Posted on 01/26/2006 9:03:13 PM PST by Straight Vermonter
Frank Lindh, the gay father of John Walker Lindh, dubbed the "American Taliban" after being found in Afghanistan in late 2001, lashed out at the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington during a fiery, and at times, emotional speech before the Commonwealth Club last week.
Breaking a self-imposed silence about his son's case, Lindh gave the speech in order to reach out to the American public, which he said has been brainwashed by lawmakers, government officials, and sensational news coverage into thinking his son is a traitor to his country and an ally of Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted terrorist. Neither is true, maintained Lindh, who said John met bin Laden and came away "unimpressed."
"I am just a father whose son got into some trouble," said Lindh during his lunchtime talk Thursday, January 19. "Our system broke down in the case of John Lindh."
The timing of Lindh's speech coincides with appeals for President Bush to commute his son's sentence. John Lindh, who turns 25 in a few weeks, is serving a 20-year prison term at a federal penitentiary in Southern California. The government originally charged John Lindh with numerous counts of terrorism, but later had to drop all such charges. In the end, John Lindh struck a deal with the government and pleaded guilty to supplying services to the Taliban.
"Twenty years is a long sentence for someone who did no crime," said Lindh. "John is taking the heat for something he had no involvement in."
His father contends his son should have his sentence commuted because, like other detainees captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and released by the government, he poses no harm to the United States. Asked what he would say to President Bush, Lindh said, "as one father to another I would ask you please let my son out of jail and apologize for what has happened." (are you kidding me?)
Lindh, who divorced his wife in 1997 and reportedly moved in with his male lover in San Rafael, works in the legal department at Pacific Gas and Electric's San Francisco headquarters. A member of the Metropolitan Community Church, Lindh is active with Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, an LGBT networking group that fights for equal treatment in the workplace.
At the time of his son's capture, some pundits suggested his father's sexuality played a role in the young Lindh's decision to turn to Islam and fight in Afghanistan. During his speech, Lindh did not discuss his sexuality and moderator Adam Tanner, Reuter's San Francisco bureau chief, chose not to ask Lindh a question submitted by the Bay Area Reporter on how he felt at having his sexuality conflated into a reason for his son's actions.
Instead, Tanner asked Lindh if he thought his divorce led to his son's "rootlessness." Lindh dismissed the question's premise, saying his son "was very rooted in his cause. No divorce is easy. It had an effect on the children, but he was already living overseas. I don't see a cause and effect."
Recounting in his speech the story of how his son ended up fighting alongside the mujahedeen, Lindh said, "This is the story of a decent, honorable young man who embarked on a religious quest."
Yet, Lindh maintained that his son's actions when "viewed through the prism of the September 11 attacks caused a young man to be vilified as a traitor and a terrorist."
Born in February 1981 and named after John Marshall, a legendary chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Walker Lindh moved to Marin County at the age of 10. At age 12, he saw the film Malcolm X, which sparked his interest in Islam. By 16, he had converted from Catholicism to Islam and joined a mosque in Mill Valley.
He traveled twice to Yemen, between June 1998 and May 1999 and for most of 2000, to attend a Muslim school. Having trouble getting a visa for Saudi Arabia, he went to Pakistan in November 2000 to further study his new found religion and memorize the Koran.
In the summer of 2001, unbeknownst to his parents, Lindh slipped over the mountains into Afghanistan to join the Afghan Army. According to his father he enrolled in a government-run, infantry-training program funded by bin Laden.
His father maintained that his son "never fired his weapon" and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks found himself fighting on the wrong side of the Afghan war. America had switched sides and joined forces with the Northern Alliance, and in October, invaded the country on a mission to wipe out the Taliban.
On the morning of November 25, 2001 a CBS news crew videotaped the young Lindh at a warlord's camp being interrogated but it wasn't until November 30 that the media "storm" was unleashed, said his father, when John survived a massacre at the camp.
"He became an international sensation. Newsweek called him the 'American Taliban.' Most of the coverage was negative and inflammatory," said Lindh, who choked up recalling how the media portrayed his son.
He also attacked the military for its treatment of John. Lindh said officers blindfolded his son and left him naked in an unheated cargo container in Afghanistan.
"They treated him in a way that is shameful to our nation and its ideals," he said. "He did not need to be tortured. He was glad to be rescued and tell his story."
Lindh also choked up recalling the comments and actions of political leaders, from Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft to Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer, who called his son everything from a terrorist to a traitor, and in so doing, Lindh maintained, inflamed public sentiment against his son.
