As a young, idealistic Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi in the 1960s, travel writer Paul Theroux, moved by the evidence of misrule he saw everywhere around him, got involved in a plot to assassinate Malawian Prime Minister Hastings Banda. Essentially because of that experience, he now wants Obama to pardon John Walker Lindh, the Marin County Mujahid who was captured in late 2001 fighting against American troops for the Taliban.
There are several important reasons why Theroux’s case is not analogous to Lindh’s.
1. Theroux did not commit treason. Lindh did. He wasn’t charged with it, but he should have been. He was fighting against American troops on behalf of an enemy force. If that isn’t treason, what is?
2. Theroux says that he got into the plot because “the country was badly governed, and I felt the rebels would have provided wiser leadership and free elections.” John Walker Lindh wasn’t fighting to bring Afghans wiser leadership and free elections. He was fighting to preserve the Taliban regime in power. The Taliban had become notorious for brutally implementing Sharia in the areas it controlled, brutalizing women and non-Muslims, amputating hands, stoning people, etc. John Walker Lindh had every reason to know about all that, probably in greater detail than was ever known in the Western press, and as a devout, knowledgeable Muslim who, according to Theroux, “studied Arabic and Islam in Yemen, and…relocated to Pakistan, where he studied at a madrasa,” had every reason to approve and applaud it all. The Taliban regime was internationally regarded as a severe abuser of human rights; Lindh fought for it.
3. Theroux is implying an equivalence between Malawian freedom fighters, Zionists, and Islamic jihad terrorists. This only reveals that he knows little to nothing about Islam, jihad, or Sharia.
4. Theroux was repentant. John Walker Lindh isn’t.
“Pardon the American Taliban,” by Paul Theroux, New York Times, October 22, 2016:
In the mid-1960s a young American teacher in a small central African country became involved with a group of political rebels — former government ministers mostly — who had been active in the struggle for independence. They had fallen out with the authoritarian prime minister, objecting to his dictatorial style. The country was newly independent, hardly a year old. The men advocated democratic elections and feared that the prime minister would declare himself leader for life in a one-party state.
Fluent in the local language, obscure because he was a teacher in a bush school, and easily able to travel in and out of the country on his United States passport, the American performed various favors for the rebels, small rescues for their families, money transfers, and in one effort drove a car over 2,000 miles on back roads to Uganda to deliver the vehicle to one of the dissidents in exile. On that visit he was asked to bring a message back to the country. He did so, without understanding its implications. It was a cryptic order to activate a plot to assassinate the intransigent prime minister.
Within months the plot was set in motion, but it was quickly foiled, all of the intended assassins captured and hanged; other suspects were arrested, imprisoned and tortured. The American was threatened with detention, then expelled from the country as an undesirable alien and prohibited immigrant.
I was that American. I was 24. The country was Malawi, the prime minister, Hastings Kamuzu Banda. My expulsion meant that I was kicked out of the Peace Corps (“early termination”), heavily fined by it for engaging in covert political activity (“unsatisfactory service”) and compelled to undergo an extensive interrogation (“debriefing”) at the State Department. This interrogation took place in the Bureau of African Affairs, where the scowling Jesse MacKnight scolded me before a roomful of bureaucrats, and then rather touchingly softened his tone and implored me to give him details about the underground rebel movement in Malawi.
I explained that the country was badly governed, and I felt the rebels would have provided wiser leadership and free elections. Mr. MacKnight reminded me of the assassination plot. It was obvious to the State Department, and to me, that I was in way over my head….
I was a failure, and I was lucky in my escape. Over this past summer I read Michael Korda’s “Hero,” his excellent biography of T. E. Lawrence. Mr. Korda writes that Lawrence’s verdict for his efforts, his risk, his idealism, was that he’d failed, and that his subtitling “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” “A Triumph” was self-mockery. But “Seven Pillars” (to me a masterpiece) shows how Lawrence is a classic example of self-radicalization.
You become radicalized when you think that the world has ceased to care, and that in joining a shadowy band of zealots you might make a difference. Consider the Boston Irish who with “Noraid” helped fund the Irish Republican Army, which bombed innocent civilians in Ulster and elsewhere in Britain in the 1970s and ’80s. Or the young American Jews wishing to attach themselves to a cause, becoming passionate Zionists, going to Israel to patrol the West Bank as the so-called hilltop youth (No’ar HaGva’ot), brandishing Uzis, building illegal settlements and terrorizing Palestinians. Emboldened by his faith, Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago served as a civilian volunteer in 1991 not in the United States Army, but in the Israel Defense Forces.
It was faith that induced John Walker Lindh to travel to the Islamic world. A Californian, raised as a Catholic, he converted to Islam at age 16. A year later he studied Arabic and Islam in Yemen, and subsequently, still a teenager, he relocated to Pakistan, where he studied at a madrasa. In the spring of 2001, stimulated by his faith, he volunteered for the Afghan Army. As his father, Frank Lindh, explained in The Nation in 2014: “John’s motivation was based on youthful idealism: He felt it was his religious duty to help defend civilians against Russian-backed warlords, the so-called Northern Alliance, which was seeking to displace the Taliban government. He was deeply moved by stories of horrific human rights abuses by the Northern Alliance.”…
Dubious figures are not unknown as guests in President Obama’s White House. He has welcomed moralizing mountebanks like Al Sharpton — who along with his for-profit business was found in 2014 to owe more than $4.5 million in taxes — sententious celebrities and movie stars, and rappers with a history of violence. Clearly, President Obama is a forgiving man.
With that in mind, those of us who have been no nearer to this White House than a picket line would appreciate it if the president, in his last months in office, reviewed the case of John Walker Lindh with a view to commuting his sentence on compassionate grounds.

Athea Marcos Amir says
I have never understood this thing in the law regarding repentance. If you commit a crime, it doesn’t matter one whit whether you repent or not. Having this idea in place only makes savvy criminals express repentance and more honest ones not.
Jack Diamond says
John Walker Lindh is unrepentant. If anything he has become an even more zealous Muslim in prison.
