"Please, let my son go. I'll take his place. Can my husband come too?"
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
it was probably sarcasm)
Posted on 02/16/2006 10:52:48 AM PST by presidio9
In a prime example of not leaving well enough alone, the father of John Walker Lindh has now publicly asked President Bush to grant his son clemency.
John Walker, you may recall, was the American citizen captured while fighting alongside Taliban forces against our troops in Afghanistan.
Rather than taking a bullet to the chest or being beheaded (as Islamic jihadists do when they capture Westerners), John Walker Lindh plea bargained a sentence of 20 years in a medium-security prison. Now his father says that sentence was too harsh.
In a speech to the Commonwealth Club last week, Frank Lindh talked of his son's conversion to Islam and journey that led him to Yemen, Pakistan and eventually to Osama Bin Laden's band of merry men. While choking back tears, he said, “In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man embarking on a spiritual quest.” He also showed baby pictures of his boy, said he was proud of him, and asserted that he did no wrong. Frank Lindh furthermore complained that the American troops who captured his son treated him badly by cuffing him with plastic ties and leaving him stripped naked with all of the other Taliban prisoners.
I seriously doubt that another father named Johnny Spann was moved. His son Michael was a Central Intelligence Agency officer who was killed by Taliban prisoners during the uprising at Mazar-e-Sharif shortly after interviewing the Taliban traitor John Walker Lindh. That deadly revolt was the reason prisoners had to be strip-searched and restrained.
The difference between Michael Spann and John Walker Lindh couldn't be more dramatic. One loved America enough to travel halfway around the world to give his life in her defense while the other hated our country and our way of life so much that he wound up on the same battlefield working with those who declared holy war against the United States.
Contrary to Frank Lindh's recent assertions, our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion doesn't include the right to bear arms against your countrymen in war. If some jihad-preaching cleric promised John Walker Lindh 72 virgins in paradise for killing Americans, he shouldn't try to hide behind his American citizenship when it didn't work out.
Decisions have consequences. John Walker Lindh made his choice when he became an enemy combatant, and he should stick with it. If he feels Allah is calling him to fight with those who have vowed to destroy America, then perhaps he should ask Allah - and not President Bush - for help.
Those who hate America's freedom, democracy and Judeo-Christian heritage are free to leave. But I suggest that those who join the battle against our troops not ask for mercy when they lose.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land S
If such there breathe, go, mark him well
For him no minstrel raptures swell S
Living shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
- Sir Walter Scott
Craig Ziemba is a military pilot who lives in Meridian. His second book will be available next month at Meridian Bible Bookstores.
Columnist too hard on John Walker Lindh
The Meridian Star
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1980, didn't the United States help the Taliban by giving it arms to fight the Soviet Union? When the Taliban took power and there was a split among the ranks, the Taliban was our "friend" and the Northern Alliance was our "enemy." The Taliban was on our payroll until 1999.
Craig Ziemba ("How to treat a traitor," Sunday, Jan. 29) went too far in calling John Walker Lindh a traitor. When Mr. Lindh entered a plea bargain with the U.S. government for about 20 years, one must wonder and ask himself what Lindh did so bad to get 20 years and Jane Fonda was never arrested for what she did during the Vietnam War.
The press never called her a traitor or asked her why she did it. What Jane Fonda did, Mr. Lindh never did.
Jane Fonda was always pro-North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. She was aiding an enemy that killed about 58,000 and wounded another quarter of a million. She went to Hanoi and posed for propaganda pictures on an anti-aircraft gun. She made broadcasts to American soldiers urging them to desert and urging pilots to refuse to fly.
Prisoners of war who refused to meet with her were beaten, and some of those who did meet her tried to slip notes to her so she could tell their families they were still alive. She turned the notes over to the Vietnamese, and the prisoners were beaten. When the POWs got the word out that they were being tortured, she publicly branded them liars.
To all of you super-patriots who are so eager to lynch a young man whose religious beliefs put him in the wrong place at an unlucky time should be reminded that when it comes to prosecuting treason, there is no greater hypocrite than the U.S. government.
Mr. Lindh joined the Taliban before it was our enemy. There is no evidence that, during the two months he was in the Taliban after the U.S. decided to shift sides and join the Northern Alliance, he ever harmed a single American.
By the way, Mr. Ziemba: Allah means God.
Edward J. Giovanetti
Meridian
"Please, let my son go. I'll take his place. Can my husband come too?"
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
A pole smoker for peace?
Just hang him and get it over with now.
One can feel some sympathy for the traitor because he might have been psychological hurt by his father turning into a homosexual, but that's still no excuse for treason and possible murder.
P.S. I always thought Allah was a rock god whose progeny were the stars.
Boy, does this get my blood running hot. His son indisputably took up arms against his country. That is traitorous.
A firing squad is what he deserves.
No amount of celebrity, money, fancy clothes, cosmetic surgery or higher education can cure an ugly heart!!
Well, if they don't prosecute Al Gore for sedition, is it really fair for the US government to beat up JWL?
I think Edward J. Giovanetti needs to learn more about Lindh's behavior at the time of his capture and his role in Spann's death.
The man, not boy, was in military arms in the field along side his muslim brothers in arms during open warfare with America.
I don't care about Jane Fonda.
I don't care about his religion.
I couldn't care less when he went there.
I don't care what Allah means.
Correct. He's fortunate that 20 years was all he got.
Medium security prison? The low-life traitor deserved the death penalty!
spiritual quest?
More like a terrorist quest. He is so lucky his "boy" didn't get the chair. He should have. This "dad" sucks big time.
The only "rock god" that I am aware of is this one.
One great aspect of spiritual quests is that you can pursue them no matter where you are... in a house, in a cave, on a plain, or imprisoned for betraying your countrymen in battle.
Hanging.
Rat bastard boy and his traitor fag father should be thrown out of a plane at 15,000 feet and converted to pink mist.
Bury the little bastard to his neck in pigsh*t first, so he can't enter paradise.
Then the firing squad.
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