US Taliban jihadi John Walker Lindh to be released in May, supports ISIS

JIHAD WATCH ^ | MAR 20, 2019 8:16 AM | ROBERT SPENCER

[ifinnegan]

More from MEMRI

https://www.memri.org/jttm/american-taliban-john-walker-lindh-be-released-prison-may-2019-three-poems-he-wrote-prison-–;

‘American Taliban’ John Walker Lindh To Be Released From Prison In May 2019; Three Poems He Wrote In Prison – From The MEMRI JTTM Archives
March 22, 2019

John Walker Lindh, the U.S. citizen who joined the Taliban in mid-2001 and was captured in November of that year by U.S. forces as an enemy combatant in Afghanistan in 2001, is set to be released from prison in May 2019, after serving a 20-year sentence.[1] The news of his upcoming release was criticized by the mother of American journalist James Foley, whose 2014 beheading by the Islamic State (ISIS) was filmed and disseminated widely on social media. She said: “I don’t think he should be released if he is going to continue to sow hate and terrorism around the world.”[2] As of May 2016, according to a report in Foreign Policy magazine, Lindh “continues to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts.”[3]

The following report is now a complimentary offering from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

Three Poems By John Walker Lindh

An Islamist organization devoted to supporting Guantanamo Bay detainees and other prisoners held on charges of terrorism posted, on September 23, 2010, three poems that it said it received from John Walker Lindh.

Each of the poems is signed “Abu Sulayman Al-Irlandi, Detainee #001,” and dated Ramadan 1431 (i.e., August-September 2010). “Al-Irlandi” means “the Irishman,” and the poems themselves contain additional nods to Lindh’s Irish heritage, including a reference to himself as “a Mussulman [i.e. Muslim] Paddy.”

The first poem, “The Ballad Of The Fleas,” is about the war in Afghanistan, and depicts the Americans as callous Crusaders, their local allies as un-Islamic hypocrites, and the Taliban as noble soldiers who have been unjustly maligned: “For wolves may foam and bark and bite / And gnash and gnaw and hiss / But if a sheep should dare bite back / He’d be a terrorist.” The second poem, “Ode To Omar Khadr,” is dedicated to Omar Khadr, a Guantanamo Bay detainee accused of having been a teenage Al-Qaeda operative. Much of this poem deals with alleged misconduct in Khadr’s detention and trial: “I end with a message to every oppressor / To each gavel-grasping bench-squatting cross-dresser / As you judge you’ll be judged and my closing remark is / A victory jig on the back of your carcass.” The third poem, “A Mussulman Paddy’s Epistle To Barry,” is addressed to President Obama, and uses an inversion of Revolutionary War-era imagery to promise him defeat in Afghanistan: “So lie on the ground like a parcel of noodles / And sing how the Yankees were beat by Pushtoodles [i.e., the Pushtun].”

Following are the three poems, as posted on the Cageprisoners website on September 23, 2010:[4]

“One Fateful Autumn Thus They Came / With Vengeance As Their Code”

[snip]

(I didn’t post his poems)