That John Walker Lindh was not tried for treason was one of our first failures of nerve in this long war. This is another: jihadis are chic and highlighted fulsomely by an establishment media that would never dream of featuring a foe of jihad violence in any similar way.
“REVEALED: ‘American Taliban’ John Walker Lindh who supported 9/11 and met with Bin Laden published anti-America op-ed under a new name as ‘former POW’ on the 20th anniversary of the attacks,” by Geoff Earle, DailyMail.com, September 20, 2021:
‘American Taliban’ John Walker Lindh has penned an op-ed under the name Yahya Lindh that was published on the day the nation marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
The bizarre opinion piece, published by The Intercept, does not identify the author as the notorious American who left his northern California home to fall in with the Taliban and met Osama bin Laden before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Headlined ‘The Guantánamo Bay Internment Camp Is an Unresolved Vestige of the American Occupation of Afghanistan,’ the article marks his most public overture since being released from prison after serving a 17-year sentence and otherwise maintaining a very low profile.
Its publication attracted little attention online amid the 9/11 commemorations when it appeared.
Although Lindh himself notes in the article that he ‘served as a Taliban infantryman in northern Afghanistan,’ the bio that accompanies the story leaves out significant parts of the background of the man who gained national attention after his capture in Afghanistan along with other Afghan and foreign fighters at the outset of the U.S.-led war
In it, he connects his own role in the war – fighting along with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance and surviving an uprising that resulted in the death of an American CIA officer – to the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, which became a symbol to opposition to US polities in the War on Terror.
He describes these events ‘due to their historical significance as well as their direct relationship to the unresolved issue of the Guantánamo Bay internment camp,’ a reference to the US military prison in Cuba.
Lindh pleaded guilty to providing support to the Taliban and of carrying a rifle and a grenade and served 17 years of a 20-year sentence in federal prison.
A brief bio description, which is accompanied by an image of a bearded Lindh, states: ‘Yahya Lindh is a writer, translator, and former prisoner of war. He is originally from Washington, D.C., and is currently based elsewhere in the Americas.’
An Intercept national security editor, Vanessa Gezari, tweeted about the article on Sept. 11th, when top US politicians had gathered in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon to mark the 9/11 anniversary.
‘A perspective you won’t read anywhere else – and an editing experience I’ll never forget. By war on terror Detainee 001, now known as Yahya Lindh, who has served his time and has a critical message for America,’ she wrote.
Detainee 001 is Lindh, who is the subject of a new Showtime documentary. The publication confirmed to DailyMail.com that the former John Walker Lindh is indeed the author.
Lindh also used the name in jailhouse correspondence with NBC, attaching the name Yahya Lindh to his writings on lined paper, where he called himself a political prisoner despite his guilty plea. It also appears in some court documents.
‘We are in prison due to our beliefs and the practice of our religion, not for committing any crime,’ he wrote in 2014, although he would later make a guilty plea in federal court.
Asked why Lindh was not more fully identified, an Intercept spokesman responded: ‘The article clearly and prominently explains that the author served as a Taliban infantryman. Lindh’s bio, which is included with the article, also makes his identity clear, noting that he’s a “former prisoner of war.” Lindh has identified himself as Yahya for years, including in court documents.’
Lindh was released from prison in 2019, after serving out 17 years of his sentence in a Terre Haute, Indiana facility