As for his punishment, he was able to plea bargain the charges against him down from a possible three life sentences plus 90 years, to a mere 20 years, in return for cooperating. He becomes eligible for release in 2019 even without a Presidential pardon.
Carolyne says
And as a traitor, Lindh should have been shot.
David says
Barry Obama is a criminal and a TRAITOR. If he can get away with signing a hundred pardons for muslim Terrorist on his last day as President, he will do so!
One a turd shows you what he is, well there is no point to NOT leaving a shit trail behind .
Angemon says
Quite the interesting remark. Does that mean that all and every leftist forceful about enforcing their (misguided and not fact-based) opinions are “radicalized, violent extremists”?
daniel sebold says
Back in the eighties we gave Ossama Bin Laden his first job in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban against the Russians. We armed him with plenty of surface to air missiles to take out the Russian helicopters. Eventually the Russians were defeated by the Taliban and the Mujehedeen (from which you can derive the word “jihad” and the verb “jeheda” (to make an effort and to fight a holy war). So on comes John Walker thinking he is doing the right thing by fighting the Russians, then finds out that America has turned against the Taliban and is now fighting against this monster that the USA armed in the first place. Such is American foreign policy.
Carolyne says
Oh if only one could see the future. We could avoid all mistakes.
Angemon says
I’m quite certain bin Laden was self-employed by that time, coming from a rich, religious family. Then again, if you want to play that game, it can be argued that the US allowed for the USSR to invade Afghanistan because they allied it them, despite them being a regime ideologically hostile to the US, during WWII and that arming local resistance was simply an attempt t correct said error in foreign policy.
gravenimage says
Good question, Angemon.
Theroux wrote a disturbingly approving novel about terrorism in London back in the ’70s.
And check out this creepy piece of moral equivalency about the Boston Marathon Bombing:
“Paul Theroux: The Day Boston Felt the World’s Pain”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/16/paul-theroux-the-day-boston-felt-the-world-s-pain.html
He says Boston ‘lost its innocence’ not because of the horrific bombing, but because there followed *defense* against Jihad.
He also downplays the importance of the atrocity, since the weapons were just bombs made from pressure cookers.
He also slams the Israelis, implying they are no different from the “Palestinian” Muslims murdering them.
Theroux is, at best, incredibly morally compromised.
Kepha says
Maybe the world in general long felt the pain that the US only briefly experienced in events like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing is because it’s “idealism” is the sort that motivated the youthful Theroux.
Long ago, I read a paean to the early Chinese Communist movement (_Man’s Fate_, by one of those horribly overrated French Innaleckchools–probably Malraux). Basically, a young man of a troubled land figures that hunting down enemies of the “movement” with a pistol is more exciting than tending to the family farm or business. No wonder each band of youthful young revolutionaries comes out of the hills like Robin Hood and quickly morphs into the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Theroux strikes me as one who latched onto the 20th century’s anti-colonialism movement, made it into a Messiah, and now he can’t tell moral from immoral. We’re being misled right and left by such people.
Kepha says
The world in general’s “idealism” has been that of the youthful Theroux. Now Theroux gloats at the possibility of our own descent into the abyss.
Angemon says
It’s a cross-cultural phenomenon – the more to the left one is, the more likely he’ll side with thugs and murderers, just as long as it can be portrayed as a “struggle” against “oppression”. For example, in my country a fossilized commie from some far-left political party refused to acknowledge the attack in Nice as an act of terrorism because, according to him, it was an act of “struggle” against “oppression”.
Morons like those see the world not as it is but as they want it to be. Someone went out and murdered people? Well, certainly must be the oppressed masses rising up against the powers that be that are exploiting them. Because what else could it be?
Jay Boo says
If Obama was to do this he probably would have pardoned his (fellow Muslim) during Ramadan to be consistent with Muslim tradition.
But this does not mean to imply that Obama was our first Muslim president. That was Bill Clinton.
PROOF
When Bill Clinton committed adultery with Monica Lewinski, both Bill and Hillary as well as all the Democratic Party establishment and Democratic voting (Muslim defender) feminists Slut-Shamed Monica so viciously that Monica had considered committing suicide. This is a very ISLAMIC practice to put all the blame of adultery on the women just as the child sex-slaver pervert Muhammad himself did. BTW, That is the real reason that Muslim women must still veil.
Maybe Obama will pardon Bill for being a shameless pig.
Carolyne says
Once a shameless pig, always a shameless pig. However, Monica wasn’t raped as were some of the others of Bill’s “Girls.” She willingly participated. She even initiated it by turning her back to him and lowering her slacks so he could see the top of her thong, or so she said. While his behavior was not befitting a President of the United States and yes, he is a shameless pig, Monica was not entirely blameless. Juanita Broadrick, who was forcibly raped was innocent and the others were also innocent, except Jennifer Flowers who freely admits to being Clinton’s mistress for twelve years.
Cretius says
Pardoning a citizen who takes up arms against his country is treason. We all know of the foul deeds committed. Punish. Do not reward treason thereby encouraging others to follow that path.
Vyx says
Oh lovely. Another writer I have to kick to the side of the road because of his bizarre liberal beliefs.
Which is too bad, since some of his work is really enjoyable.
Jack Diamond says
“He was deeply moved by stories of horrific human rights abuses by the Northern Alliance.”…
and I’m deeply moved by the killing of Mike Spann during the prisoner uprising Lindh was involved in.
I’m deeply moved by the horrific human rights abuses committed by the Taliban (a word meaning “students” of…Shari’a) whom Lindh went to aid, and I’m deeply moved by the war declared against the United States by al Qaeda, whom Lindh went to join, with a result of dead Americans in the many thousands.
And the irony of calling Al Sharpton a mountebank while invoking the romantic “heroism” of the myth making fraud that is T.E. Lawrence, gives away the game. Theroux’s whole show with Lindh is starry-eyed romanticism, the kind writers and poets have indulged in since time memorial, seeing themselves in the brutal thugs, bandits, criminals, killers, and traitors they turn into poetry-spouting angst-ridden rebels and Robin Hoods.