"I think – I have reflected on this a lot – we all understand the grief and trauma we experienced because of the 9/11 attacks. I understand John was in the crosshairs of that emotion. People wanted to get someone and blame someone," he said. "We didn't get Osama. He is still out there. We did get John. I understand that, but it isn't right."
While he said he wished his son had never gone to Afghanistan, Lindh said he is still proud of John.
"He is a wonderful kid, has a great sense of humor and spirits. He has shown more integrity and dignity than any politician or any journalist I have ever met," said Lindh.
His mother and father alternate weekend visits, where they have two to three hours on Friday and five hours on Saturday and Sunday to spend with their son.
"We have nothing to do but talk," said Lindh, who due to restrictions imposed by the government is banned from disclosing his conversations with his son.
Lindh was on the battlefield wearing the uniform of a Taliban regular army soldier. He was NOT casually connected to the Taliban army he was a volunteer member.
The idea that he was a member of this army but never fired his weapon is simply stupid.
As to the US switching sides, as the article states. That is bull. The US always opposed the Taliban and our contacts with and support for the NA go all the way back to the 1980s.
The younger Mr Lindh should be awaiting a firing squad not awaiting a release date.
ping
Personally I was brainwashed by 9/11. Kill the bastards...
"Frank Lindh, the gay father of John Walker Lindh"
LOL
This is a liberal disease. No cure available.
"I am just a father whose son got into some trouble,"
I'll say. Getting captured by US Special Ops while fighting with the Taliban and al-Qaeda and being an accessory to the murder of a CIA agent is definetly some trouble. He should be glad his son was not left in Afghanistan or executed back here. He shouldhave been sent to Guantanamo.
Little Johnny and his dad are a part of the problem as is "mother sheehan".
Go live in Cuba you Anti Americans. You'll like it better there I'm sure.
I say we get let the little perp go... soon as Michael Spann says I can... Otherwise he should meet the same fate that Mike met by taliban johnnie's actions...Both lindh's need to go.
Meanwhile, Mike Spann's kids are growing up without their father.
Marin County liberal douchebag.
If the government could not make a charge stick to Mr. Lindh why would he strike a deal? I think that the "Gay one" is engaging in revisionist history.
If he had been a real father and a man, his son would never have been the one brainwashed by the Muslim turd-swallowers.
You sure can tell a bum from a mile away....
like Clinton...they always blame others for their failures.
"Twenty years is a long sentence for someone who did no crime," said Lindh
No crime? Tell the idiot his son plead guilty.
Personally, I'd have let the Northern alliance have him.
You got that exactly right!!
Switched sides? Is this guy out of his fricken mind? When were we allied with the Taliban? I know that the trolls in the far left will claim that we supplied arms to the Taliban in the fight against the Soviets (they don't let facts get in the way of a good argument). I don't see this dolt doing his son any favors.
Yep. Being out of their fricken minds seems to gallop in that family.
I'd bet good money that this prison sentence is the first time Lindh has ever learned that actions have consquences and been held accountable for his awords and deeds.
His father should also accept that his cr*ppy parenting helped lead to this in the first place.
According to my father I enrolled in a government-run, infantry-training program funded by Uncle Sam.
The Army.
John Walker Lindh: "The people in general [in Pakistan] have a great love for the Taliban so I started to read some of the literature of the scholars, the history of Kabul . . . my heart became attached to that."
In a separate interview to CNN, he said he had come into "contact with many people connected with Taliban".
He said that he had travelled across the border from Pakistan, where he had been studying at a religious school in the country's North West Frontier province, to help the Taliban build a "pure Islamic state".
He told CNN he had gone to the Afghan capital, Kabul, and volunteered to serve the Taliban.
Because he did not know the local languages, he said, the Taliban told him to contact forces supporting Osama bin Laden. He said he received combat training at a camp in Northern Afghanistan, fought with Pakistani allies of the Taliban in the disputed region of Kashmir and then returned to fight recently with the Taliban at Kunduz, Afghanistan.
Mr Walker was described by Newsweek magazine's website as "a white, educated-sounding, apparently middle class American" who identified himself as Abdul Hamid.
Pressed to say whether he approved of the September 11 attack, Mr Hamid told Newsweek: "Yes, I supported it."
Can't stand his unapologetic, superior attitude.
Maybe the dad's gay lover can make a better case for the traitorous little bastard. Dad blew it.
