Free Republic

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The path to faith often takes unexpected twists. In the case of Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, the road went through three of the world's major religions -- Judaism, Islam and Christianity -- and ultimately brought him to the FBI. Born to Jewish parents who call themselves mystics, he grew up in what he calls the "liberal hippie Mecca" of Ashland, Oregon, a town of about 20,000 near the California border. It was in this ultraliberal intellectual environment that a young Gartenstein-Ross experimented with a radical form of Islam that eventually led him to shun music, reject women's rights and...

[ article is excerpted ... click the link to read the article ] When John Walker Lindh appeared on CNN after his 2001 capture in Afghanistan looking unwashed and vaguely surprised, one of my first thoughts was: “I can’t wait to read his memoir.” Because Walker Lindh is under a gag order until his release from federal prison in 2019, that’s going to be a long wait. Similarly, Adam Gadahn, another California-raised Al-Qaeda operative, now wanted in the United States for treason, is too busy making stagy propaganda videos to sign any publishing contracts just now. Coming to the rescue...