T.E. Lawrence, (“his efforts, his risk, his idealism”)–
Lawrence gave the impression that he and his Bedouins took Damascus. The reality was that the Australians took Damascus and the city was surrendered to them. The Turkish forces had fled the city and the Australians were in quick pursuit. Lawrence and his Bedouin Arabs rode in later that day. Here is what they did (from J.B. Kelly):
” Almost immediately the Bedouin ran wild, looting, killing, destroying. Alec Kirkbride [who later worked with Glubb Pasha in the Arab Legion in Jordan, and wrote a memoir, “A Crackling of Thorns”], another British officer with the Sharifian forces, later recounted how he had come across Lawrence leaning against a wall outside the Turkish military hospital, vacantly giggling, while inside the hospital the Bedouin were ripping the bandages from the Turkish wounded and putting them to the sword. Kirkbride drew his revolver on Lawrence and told him that if he didn’t call off his jackals, he, Kirkbride, would attend to them himself.
A day later (General) Allenby ordered the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade into Damascus to restore order and protect the civilian population from the Bedouin. None of this is to be found in Lawrence’s writings.”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/01/fitzgerald-arabia-petraea-or-general-petraeus-middle-east-part-i
Jack Diamond says
since time “immemorial” even….
daniel sebold says
The United State originally supported the Taliban in Afghanistan to fight against the Russians back in the eighties. The USA armed the Taliban, and after the Russians lost the war, we forgot about them–the Taliaban which included Osam Bin Laden who we recruited out of Saudi Arabia–until the Taliaban turned out be worse than the Russians. John Walker Lindh may have thought he was fighting for America and the Taliban against the Northern Alliance until he discovered that America had changed sides against Taliban, which forever embittered Bin Laden against the USA
Jack Diamond says
I didn’t realize that the whole time John Walker Lindh was studying in the madrassas in Pakistan and in the terrorist camps with bin Laden, he was secretly reading the U.S. Constitution and not listening to anything being said. Do you think he heard bin Laden quote from the al Qaeda declaration of war against Americans (from 1998)?
“The ruling to kill Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual obligation incumbent upon every Muslim who can do it and in any country…we call upon every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah’s order to kill the Americans and seize their money wherever and whenever they find them. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on the Devil’s army—the Americans—and whoever allies with them from the supporters of Satan.”
Still think Lindh thought he was fighting for America?
How exactly did “we” recruit bin Laden out of Saudi Arabia? I want to hear that story.
It’s true for a period America and Muslims shared a goal, to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. We did some stupid things. It’s true we gave billions to the government of Pakistan (who would betray us again and again), who then created the Taliban and enabled them through the ISI. This was Pakistan, not America. America’s interest ended when the Soviets were beat.
The Taliban came to power after the Soviets were gone, supported by Pakistan. Only 3 countries ever recognized the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. None of which were the USA.
(Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan). Pakistan also facilitated the Arabs and their al Qaeda/base.
As to your idea the USA was “behind it all”, let me give you to the chief al Qaeda (and later ISIS) historian and theorist, Abu Musab Al-Suri, from his “Call to Global Islamic Resistance”:
“The Arab jihad in Afghanistan is the outgrowth of the previous Arab jihads in other areas of the Islamic world {predating the Afghan jihad by 20 years, not a CIA creation}. Sheikh ‘Azzam is the symbol of the mujahideen in Palestine…Sheikh Osama bin Laden contributed to the jihad in Syria in the early 1980s before heading to Afghanistan…
…many of the cadres, trainers, and top leaders (in Afghanistan) belonged to jihadi cadres in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. As for Americans helping to train Arabs or helping structure training programs, these are mere lies and fabrications. As far as the allegation of a CIA connection, perpetuated by the media, and that the mujahideen were brought to destroy the Soviet Union, this is false. For instance, Sheikh ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam was among those mujahideen, and he was not in league with the CIA. I knew him and often went to see him. I even worked with him for a short time. Just by looking at the tapes, books, speeches and heritage of the martyr (Azzam) you can see the enourmous size of the hatred that the sheikh harbored for America and its collaborators.
Sheikh Osama bin Laden made his way to Afghanistan to offer financial support to the Afghans. It was said that the Americans had been training and supporting the Arab mujahideen from al Qaida. That is a blatant lie. The Arab jihad has been guided by the Salafist ideology and did not deal with certain individuals in the Saudi government when they came to offer help…if the mujahideen refused to refused to deal with officials from the Saudi government, then how can it be said they cooperated with foreigners and Americans?
..the truth is at the time Osama and the other Muslims had similar goals to the Americans. Their mutual goal was to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. When the war ended everyone became aware that the next enemy would be the remaining superpower.”
daniel sebold says
It is interesting that you knew the man well enough to know that he hated you. What as your business with him? It is interesting that you acknowledge using the passive voice “it was said that the Americans had been training and supporting the Arab mujahideen from al Qaida. That is a blatang lie.” Would you care to turn those into active voice accusers, like say Robert Fisk of the Independent who went out into the field and verified the type of ordinanace and misslies being used on the Afghans by copying down the serial numbers?
Jack Diamond says
I was clearly quoting Abu Masab Al-Suri, not myself.
Since you mentioned missiles let me continue to quote him, and he worked closely with bin Laden: “the Americans only sent a limited number of Stinger missiles ten years after the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan and just before their retreat. In fact, they were not even used in the last decisive battles, and only a limited number of aircraft were ever brought down by Stingers…the Stingers had no role in the destruction of more than fifty thousand of the Russian armored military vehicles and the killing of more than thirty thousand Russian soldiers…”
Robert Fisk is not an acceptable source. He is a man of vicious bias, a PLO supporter, a hater of Israel who contributed to a volume called “The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid”. Other contributors–Noam Chomsky, and Edward Said. He called for an “honest discussion” about the motives behind 9/11, meaning foremost America’s support for Israel. There is a reason his propaganda pieces were admired by bin Laden.
Fail.
daniel sebold says
Oh my. Ouch, a failure rating from Jack Diamond. It must be true because, well, he says it is true. if Jack says that Robert Fisk and Noam Chomsky are biased because they don’t agree with his world view, then, hey, they must be biased. Fisk’s and Chomsky’s opinions about Israel and the PLO or whatever are straw man arguments and are irrelevant to the discussion.
