn Radack, an ethics advisor in
the US Justice Department, asking her whether Lindh could be interrogated
without a lawyer present. She clearly advised against it, but the Justice
Department ignored her advice. Radack shares what happened next:
"Three weeks later, [Attorney General John] Ashcroft announced Lindh's
indictment, saying Lindh's rights 'have been carefully, scrupulously honored.'
Again, I knew that wasn't true."
3. Suppression of Evidence: As part of his plea deal, Lindh
accepted a reduced sentence of 20 years for two charges (compared to three life
sentences and an additional 90 years for the original 10 charges). In exchange,
he dropped his claims of torture. In August of 2002, only six months after
Lindh's indictment, US Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote the torture memos,
offering a legal analysis and justification for the CIA's use of so-called
"enhanced interrogation techniques" on detainee Abu Zubaydah, such as
waterboarding, stress positioning and sleep deprivation. Suppressing
testimonial evidence that these techniques were used on a US citizen would have
been a priority for the US Department of Justice. It was also important to the
Department of Defense. According to Lindh's father,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld requested the inclusion of a gag order in
Lindh's plea agreement so that he would not speak about his treatment by CIA
and military interrogators. However, the US public had -- and still has -- a
right to know what happened to John Walker Lindh on those two military ships
during the weeks following his capture.
A Second Chance
When Lindh is freed (which could be as
soon as 2019, since his sentence will likely be reduced to 17 years for good
behavior), his release will probably be a quiet, even solemn, affair. He never
had the opportunity to truly make his case against the US government. He never
got the chance to air his complaints about torture, illegal interrogation and
suppression of evidence at the hands of the US military, CIA and federal prosecutors.
The plea agreement he was pressured to accept prevented the full disclosure of
the truth.
Under the Son of Sam law
(despite First Amendment challenges),
Lindh can sign a book or movie deal, but the profits from any project will
immediately go to the US government. Even if he does not profit by it, I hope
that Lindh does tell his story in his own words. I believe that
there is more we can learn from Lindh's ordeal than simply a lesson about the
dire consequences of youthful misadventure.
Although he will serve the majority of
his prison sentence, the words of John Walker Lindh's father ring
true in any call to give Lindh a second chance:
My hope and prayer is that at some point rational, fair-minded
officials in the American government will see the wisdom in releasing John from
prison, rather than making him serve the entire 20-year sentence. His continued
incarceration serves no good purpose. Releasing John from prison would help
restore America's image in the world, and particularly among Muslim people, as
a humane country committed to the rule of law.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Shane Ralston is an associate
professor of philosophy at Pennsylvania State University Hazleton. His research
covers a broad array of subjects, including human resources ethics,
environmental policy, international relations, US political thought and public
philosophy. He is the author of John Dewey's Great Debates—Reconstructed and Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of
Eco-Justice, as well as the editor of Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations:
Essays for a Bold New World. As part of his commitment to public
philosophy, he regularly investigates public organizations and exposes their
corrupt operations through intelligent inquiry, Freedom of Information Act
requests and citizen journalism.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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