Parents' grief for American Taleban - family tells story on BBC

afgha ^

[chance33_98]

Parents' grief for American Taleban
Posted by Afgha.com on Saturday, 

November 16 2002 @ 04:05:02 CET  

BBC.co.uk Friday, 15 November, 2002, 12:17 GMT

How does a quiet teenager growing up in a wealthy California suburb end up being captured while fighting for the Taleban in Afghanistan just a few years later?

This and other questions about John Walker Lindh are set to be answered for the first time on television as his family tell their story in a BBC Two programme.

The film charts John Walker Lindh's path from child to convert and then his decision to become a holy warrior.

Transformation and belonging are key words in the journey of John Walker Lindh. Islam would offer him both.

However his mother, Marilyn, remembers him as a carefree and loving child.

"He loved his stuffed toys, he loved being read to, he loved being cuddled, he was one of those huggy kids," she said.

Rohan Gunaratna, author of the book Inside Al-Qaeda was brought in to debrief John in prison this year.

With a unique insight in to John's thinking, Ms Gunaratna believes John was ready for the call.

"John like all other westerners who come into contact with these political and radicalised preachers and leaders get indoctrinated," she said.

"All of us are often moved by certain ideologies and John is not an exception.

"He gets carried away and he's more vulnerable because he's a Muslim and he is a Muslim in search of something.

"He has a vacuum, he has a void in his heart and he goes in search of that."

Suicide attacks

From America to Yemen, then to Afghanistan, Walker Lindh's family and lawyers defend and explain the steps he took.

The film brings to light his encounter with Osama Bin Laden and the knowledge that al-Qaeda was recruiting for suicide attacks abroad.

His notoriety was to come with the death of a fellow American, CIA Agent Mike Spann.

Spann had interrogated John Walker Lindh but died in a brutal massacre. John survived the same massacre.

To his captors, John Walker Lindh was the traitor who survived - unlike Mike Spann - the hero who was killed.

Brought back to America, John Walker Lindh was offered a plea bargain - 20 years if he cooperated in the war on terror.

He agreed with one demand - the right to practise his faith.

His father remembers it to be the most important part of the deal for John.

"What was the very thing that inspired John? It was the Hajj. So the government says we will ask you never to travel outside the US as long as you live after you get out of this long prison sentence.

"John wouldn't agree to that, because he wouldn't be able to make his Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. So his lawyers were able to persuade the government to drop that demand."

Coming to terms with John's actions has been no easy process for the family, nor their ability to speak publically about it.

The programme's producer, Frank Smith, recalls how the family found it difficult to trust the BBC at first.

"For the family, the decision to talk to the BBC was a difficult one.

"For an America still mourning the victims of September 11, John Walker Lindh had come to represent the enemy and there was little trust between the family and the media.

"It was only after months of contact, that BBC Executive Producer Farah Durrani persuaded John's parents, Frank and Marilyn, and his brother Connell and sister Naomi to talk of John's journey to Afghanistan."

For John parents there is the endless question, asked by the world: how did this happen to their son? John's mother knows that he is a hate figure for many Americans, however she holds onto the memory of the child, and in Marilyn's mind John's 'essence remains'.

For Frank the experience was 'a nightmare', he bitterly regrets his son's decision to go to Afghanistan and the effect it has had on the family.

As for John Walker Lindh himself, he was 21 years old, an adult when he fought for the Taleban. But the question perhaps only he can answer; is whether it was a search for certainty and acceptance, which turned a shy and troubled boy into the American Taleban.

The American Taleban will be shown on BBC Two on Sunday 17 November at 21:00 GMT.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Sonny M]

"What was the very thing that inspired John? It was the Hajj. So the government says we will ask you never to travel outside the US as long as you live after you get out of this long prison sentence.

"John wouldn't agree to that, because he wouldn't be able to make his Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. So his lawyers were able to persuade the government to drop that demand."