After the United States and allies launched their intervention in Afghanistan, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and beaten by a group of Afghan refugees fleeing heavy bombing by the United States Air Force. He was ultimately rescued from this attack by another Afghan refugee. In his account of his own beating, Fisk absolved the attackers of responsibility and pointed out that their “brutality was entirely the product of others, of us—of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the ‘War for Civilisation’ just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them ‘collateral damage.'” What can i say? This is obviously a biased view, biased because he was there.
.
Angemon says
daniel sebold posted:
“if Jack says that Robert Fisk and Noam Chomsky are biased because they don’t agree with his world view, then, hey, they must be biased. Fisk’s and Chomsky’s opinions about Israel and the PLO or whatever are straw man arguments and are irrelevant to the discussion.”
Does that mean you take Fisk and Chomsky as impartial, unbiased observers? If that’s the case, I have a bridge to sell you.
“Fisk absolved the attackers of responsibility and pointed out that their “brutality was entirely the product of others, of us—of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the ‘War for Civilisation’ just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them ‘collateral damage.’” What can I say?”
You could start with “Amazing how Fisk, while was being beaten by a group of people, found the time to chat with his attackers and learn about their inner thought and motivations. It’s almost as if he is simply making stuff up based on his own biases”. Jack said Fisk was biased. You just proved Jack’s point.
daniel sebold says
Dear Jack: I have no problem with my speculations being wrong about–what’s his name?–John Walker Lindh?–I have no problem being wrong about this guy, and am not interested in defending his actions. It is quite a case study phenomenon to go from being a good California Catholic boy to being a Muslim extremist fighting against your own country and attending madrassas in lovely Pakistan. I mean, if i had a choice between California and Pakistan I know I would surely choose Pakistan. Perhaps his interest in Malcom X is the key, but to be able to uphold a consitent moral ideology around men who would throw acid in the face of little girls….. As for Paul Theroux, though he is a wonderful writer with novels like Mosquito Coast and travel books like Dark Star Safari, I, as a world traveler, have many reservations about his travel writing, as do many other world travelers, having caught the man fabricating many of his experiences. Frankly don’t understand why he is standing up for him. Theroux did travel Afghanistan back when it was a hippie commune in the sixties with western women running around in mini skirts. He made fun of their hypocrisies, so to label him a flaky liberal would be wrong. I don’t know what his motives are.
Jack Diamond says
Daniel, I’m not a reader of Theroux so I could only speculate he was projecting himself into Lindh, his imagined Lindh, just as he romanticizes Lawrence and “his efforts, his risk, his idealism”. The real Lawrence probably doesn’t even interest him. Like you say, he is a fabricator.
For all his traveling, how Islam-savvy can you be when you compare Crimson Tide football fans to “Islam in its most jihadi form” as he does in his book ‘Deep South’? His former friend V.S. Naipaul would never write such stupid things.
gravenimage says
Excellent posts, Jack.
The idea that John Walker Lindh–really, Sulayman al-Faris–was involved with the murder of an American because he just wanted to work with ‘American allies’ rather strains credulity…
Kepha says
The UAE and Pakistani intelligence supported Usama Bin Laden, not the USA. There were scores of Afghan Mooj groups, not all of which sang the tunes of such as UBL and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Or, I suppose, Daniel Sebold is one who sees a force for progress and liberation in the late Soviet Union with its Gulags and declarations that any who dissented against its system was mad; and thinks that the whole rest of the world would be just peachie-keen if the evil, imperialist USA would just keep its nose out of others’ business.
daniel sebold says
Kepha, I envision an America that is not the evil Shaitan liberals think it is. I believe that the Middle East would be an Islamo-Christian paradise if only we could get the Shiite lambs to lay down with the Sunni wolves and start baaing and howling Kum Bai Ya together in Arabic. American males in their Justin Beiber burka shorts with Jesus tattoos emblazoned on their calves–they could stalk the beaches of Jeddah looking for hot plump Saudi chicks lying in the sand eating speghetti by lifting their veils and stuffing it in their mouth. What a wonderful world that would be. And how could we achieve this paradise?
Professors of cultural diversity around America could invite in students from all over the Middle East to celebrate their diversity. “Oh, how novel. They cut out little girls clits. And so Ahmed,how are women treated in Yemen?” Eventually, the Muslums would sense our wonderful munificence as Christians, see the errors in their thinking, simply by absorbing our wonderful mall culture through osmosis, then will convert to Christianity and accept the idea once and for all the God is an advanced primate first century Jew who created us in his own image.
Mazo says
Ahmad Shah Massoud collaborated with Soviet intelligence during the war. He was a Soviet agent and had arrangements with them on how he was going to stage his forces. Your CIA got suckered by him.
The mujahideen forces did not succeed militarily. The Afghan communist forces defeated the mujahideen in almost every major battle and continued to do so even after the Soviets withdrew. The collapse of the Soviet government led to aid being cut off to the Afghan communists which was what caused the collapse of the communist government. And there was also the fact that Ahmad Shah Massoud had secret agreements with the communist forces.
After the collapse of the Afghan communists, Ahmad Shah Massoud proceeded to carpet bombard Kabul’s civilian population with rockets to deny the city to his enemies.
Dostum fought for the Communist government in the war.
American Republicans after 9/11 tried framing Massoud and Dostum’s forces as some kind of patriotic, anti Soviet resistance who were not AQ or Taliban.
Angemon says
Mazo posted:
“The mujahideen forces did not succeed militarily. The Afghan communist forces defeated the mujahideen in almost every major battle and continued to do so even after the Soviets withdrew. ”
And because the commies won, the country was renamed into Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. You know, like those other communist countries – the Islamic Republic of China, the Union of Soviet Islamic Republics, Islamic Cuba, etc… /sarc. off
daniel sebold says
October 24, 2016 at 12:32 pm
Back in the eighties we gave Ossama Bin Laden his first job in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban against the Russians. We armed him with plenty of surface to air missiles to take out the Russian helicopters. Eventually the Russians were defeated by the Taliban and the Mujehedeen (from which you can derive the word “jihad” and the verb “jeheda” (to make an effort and to fight a holy war). So on comes John Walker thinking he is doing the right thing by fighting the Russians, then finds out that America has turned against the Taliban and is now fighting against this monster that the USA armed in the first place. Such is American foreign policy.
