CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, January 28, 2002

A viewer’s guide to the trial of Jihad Johnny

The recent anti-American statements of Hollywood film and TV director, Robert Altman, and the unfounded allegations by the London Daily Mail that those captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan are being mistreated are symptomatic of the seething hatred of America by the Hollywood Left and the left-leaning, American and world media. See Bias, Bernard Goldberg’s insider expose of left-wing media bias.

You will see this hatred of things American unfold in the trial of John Walker Lindh. The America-can-do-no-right crowd will claim that Jihad Johnny was mistreated from the time of his capture and that his mistreatment continues to this day. Never mind that he has gained weight under our care.

His defense lawyer will try, as any good defense attorney would, to have the massive amount of evidence that Johnny was an able and willing member of a terrorist organization; that he was praised, in person, by Osama bin Laden; and that Johnny knew, well in advance, that bin Laden planned a terrorist attack on his homeland and did nothing – not even protest – excluded from admission into evidence.

His lawyer will argue, as any good defense attorney would, that his client should have been afforded a defense attorney prior to being questioned. But in previous wars, there has been no requirement that we wait to question captured prisoners until a lawyer can be summoned to advise them.

It is so rare that we capture our own citizens taking up arms against us that we do not require our troop units to carry a Perry Mason along with them just in case of the unlikely event that an American citizen will be captured on the battlefield. But the American Left will not buy that rationale. We will be faulted for not providing Walker a lawyer before he left Afghanistan or for not flying a defense attorney 10,000 miles from the U.S.A. to the warship in the Arabian Sea where he was detained until just recently. No matter that Johnny waived both orally and in writing and on videotape his Miranda rights and his right to have a lawyer present while being questioned.

All good Americans want John Walker Lindh to have a fair trial, but watch for the Left to idolize him as a former altar boy who didn’t find what he was looking for in the Christian faith. In search for what Hillary Clinton lauded as: “the politics of meaning,” Jihad Johnny found Islam at age 16 and converted. The Left will argue that he saw the wretched excesses of life in affluent Marin County and was repulsed by it.

The Left will argue that once Johnny went abroad and lived among the impoverished followers of Islam, he saw the United States for what it is: the home to a small fraction of the Earth’s population yet in possession of the overwhelming majority of the world’s material riches. He became so enamoured of the righteousness of the cause of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban that he was willing to take up arms against the opulence of the Judeo-Christian world and in support of his Muslim co-religionists.

So, who will be baying in support of this poor, misguided altar boy from a broken home in Marin County? Who will be wrapping themselves in the Flag, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in defense of Johnny while attempting to make it appear that the Ku Klux Klan is running our judicial system? In addition to the ACLU watch for: U.S. Senators: Christopher Dodd, Joseph R. Biden, John F. Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Paul Wellstone, Patrick Leahy, James Jeffords; Congresspersons John Conyers, Tom Lantos, Pete Stark, Henry Waxman, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Alcee Hastings, Cynthia McKinney, John Lewis, Patsy Mink, Barney Frank, David Bonior, Charles Rangel, Sheila Jackson Lee, Bernard Sanders and David Obey to swoon over Jihad Johnny.

Presidential hopefuls Senator Tom Daschle and Congressman Dick Gephardt will keep a low profile. Republican Senator Arlen Specter will, as usual, make noises just to get attention.

Now, you know the cast. Just sit back and watch the play.

William Hamilton, a nationally syndicated columnist and featured commentator for USA Today, is the co-author The Grand Conspiracy by William Penn – a novel about terrorism in the Colorado high country.

©2002. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com