This makes me sick, I hope mecca is nothing but rubble by the time he gets out, and I will be there to urinate on the ashes of that den of evil. They want to know how a all american boy turned traitor, well, lets see, you have a father who is left wing to the core, is homosexual and left the mother to be with another man, you have a mother who is left wing to the core, has been active in multiple anti-war/anti-american demonstrations and has a hatred of christianity. The boy growing up, was looking for spirituality, and structure, and disipline. His parents refused to give him disipline (yes, the kid actually did want it), he went to a special school which was against disipline. There was no structure, since thats to "old fashioned", and when he talked about christianity, his mother mocked it, and tried to get him to take any other religion, she tried to push him into buddhism, but it didn't take, he saw a movie, and decided to try islam. It gave him everything he needed, structure, purpose, disipline and a (false) sense of spirituality, plus being raised to hate america, well, that was a bonus. His parents basically laid the foundation, then pushed him, to islam and treachery, for which he may be punished, and then one day released, but he will never be forgiven.

[ikka]

I don't see them mentioning his father's homosexual relationship, nor the allegations of John's own homosexuality while in Pakistan.

[SevenofNine]

Sonny I think it fault of 1960 generation well some people not like this forum I hear John Tailban parents were 1960s radicial they didn't give any spiritual valves at all

I just don't get WHY the parents didnt' realize that Islam is not religion of peace YEAH RIGHTTTT

NOTTTT

[f.Christian]

Public school science/morals/history...

t7...

America is based on the assumption of God's existence. Throw that out we become just as much of a Hell on earth as was the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.


114 posted on 11/08/2002 8:32 AM PST by Tribune7


26 posted on 11/15/2002 9:21 AM PST by f.Christian


fC...

Anybody got a problem with that?

[Grampa Dave]

Jihad Johnny is just the tip of the iceberg of the children raised by the godless, America Hating, drug culture and without morality, vile left wingers of the 1960's and 1970's.

Probably 70 to 80% of the scum that lives in Marin county today are like Jihad Johnny's screwed up parents. Most of them feel that Jihad Johnny was/is a hero for what he did.

This is why the rats are imploding across the country. The ancient ones in their late 50's and 60's are losing control, and there aren't any rats age 30 to 40 or under capable of any leadership. They are undereducated and have no moral core to help them to make the correct decisions in life.

These aging old boomers sacrificed their unborn children to the Abortion Goddess. Then, they sacrificed their born children to become live meat for the homosexual predators who are labeled as normal by the Marinites and Christians as abnormal.

Their children have spent years being pawns in Diversity and Political Correctness games instead of learning the basics. Those who went to college major in ethnic studies, women's studies, black studies, Asian studies, Native America Studies, lesbo studies and Homosexual predation studies. Each of these dark side college course carried a constant hate America, hate Christians, hate capitalism and were topped off with vile Watermelon enviralism lies.

Finally they were taught to hate themselves for being white. The guilt of Political Correctness has crippled them mentally for the rest of their miserable lives.

Jihad Johnny is just the tip of the deadly iceberg of children who are now adults raised in lunatic left homes.

[truth_seeker]

If and when he gets out of prison, I doubt that his life will be long.

Somebody will be very patient, and will find him and kill him.

[Welsh Rabbit]

Typical of the PC BBC. They don't want bring up the fact that Jihad Johnny was probably most influenced by the factors that his parents chose to humor his bizarre conversion to Islam (by agreeing to send him to school in Yeman, ect) and the fact that his father abandoned the family to be a homo (Johnnie Has Two Daddies), but instead try to indict American society as a whole.

[Savage Beast]

"John like all other westerners who come into contact with these political and radicalised preachers and leaders get indoctrinated," she said.

Most don't.

I have "come into contact with these political and radicalized preachers and leaders", and I have not "gotten indoctrinated".

I'm typical. John's not.

"All of us are often moved by certain ideologies and John is not an exception."

Yes, Charlie Manson's "girls" were not an exception either.

"As for John Walker Lindh himself, he was 21 years old, an adult when he fought for the Taleban."