Reply
gravenimage says
C’mon, Daniel. John Walker Lindh had converted to Islam. He *praised* the 2000 bombing of the US Cole.
By the time he got to Afghanistan in mid-2001 the Taliban were widely known for stoning women to death–no one thought of them in terms of ‘freedom fighting’ against the Soviets, which hadn’t existed for twelve years at that point–the Soviet invasion ended even earlier–sixteen years previously, when Lindh was just four years old.
One can rightly criticize the US for not recognizing the nature of the Taliban in 1979–but this was much less tenable twenty-two years later.
daniel sebold says
Yes, gravenimage, You are correct. i have since acknowledged that John Walker Lindh is a big … and that i cant understand why a California Catholic boy would want to give that up and live in a craphole like Afghanistan as a Muslim extemist. And Paul Theroux, who I respect for his writing talent–well, sometimes poets do ridiculous things i am sorry i didnt read my wiki before posting. i wish we would get out of that toilet and start taking care of our own suffering working class, but it looks we will be sending hundred of millions of dollars to them while the inner city of Cleveland dies. Yes, I am aware that the Soviet invasion happened in the eighties.
Angemon says
I’m quite certain bin Laden was self-employed by that time, coming from a rich, religious family. Then again, if you want to play that game, it can be argued that the US allowed for the USSR to invade Afghanistan because they allied it them, despite them being a regime ideologically hostile to the US, during WWII and that arming local resistance was simply an attempt t correct said error in foreign policy.
Yohanan says
Added two sentences to Theroux’s entry in wiki. Wiki editors will probably delete the second on the false grounds that this blog cannot be compared to the NYT as a reliable source. But we who follow Robert Spencer’s writings know the opposite to be true.
>In an op-ed in the New York Times on October 22, 2016, Theroux recommended that President Obama pardon John Walker Lindh, in which he compared his own Peace Corps volunteer outing in Malawi with the convicted American citizen who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan.[9] Among critical comments was an analysis in Jihad Watch by Robert Spencer which claimed Theroux’s was a false analogy.[10]<
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Theroux#Controversy
gravenimage says
Yohanan, I was just about to mention the reference to Robert Spencer on John Walker Lindh’s Wikipedia page!
John A. Marre says
Helps one to understand the true nature of the newspaper that pays his salary.
daniel sebold says
Whose salary? I don’t see a New York Times journalist name on the article. Robert Spencer wrote this article referring to Paul Theroux’s Op Ed in the New York Times. Theroux doesn’t work for the Times, but is a novelist in his own right
Michael Casmer says
So let me get this straight. This low life is allowed to have a job in this country? I’m a veteran and forced t work for a little more than minimum wage, never committed a crime, and served my country with pride. Okay time for the Donald
daniel sebold says
Michael, I hear that there is a job for a health inspector waiting for you in San Bernardino, California, and a job for me as a security specialist in Orlando, Florida. I am a ’91 Gulf War vet. Go figure for the both of us.
JawsV says
Only liberals want to pardon Islamic Jihadists. Hillary will probably have Lindh for tea and hummus.
Carlos Danger says
Jihad Johnnie should have been summarily tried and executed in the field.
the sentence should have been carried out by the senior American NCO present.
gravenimage says
New York Times: Paul Theroux asks Obama to pardon American Taliban John Walker Lindh
…………………….
And Obama may do it, too–I have said before that he will probably “jump the shark” in the last days of his presidency. Just today, it was reported that he is now selling war planes to *Iran*.
Lame duck presidents are rather notorious for pardoning people–but these are usually political cronies with financial peccadilloes. Not great–but not people who have committed treason and murdered Americans.
But Obama will likely be much worse.
Cecilia Ellis says
To pardon John Walker Lindh would be an act as treasonous as that of Lindh’s. Read the words of John Michael Spann’s father and many others, available at the following link:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jmspann.htm
Jack Diamond says
Thanks for that Cecilia. I would also recommend the account by Robert Young Pelton who was an eyewitness to Lindh’s capture and interviewed him. “The Truth About John Walker Lindh” posted here:
http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2006/01/the_truth_about.html (from 2006)
“To me Lindh was just an unpleasant arrogant kid who preferred to stay with his murdering friends. My decades of travels with jihadis and terrorists, my time with both the Taliban leadership, the Northern Alliance (aka the United Front), Dostum’s forces — as well as my own time spent during and after talking to the players involved with Qali Jangi — lead me to believe that I am uniquely qualified to pass judgment on Lindh and to accurately describe who he was and what he was doing there.
“Quite simply, in my opinion, Lindh was a terrorist, a member of what we call al Qaeda, and a man who chose to stay with killers even though he was afforded numerous opportunities to separate himself from his murderous associates.
“John Walker Lindh was an Arabic-speaking member of bin Laden’s terror legions. He called it Al Ansar (the correct term); we call them al Qaeda. He was never a member of the Taliban. Why? Because Lindh only spoke Arabic and English. He would have been useless in a combat situation among Pashto- or Dari- speaking troops. I have seen Taliban ID cards and spent time with bin Laden’s “055 Brigade, “al Ansar” members and al Qaeda. Lindh was exactly the person we were trying to kill in Afghanistan and now around the world. He was an educated, idealistic young Muslim who chose murder of innocent people as his path in life. He is no different that Mohamed Atta, Zarqawi, or thousands of other terrorists that come from nice middle class families.
” {after 9/11} Once he and his Arab jihadi friends heard on their BBC shortwave radio broadcasts that the US was coming—well only the dumbest or the most resolutely criminal were going to stay for what was going to be a high tech, high ordnance ass whupping. Lindh chose to stay. He watched America’s B52 contrails in the sky, he felt the destruction American bombs dealt his friends, and yet he stayed with his terrorist friends. When he fled to Kunduz he again chose to stay with his murdering friends and when a small group of foreign jihadis was chosen for a Hail Mary suicide mission to nearby Mazar i Sharif, Lindh was on board.
