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IN
THIS WEEK'S Newsweek
we learn that American Taliban is no longer just a figure of speech. Colin
Soloway reports that one of the 86 survivors of the Mazar-i-Sharif prison
uprising, a filthy looking jihadist going by the name "Abdul
Hamid," is actually "a white, apparently middle-class American, a
convert to Islam" who grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and
(are you surprised?) Northern California.
A companion piece, a Newsweek "web exclusive", provides more
biographical detail. There we learn that 20-year-old Abdul, raised John
Phillip Walker Lindh, is a "sweet, shy kid" who "wanted to
study somewhere where [Islam] is practiced in its purest form." That
would be his mother speaking. Now, there's not much larger significance to
this story that I can see, but it does nicely illustrate two enduring
motifs in American journalism.
1) This is a big country. A population of 250-plus million makes for
lots of oddballs, a surprising number of whom eventually hook up with
reporters.
And 2) Where do they find these parents? On the face of it, John Phillip
"Abdul Hamid" Walker Lindh, now reportedly in the custody of
American Special Forces, looks likely to be tried for treason. And his
parents, who one assumes must be distraught beyond measure, nonetheless
babble to reporters about what a good boy he is. That, and give evidence
that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Here's Dad, a lawyer by the way: "When the U.S.S. Cole was bombed
as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden in October of 2000, killing 17
U.S. sailors, father and son had an uncomfortable e-mail exchange. Frank
says he was upset that the dead sailors were the same age as his son. John
seemed to have a more casual view of the attack, which U.S. authorities
blamed on operatives of Osama bin Laden. He suggested that the U.S. ship
should never have been there in the first place, and that by docking in an
Islamic country, had committed an 'act of war.' The bombing, John implied,
was a justified response. Lindh says he was 'concerned' by his son's views,
but felt that since John was an adult, there was little he could do to
change them. 'It was clear he had developed a different point of view,'
says Lindh. 'My days of molding him were over.'"
Maybe his days of molding his son were over, but he was still paying his
bills. When "Abdul" e-mailed his parents in April that he was
going to leave the madrassah in Pakistan and go "somewhere
cooler" (Afghanistan), Dad wired $1,200.
Mom, meanwhile, thinks if "he got involved with the Taliban he must
have been brainwashed." But she is proud of him and seems to have been
supportive when he dropped out of high school to study the Koran at a San
Francisco mosque, and then spent a year in Yemen as a 17-year-old attending
the Yemeni Language Institute.
Someone in this family may have been brainwashed, but it doesn't sound
like it was Abdul, the Marin County jihadist.
Postscript: Multiculturalists will be pleased to learn that Abdul
Hamid's parents say he decided to convert after being assigned to read
"The Autobiography of Malcolm X" in high school. It's always
uplifting to be reminded that books can change people's lives, right? What
do you want to bet Alex Haley's classic isn't on as many high schools'
required reading lists by next fall as it is now.
Richard Starr is a managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
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