[Savage Beast]

Most people who "come into contact" with "political and radicalized preachers and leaders" do not "get indoctrinated". It's the intellecually and morally weak who do.

"Liberalism" is an example of this. Its preachers and leaders are political and radicalized, and it is the intellectually and morally weak who accept this hogwash that is the religion of the decadent.

It's a very small step from "Liberalism" to the taliban. The rhetoric differs. Otherwise they're pretty much alike.

[xm177e2]

Spann had interrogated John Walker Lindh but died in a brutal massacre. John survived the same massacre.

To his captors, John Walker Lindh was the traitor who survived - unlike Mike Spann - the hero who was killed.

Walker didn't just survive, he was probably in on the whole plan, and decided not to help Spann.

[wastoute]

I have it on "pretty good authority" that when this group was captured, Lindh was put out there "as bait" to get the captors in a position to stage the uprising that led to Spann's death. "The folks that know", I believe, sort of were intrumental in seeing to it that this crud got the book thrown at him. When you think about it, there was not much reason not to let "little johnny" just go back to Marin County. He was just a schmuck that was in the wrong place at the wrong time, otherwise. But, "the folks that know", knew that he had directly participated in an active way to produce events that led to Spann's death. I, personally, would not be surprised if the crud survives his 20 years, just to have a "very bad accident" within days of being released. "Some folks" just have a real long memory.

[VOA]

"He gets carried away and he's more vulnerable because he's a Muslim and he is a
Muslim in search of something.

Yep, in search of the softest targets (preferably defenseless women and/or children).

With the exception of the island of sanity called Turkey and a few other isolated spots,
the American Taliban is simply the face of the real world of Islam.

[VOA]

Brought back to America, John Walker Lindh was offered a plea bargain - 20 years if
he cooperated in the war on terror.

He agreed with one demand - the right to practise his faith.

No, don't tell me.
A federal judge accepted a plea agreement that stipulated that the defendant
could kill Christian, Jewish, and other infidel prisoners whenever he
felt like declaring Jihad In The Fed Pen Week...
(end sarcasm mode)

[Aquinasfan]

He agreed with one demand - the right to practise his faith. His father remembers it to be the most important part of the deal for John.

No, no, no. It's about class warfare or something. Whatever it is, it's not about Islam. < /sarcasm>

[Grampa Dave]

God has been helping us and is helping us.

We survived their best years and still had President Reagan and the two President Bushs. Now, we will repudiate their liberal behaviors and traitor behaviors in Congress, on conservative web sites, conservative talk radio and with those we deal with on a one to one basis.

Their choices of drugs, no God, no morality, abortion for their children that they didn't want, and making their surviving children ashamed to be American via Political Correctness, ashamed to be heterosexual, and to become live meat for the lesbos and homosexuals has ruined those generations.

Now the moderate Americans are waking up to the reality of these diseased lunatic libs. These are the moderates who like us have not aborted our children, have loved their children and have given them a moral core and a sense of pride not Political Correctness Guilt. In the next 6 years across the nation they will stop voting for the elite rats of the lunatic libs who have brought our nation to the brink. They will help us to pull our nation back from that brink.

While the lunatic libs were aborting and mentally and physically destroying their unaborted children, we have not aborted our children and have loved our children. We have given them a morality core, helped them to get job skills and educations inspite of the lesbo dominated NEA and homosexual controlled universities. As a result we are seeing those 20-30 something young Americans become stable hard working Americans like us.

After 9/11 our children and grandchildren have started on the road to conservatism earlier than most of us. They don't abort their children and refuse to allow them to become druggies and warm meat for the homosexuals. They love their children and will not allow them to become fresh meat for homosexual predators.

The diseased lunatics of the left have lost a lot of political power and will continue to lose it. As our younger conservatives join us and vote with us.

Keep the faith! We are winning and will continue to win the cultural war for the survival of America, our children and our grand children.

[blackie]

Down with the left !!

Up with the right !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Let's Roll !!