“Lindh, again, chose to associate with a rag-tag group of die-hards led by one of bin Laden’s lieutenants; Abdul Aziz, as well as the hardest-core terrorists that comprised Saudi, Uzbek, Iraqi, Russian, Sudanese, Yemeni and Pakistani jihadis.
“This group was stopped heading west early in the morning and had an armed standoff with Afghan and US forces. (Yes, Lindh’s group was fully armed during their purported “surrender,” and they had no good reason to explain why they not going east towards Pakistan). The stand off was tense until bombers appeared overhead. Dostum drove by on his way to Kunduz and told them to be disarmed and taken to his garrison called Qali Jangi. Lindh, during that entire time, was within feet of western journalists and US forces and could have simply identified himself as an American. But he chose to stay in the company of killers. Lindh also knew that his cohorts were still secretly armed with pistols, rifles and even grenades tied by shoelaces and dangling around their groin area. A place where they knew Afghans dare not pat down.
“The Saudis and Uzbeks planned an attack; they just needed a diversion to get to the weapons stored a few yards from the pink schoolhouse. The Pakistanis wanted to just surrender and go home. According to the survivors I interviewed, Lindh was an Arabic-speaking al Qaeda member and had full knowledge of this discussion…
“…(Mike) Spann and (Dave) Tyson play a clumsy game of “good cop, bad cop”(interrogating Lindh). But one thing is clear: they offer Lindh a way out. Lindh is alone with two of his fellow countrymen with full knowledge of the violence that is about to happen. He says nothing. If there was ever one moment that will define one man and damn another, this was it. Lindh is put back into the lineup and Mike Spann will die in the next few minutes as Uzbeks rush up from the basement, yelling Allahhuakbar and detonate hidden grenades. The fighting begins. Lindh has once again has been given a clear choice between right and wrong and once again. He makes that clear choice again.”
Damning.
Jack Diamond says
Thanks for that Cecilia. I also want to quote at length the account by Robert Young Pelton who was an eyewitness to Lindh’s capture and interviewed him. From “The Truth About John Walker Lindh”:
“To me Lindh was just an unpleasant arrogant kid who preferred to stay with his murdering friends. My decades of travels with jihadis and terrorists, my time with both the Taliban leadership, the Northern Alliance (aka the United Front), Dostum’s forces — as well as my own time spent during and after talking to the players involved with Qali Jangi — lead me to believe that I am uniquely qualified to pass judgment on Lindh and to accurately describe who he was and what he was doing there.
“Quite simply, in my opinion, Lindh was a terrorist, a member of what we call al Qaeda, and a man who chose to stay with killers even though he was afforded numerous opportunities to separate himself from his murderous associates.
“John Walker Lindh was an Arabic-speaking member of bin Laden’s terror legions. He called it Al Ansar (the correct term); we call them al Qaeda. He was never a member of the Taliban. Why? Because Lindh only spoke Arabic and English. He would have been useless in a combat situation among Pashto- or Dari- speaking troops. I have seen Taliban ID cards and spent time with bin Laden’s “055 Brigade, “al Ansar” members and al Qaeda. Lindh was exactly the person we were trying to kill in Afghanistan and now around the world. He was an educated, idealistic young Muslim who chose murder of innocent people as his path in life. He is no different that Mohamed Atta, Zarqawi, or thousands of other terrorists that come from nice middle class families.
” {after 9/11} Once he and his Arab jihadi friends heard on their BBC shortwave radio broadcasts that the US was coming—well only the dumbest or the most resolutely criminal were going to stay for what was going to be a high tech, high ordnance ass whupping. Lindh chose to stay. He watched America’s B52 contrails in the sky, he felt the destruction American bombs dealt his friends, and yet he stayed with his terrorist friends. When he fled to Kunduz he again chose to stay with his murdering friends and when a small group of foreign jihadis was chosen for a Hail Mary suicide mission to nearby Mazar i Sharif, Lindh was on board.
“Lindh, again, chose to associate with a rag-tag group of die-hards led by one of bin Laden’s lieutenants; Abdul Aziz, as well as the hardest-core terrorists that comprised Saudi, Uzbek, Iraqi, Russian, Sudanese, Yemeni and Pakistani jihadis.
“This group was stopped heading west early in the morning and had an armed standoff with Afghan and US forces. (Yes, Lindh’s group was fully armed during their purported “surrender,” and they had no good reason to explain why they not going east towards Pakistan). The stand off was tense until bombers appeared overhead. Dostum drove by on his way to Kunduz and told them to be disarmed and taken to his garrison called Qali Jangi. Lindh, during that entire time, was within feet of western journalists and US forces and could have simply identified himself as an American. But he chose to stay in the company of killers. Lindh also knew that his cohorts were still secretly armed with pistols, rifles and even grenades tied by shoelaces and dangling around their groin area. A place where they knew Afghans dare not pat down.
“The Saudis and Uzbeks planned an attack; they just needed a diversion to get to the weapons stored a few yards from the pink schoolhouse. The Pakistanis wanted to just surrender and go home. According to the survivors I interviewed, Lindh was an Arabic-speaking al Qaeda member and had full knowledge of this discussion…
“…(Mike) Spann and (Dave) Tyson play a clumsy game of “good cop, bad cop”(interrogating Lindh). But one thing is clear: they offer Lindh a way out. Lindh is alone with two of his fellow countrymen with full knowledge of the violence that is about to happen. He says nothing. If there was ever one moment that will define one man and damn another, this was it. Lindh is put back into the lineup and Mike Spann will die in the next few minutes as Uzbeks rush up from the basement, yelling Allahhuakbar and detonate hidden grenades. The fighting begins. Lindh has once again has been given a clear choice between right and wrong and once again. He makes that clear choice again.”