This guy is as loopy as Nick Berg, who blames Bush for the fact that Islamic maniacs beheaded his son on tape. Liberalism is truly a mental disorder.
Mr. Lindh should thank Gaia or someone that his pathetic son isn't a rotting corpse back in Afghanistan.
I'm thinking we need a ping list for parents in denial. It's definately a common thread in our topics here.
I've been pondering why James Frey's parents did not simply smack him upside the haid for the LIES he told about their situation! But noooooo, he's a gooood boy, just like Lindh here!
The FBI's interrogation report says Walker Lindh related that after September 11, one of his former al Qaeda training-camp instructors said "that UBL (Osama bin Laden) said this was the first attack. ... The group speculated that the second attack would involve attacking nuclear facilities, oil/gas pipe lines, or some kind of biological attack." Walker Lindh's lawyers had sought to suppress these documents as evidence, saying they were made under duress, but that was before they reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in July. In that bargain, Walker Lindh agreed to plead guilty to charges that he supplied services to the Taliban and carried an explosive during the commission of a felony.
He told his interrogators that one of his former instructors said that "this was the first attack" and that a second wave would come at the beginning of Ramadan, in mid-November, and "make America forget about the first attack." The instructor also talked of a third wave, in early 2002, but provided no details.
start quoteLindh described UBL (Osama bin Laden) as being approximately 6'4", well built, sits down a lot, drinks a lot of water, tires easily, sometimes stops talking and excuses himself, mild mannered, and a quiet speaker.end quote
-- FBI interrogation report, December 9-10, 2001
He told interrogators that although he wanted to join the Taliban, he was sent to al Farooq because, "The Arab group is Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda's group ... and that was the only way to get to the front lines."
Using the abbreviation "UBL" to refer to bin Laden, the FBI report continues: "Lindh knew UBL's/al Qaeda's purpose was to fight Americans" before he went to the camp.
start quoteThe shooting course includes practicing assassinations with pistols and rifles and shooting from motorcycles and cars. Civilian warfare courses include terrorism, forgery of passports and documents, poisons, mini-explosions, and an intelligence course which teaches trainees how to avoid detection by police.
-- U.S. Special Forces interrogation report, December 1, 2001
They should have shot Johnny Taliban at sunrise for treason, and told the biological parental unit (because Frankie-boy sure ain't no father) to go pound sand. Depending on the quality of sand, he just might love it.
Freakin' hamster-stuffin', deluded, leftist POS, is what he is.
"He is a wonderful kid, has a great sense of humor and spirits."
Hmmmm. The last part I'll agree with.
Maybe, afterall he switched sides :-)
AFGHANISTAN: Housed at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress Lindh surrenders at Mazar-i-Sharif early in the bombing campaign.
"Lindh slipped over the mountains into Afghanistan to join the Afghan Army. According to his father he enrolled in a government-run, infantry-training program funded by bin Laden."
That's the talibunnies and al queda, screwball. They terrorize, beat and kill folks that don't bow down to them. Your bozo kid thought that was the right thing to do. Want to know why? Look in the mirror, don't try to blame it on anyone else. Now go back to your sewer.
HEAVY denial.
It would be pathetically funny if it wasn't a national security / treason issue.
How'd he do that?
The guy is a doofus.
I guess Johnny Boy was so anxious to "tell his story", he didn't have time to tell the U.S personnel about the impending jail uprising by his homies.
Talk, talk, talk. Barbrastreisand, barbrastreisand, barbrastreisand.
This punk should never have set foot on US soil again. Afghani justice would have been too good for him.
God bless the Spanns.
I'll never understand why they didn't just throw a satchel charge down into that basement that Ratboy was hiding in.
I'll never understand why they didn't just throw a satchel charge down into that basement that Ratboy was hiding in.
"... Lindh is active with Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, an LGBT networking group that fights for equal treatment in the workplace"
They have gay organizations in San Fransisco -- who knew?
Hey you Queer sperm donor. Your kid is a traitor and should be stood against a wall/post and executed. But if he does twenty years in the joint, when he gets out he may relate to your faggot tendencies and then you can have an "affair" with him. Up yours dad.
Here's early report: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/577710/posts
How dare Lindh forget. He has some nerve to claim that others are brainwashed.
Walker, as he now calls himself, gave Newsweek this account of the conditions in the prison: “Early in the morning they began taking us out, slowly, one by one, into the compound.... Our hands were tied, and they were kicking and beating some of us. Some of the mujahedin were scared, crying. They thought we were all going to be killed.”
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