"Federal law forbids anyone owing allegiance to the United States, which includes all who hold U.S. citizenship, to levy war against the country or to give aid and comfort to its enemies" (qtd L.A. Times Dec. 5 William Webster-federal judge who headed both the FBI and the CIA) This rhetoric could become very dangerous.
What about other Americans who, like John convert to Islam. His case, and the legal rhetoric resulting from it, may generate suspicions, and bring other intellectuals to court. John is not in trouble for being Moslem. He is in trouble for pointing his AK-47 at America. It is one thing to shun the idols, and the shirk of American culture, to speak out in a public forum, and to speculate about political futures, it is another to go to war.
President Bush may declare anyone to be a threat to national security, and his decision may go unchecked. If John Walker/Suleyman Al-Lindh is convicted of treason it may happen without due process. Such a conviction could potentially threaten every American born Moslem in the United States. I worry that John is the zygote of modern McCarthyism. If moslem sympathies in the United States grow...and if at any point the war is not going good for the U.S. then I fear that the Government may go after Moslem Intellectuals in order to win the undeclared war on terror.
Suleyman Al-Lindh is not representative of other American Moslem Intellectuals.
Suleyman Al-Lindh is not representative of other American Moslem Intellectuals.
He is an extremist who left his country and his family...in his quest for God.