Damning.
daniel sebold says
Thanks for the info, Jack Diamond. An amazing story of a psychopath. Go figure on this one. So much for Paul Theroux
Cecilia Ellis says
Jack, thank you for posting an extract of Pelton’s informative and first-hand report of his salient observations of the real John Walker Lindh. As a result of your posting, I searched the Internet for his complete article, entitled “The Truth About John Walker Lindh”, and found it at the following link:
http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2006/01/the_truth_about.html
As you stated, the article is “damning”, worthy of being read by all. Lindh was and remains a traitor, as he shall be always.
Jack Diamond says
Sorry for the double post. The first had the link to the article but it didn’t post, so I resent without the link. Patience is not my virtue.
Kepha says
Why, it’s the romance of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War all over again, striking valiantly against the fascist insect! Gee, how could a young American raised on tales of New Left grandeur resist?
daniel sebold says
Sure, all those leftists who want to become Muslim fundamentalists and who fantasize about going to Afghanistan to throw acid in the face of uppity school girls. Well, I must confess that when I was in Catholic school I certainly fantasized doing that to Shanon Johnson. Picture Noam Chomsky doing that in his youth and Christ Hedges, the two Rambos of the American left.
mortimer says
Paul Theroux=Cuck.
Kepha says
Mortimer, change the capital “c” to an “Schm”
daniel sebold says
I have an articel from the Wall Street Journal that does argue that the Singer missile used by the mujehedeen, armed by the Reagan Administration was indeed key to driving the Soviets out of Afghansitatn
Life & Style
Launching the Missile That Made History
Three former mujahedeen recall the day when they started to beat the Soviets
By Michael M. Phillips
October 1, 2011
Outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan, 25 years ago this week, an angry young man named Abdul Wahab Quanat recited his prayers, walked onto a farm field near a Soviet airfield, raised a Stinger missile launcher to his shoulder and shot his way into history.
It was the first time since the Soviet invasion seven years earlier that a mujahedeen fighter had destroyed the most feared weapon in the Soviet arsenal, a Hind attack helicopter. The event panicked the Soviet ranks, changed the course of the war and helped to break up the USSR itself.
A mujahedeen fighter fighter aims a Stinger missile at a passing airplane in 1988. ENLARGE
A mujahedeen fighter fighter aims a Stinger missile at a passing airplane in 1988. Getty Images
Today, Mr. Wahab is general manager of the Afghan central-bank branch near the Khyber Pass, a middle-age man who carries tinted bifocals in his vest pocket and chooses Diet Pepsi over regular. Mr. Wahab and the two other Stinger gunners at the airfield that day—Zalmai and Abdul Ghaffar—have now joined the post-jihad establishment. Mr. Zalmai is sub-governor of Shinwar District, and Mr. Ghaffar is a member of parliament.
They nurse a gauzy nostalgia for the joys of being young jihadists. “Those were good, exciting times,” Mr. Wahab says. “Now I’m a banker. It’s boring.”
The Soviet invasion touched off three decades of violent swings in Afghanistan, from socialism to warlordism to Islamic fundamentalism to today’s flawed democracy. Amid this tortured history, the U.S. makes occasional appearances—including its mid-1980s decision to supply the mujahedeen with Stingers—the consequences of which often weren’t apparent until much later.
At the time, the Soviets and their Afghan allies were on the offensive, thanks to the Hinds. Heavily armored, the helicopters were indifferent to ground fire as they strafed and rocketed mujahedeen and civilians alike. In 1986, the Reagan administration and its congressional allies put aside qualms about dispatching missile launchers. The move likely contributed to the Soviet withdrawal. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, faced with an imploding domestic economy, was already seeking an exit from a costly war.
There’s no straight line from the U.S. move to arm the mujahedeen to 9/11 and the 2001 American invasion, but the decision has echoed through the subsequent decades of turmoil. After Kabul’s fall, and with American attention elsewhere, the mujahedeen fell on each other. Messrs. Ghaffar and Zalmai squabbled over money and weapons.
AAbdul Wahab Quanat shows how he fired the first Stinger missile at a Soviet Hind helicopter 25 years ago. ENLARGE
AAbdul Wahab Quanat shows how he fired the first Stinger missile at a Soviet Hind helicopter 25 years ago. Michael M. Phillips for The Wall Street Journal
“I disarmed his men, and he disarmed my men,” says Mr. Zalmai. (They have since reconciled, and Mr. Ghaffar’s daughter married Mr. Zalmai’s nephew.)
The Taliban emerged on top, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency spent years trying to recover 600 unused Stingers, including 53 that found their way to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who hosted Osama bin Laden during the 9/11 attacks, according to the book “Ghost Wars” by Steve Coll.
Key figures from that era, including those who received U.S. support, have ended up on the other side. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the ruthless head of the fundamentalist Hezb-e-Islami mujahedeen, provided the Stinger gunmen. Among Mr. Hekmatyar’s other backers was bin Laden, who paid Arab militants to fight in the Afghan jihad and in doing so earned the trust of the Taliban.
As Mr. Wahab remembers, the Pakistani officials who were acting as a conduit between the U.S. and the Afghan fighters packed him and nine other Hekmatyar fighters into the back of a truck, covered it in a tarp so they wouldn’t see where they were going, and took them to a training camp in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
For a month, they practiced with dummy Stingers aimed at a hanging light. Pakistani officers then handed over real missiles to the eight successful graduates. One team headed to Kabul to shoot down troop-transport planes. The other, headed by Mr. Ghaffar, an engineer by training, was dispatched to go after the Hind helicopters.
As they parted, one Pakistani instructor tearfully called Mr. Wahab a “holy warrior” and reminded him to hit the switch that arms the missile’s heat-seeking device. After a two-day walk, the fighters spent the night of Sept. 25 in an abandoned village on the outskirts of Jalalabad. The next afternoon, Mr. Ghaffar and his men knelt down for prayers and then made their way into a farm field, where they spotted about 10 helicopters returning to the airfield.
The best student at Stinger camp, Mr. Wahab took the first shot. The missile made a whirring noise that changed tone as it locked onto a Hind. Mr. Wahab recited a prayer. “In the name of Allah, the supreme and almighty, God is great.” He recalls the Hind’s tail rotor breaking off, while the front section burst into flames and plummeted to earth, cockpit first.
