"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)
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,
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.
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.
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.
What we need is another Judge Roy Bean.
He'd know what to do with Little Taliban JohnnyTall Tree!
Short Rope!
so his father runs off with another man and now he does not know why his kid is all screwed up?
This "father" is feeling guilty for himself.
Can I make a suggestion...?
"¡Ayyyyyyyy, piñata!"
No, it didn't. The Taliban didn't exist until after the Soviet withdrawal.
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."
When was that? Never that I heard of.
However, Lindh did have a defense to the charge of treason: when he fought against American forces, he was no longer a U.S. citizen, since he had been deprived of citizenship, by act of Congress, when he joined the Taliban.
You left out a few lines of the poem and I didn't know it was written by Scott.
