John Walker Lindh never got a trial.

[Swede]

His lawyer convinced him pleading guilty and getting a 20 year sentence was his safest option. I would have hired another lawyer.

http://www.lindhdefense.info/20020613_FactsSuppSuppress.pdf

[951-Riverside]

1. Didnt they halfway kill him in a Californian Prison?

[emlev]

6. My recollection is that he is from CA but was imprisoned elsewhere n/t

[Shakespeare]

7. No, he's in prison in SoCal. n/t

[jim3775]

2. I think the other option would be to go to trial...

be convicted for treason and be executed. I think he made a good choice.

[Selatius]

3. Would you risk the death penalty? Or 20 years in prison?

If you chose risking the death penalty in trying to uphold your principles, my hat goes off to you. If you chose to plead guilty, there will be no judgment from my quarter, only understanding.

[daleo]

4. That is a problem with the death penalty

Innocent people do plead to lesser charges, because they can't risk the death penalty, especially if they can't afford a quality lawyer. I don't know for sure if this applies in the case under discussion, though.

[EFerrari]

5. When this guy went to fight for the Taliban

THEY WERE OUR ALLIES!

Think about that, for a freaking moment.

And when they caught him, they tortured him and denied him the civil liberties any American citizen should be able to count on.

Who is next?

Sure, he was a stupid kid. But he was a stupid kid that joined up with our allies and was caught in the chaos.

This case is a Bush signature case. It's rampant thuggery. And it could be any one of our kids, caught up in rapidly changing alliances.

This kid never leveled a weapon at an American soldier. And yet, he was subject to torture for being iin the wrong place at the wrong time. This kid never declared jihad on America. And yet, he is being treated as a terrorist.

Are your children safer than this kid?

[Nimrod2005]

15. Right on....

[thefool_wa]

8. I cannot believe this

I read the entire Proffer and, if my understanding is correct, Lindh left America to join the Taliban and fight the Northern Alliance in what was at the time an intra-moslem conflict. He did not go there to learn how to make bombs with the intent of coming back here and blowing things up. He didn't even have a chance to participate in a battle with American forces, never fired a shot at an american soldier, and did ALL of this (except get captured) BEFORE 9/11.

So why is this guy the poster-boy for american traitors. It sounds to me like he wanted to help in a fight he believed in against a group that was an enemy of ours, and then an ally all during the span of the events described. He did not kill Americans, did not try and overthrow the government here, and was not trying to become a terrorist.

This stinks, and really bad. There are SOOOOOO many domestic and international laws broken here that I am disgusted with my country. Does anyone know if he ever renounced his US citizenship? I understand that, had there been a battle with American troops he most likely would have fired on them, but if he renounced his citizenship doesn't that make him a prisoner of war?

Things go from bad to worse every day anymore, I wonder where it will end.

[BrotherBuzz]

9. The national hysteria of that time required a boogymen to demonize

Reflect on the words of Lee Harvey Oswald, "I'm a patsy. They just picked me up because I'm a communist."

[Lex]

10. John Walker's Blues

I'm just an American boy raised on MTV
And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads
But none of 'em looked like me
So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
Of Mohammed, peace be upon him

chorus:
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
There is no God but God

If my daddy could see me now – chains around my feet
He don't understand that sometimes a man
Has got to fight for what he believes
And I believe God is great, all praise due to him
And if I should die, I'll rise up to the sky
Just like Jesus, peace be upon him

chorus

We came to fight the Jihad and our hearts were pure and strong
As death filled the air, we all offered up prayers
And prepared for our martyrdom
But Allah had some other plan, some secret not revealed
Now they're draggin' me back with my head in a sack
To the land of the infidel

A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah


Artist/Band: Earle Steve
Lyrics for Song:John Walker's Blues
Lyrics for Album: Jerusalem

[LWolf]

11. I love this song.

It highlights the confused idealism of youth, regardless of how it's expressed. It's a regular on my playlist.

[Lex]

12. It's haunting and beautiful and

all those things you said too.

Steve Earle caught a lot of sh*t from the nut-job righties after he released it. They have ZERO ability to understand it.

[LWolf]

13. haunting....yes.

That captures the quality I wasn't sure of how to express.

Think of how frightening it would be to the poor right-wing idealogues to look at the world through someone else's eyes or experience, to feel empathy, or to see the commonalities that people share across ideologies. For those whose comfort, safety, and security derive from closed minds, ears, and hearts, from embracing sameness and distrusting difference, there would be zero ability to connect with anything outside their enclosed little prison.

[TheGunslinger]

14. Steve Earle is a voice of the revolution for sure.