“I’ll never forget that moment,” he says now. “Those helicopters had killed so many people, left so many orphans.”
Messrs. Ghaffar and Zalmai fired next. Mr. Wahab says neither missile hit a Hind; Mr. Ghaffar’s, he says, hit the ground, while Mr. Zalmai forgot the heat-seeker-arming switch.
Mr. Ghaffar remembers one missile hitting a helicopter, but says it could have been either one. Mr. Zalmai says he can’t recall for certain but admits he’s not a great marksman. (The CIA reported that three helicopters had gone down.)
What is certain is that Mr. Ghaffar then shouldered a spare Stinger and this time sent a Hind crashing to earth. Mr. Wahab recalls mujahedeen cheering when the helicopters went down. Terrified that the Soviets would send tanks after them, the three scampered back to Pakistan.
Mr. Ghaffar dined out on his success for months, meeting with the CIA and having tea in Peshawar with Rep. Charlie Wilson, the late Texas Democrat and relentless champion of the mujahedeen.
The Ghaffar team had proved the Stingers so effective that the CIA sent some 2,300 more. Soon the mujahedeen were shooting down helicopters, transport planes and jets in large numbers. “If we hadn’t used them correctly, they probably wouldn’t have provided any more Stingers for the Afghan jihad,” says Mr. Ghaffar. One Soviet squadron lost 13 of 40 planes in the year that followed, 10 to Stingers. The final Soviet troops retreated from Afghanistan in 1989, and the mujahedeen took Kabul in 1992.
“We wrote history—I miss those days,” says Mr. Ghaffar, now 54. A member of parliament, he denies accusations by some locals that he has become a land-grabbing power broker.
Mr. Zalmai, who estimates his age at 50, barely had a beard when he took to the mountains in 1980. He smiles when he remembers blowing the tracks off of Soviet tanks. “I was good at it,” he says. He admits that his memories are filtered through the haze of age and two brain-jarring attempts on his life during the current insurgency.
As a local administrator, Mr. Zalmai spends a good deal of time these days complaining that the Americans failed to consult him about plans to raze one government office to build another.
“When you’re young, you’re emotional about everything,” Mr. Zalmai says of his days as a jihadist. “When you’re old, everything can be solved by talking.”
After the Taliban takeover, Mr. Wahab fled to Pakistan, where he ran a fabric shop. After the Taliban fell, he returned to Afghanistan and landed the central-bank job. Now 49, he supervises commercial banks adjacent to the Khyber Pass, through which mujahedeen weapons and fighters once flowed.
“When I was a mujahedeen on a mountaintop, I’d see the lights of Jalalabad and wish I were there,” Mr. Wahab says. “Now when I’m in Jalalabad, I miss being in a stone hideout in the mountains with the mujahedeen.”
Mr. Wahab has little patience for today’s insurgents. “We had an enemy—the Russians,” he says. “These suicide bombers today attack Americans and Muslims. What’s the point?”
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
Most Popular Videos
[http://m.wsj.net/video/20161027/102716macbook2/102716macbook2_167x94.jpg]
First Look: Apple MacBook Pro Touch Bar
[http://m.wsj.net/video/20161027/102716klm/102716klm_167x94.jpg]
KLM to Make Final Dramatic Landing With 747
[http://m.wsj.net/video/20161027/102716opinionbill/102716opinionbill_167x94.jpg]
Opinion Journal: Bill Clinton Inc.
[http://m.wsj.net/video/20161028/102816iss/102816iss_167x94.jpg]
Take a Tour of the International Space Station
[http://m.wsj.net/video/20161028/102816csailor/102816csailor_167x94.jpg]
Chinese Sailor Lost at Sea During Trans-Pacific Voyage
Most Popular Articles
Megyn Kelly Seeks Salary North of $20 Million in Talks With Fox News
Megyn Kelly Seeks Salary North of $20 Million in Talks With Fox News
The Cold Clinton Reality
Opinion: The Cold Clinton Reality
Grifters-in-Chief
Opinion: Grifters-in-Chief
Amazon Takes Hit as Costs Surge
Amazon Takes Hit as Costs Surge
CenturyLink in Talks to Merge With Level 3 Communications
CenturyLink in Talks to Merge With Level 3 Communications
Failed to load comments
What To Read Next…
mlb
The Cubs Icon in Exile: Sammy Sosa
life & style
101 Rut-Busting Things to Do This Weekend
infogrfx slide show
Photos of the Day: Asia
ny politics
Schumer Rival Knows She Is the Long Shot
world news
Pakistan Moves to Quell Uprising Against Prime Minister
a-hed
Baby Boomers: Encase Me in Concrete and Dump Me in the Ocean
Wall Street Journal
Asia Edition
U.S.
Asia
Europe
India
América Latina
Brasil
中国 (China)
日本 (Japan)
Subscribe Sign In
TOP«
WSJ Membership
WSJ+ Membership Benefits
Digital Subscription
Print Subscription
Print and Digital Subscription
Why Subscribe?
Download WSJ Apps for iOS and Android
Corporate Subscriptions
Professor Journal
Student Journal
Customer Service
Customer Center
Live Help
Redesign Guided Tour
Notice to Subscribers
Tools & Features
Emails & Alerts
Guides
My News
RSS Feeds
Topics
Video Center
Watchlist
Podcasts
Ads
Advertise
Advertise Locally
Commercial Real Estate Ads
Place a Classified Ad
Sell Your Business
Sell Your Home
Recruitment & Career Ads
More
Content Partnerships
Corrections
Jobs at WSJ
News Archive
Register for Free
Reprints
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
YouTube
Podcasts
Snapchat
GooglePlay
AppStore
Windows10
Dow Jones Products Barron’s BigCharts DJX Dow Jones Newswires Factiva Financial News Mansion Global MarketWatch Private Markets realtor.com Risk & Compliance WSJ Conference WSJ Pro Central Banking WSJ Video WSJ Wine
Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Copyright Policy Data Policy Subscriber Agreement & Terms of Use Your Ad Choices