Anthony D. Romero has been executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union since September 2001. He lives in New York City.

Dina Temple-Raston's previous books include A Death in Texas and Justice on the Grass. She lives in New York City.

In Defense of Our America

The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of TerrorBy Anthony Romero

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2008 Anthony Romero
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061142574

Chapter One

Finding John

The timeline of John Walker Lindh's journey from northern California teenager to the "American Taliban" is marked with dates in boldface. November 1992: John Walker Lindh sees the movie Malcolm X and begins to mull the possibility of converting to Islam. Spring 1997: John passes the California proficiency exam, allowing him to test out of the public high school system. Fall 1997: John starts taking history and politics classes at a local community college. Winter 1997: John's conversion is complete. He declares himself a Muslim. Summer 1998: John goes to Yemen to learn Arabic so that he can commit the Koran to memory as Muslim teacher-scholars, his aspiration, must do. May 2001: John e-mails his parents and tells them he is going to travel to the mountains to escape Pakistan's searing summer heat. September 6, 2001: John goes to the front line of a battle between Taliban forces and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. December 3, 2001: John's picture and his introduction as the "American Taliban" appear on the Internet. January 15, 2002: Attorney General John Ashcroft declares John a terrorist. October 4, 2002: John is formally sentenced to 20 years in prison.

It was just five short years, but each date marked a chronology of heartbreak for Frank and Marilyn Lindh. They watched the events unfold with disbelief from the moment they realized their son was in Afghanistan until his sentencing. "The whole experience was my own personal big bang," Marilyn later said. "My life came apart and my family was under siege. Everyone keeps trying to find out what was wrong with John. Nothing was wrong with John. Everyone tried to blame us. Nothing is wrong with our family. Instead this was the most striking example of demonizing someone who doesn't see things the same way as other people I have ever seen."

Frank Lindh had just emerged from an early evening showing of Billy Bob Thornton's The Man Who Wasn't There when he noticed a message flashing on his cell phone. Lindh was a soft-spoken man, with a handsome face and lanky frame. He had the look of a runner, and his even temper and problem-solving demeanor were almost those of an Atticus Finch.

The voice mail was from his ex-wife, Marilyn. "Call me right away, it is about John," it said. Marilyn Lindh was not a woman prone to hyperbole. Tall and thin with long flowing hair and bangs, she exuded a sense of quiet and balance. For that reason, the tightness in her voice rattled Frank. He hurried to his car and drove up the road to Marilyn's house.

Frank and Marilyn Lindh had managed to construct one of those rare friendly divorces. They made decisions about their children together without rancor. They attended school plays sitting side by side. They shared the inevitable ferrying around of children as they went to soccer games or drama practice with good-natured compromise. The younger Lindhs were as likely to be found at their father's house on any given evening as they were their mother's. And after the divorce, when the Lindh parents sent letters and small notes to their children, they signed them with the slightly dated honorifics of "Mama" and "Papa."

Why a modern American would join forces with the Taliban would be the question that millions of Americans would later ask?including President Bush. The question would haunt John Walker Lindh for the rest of his life. His path to the Taliban would be a circuitous one, and it would take all of three years to complete.

John was the Lindhs' middle child, sandwiched between Connell, his older brother, and Naomi, a younger sister who idolized him. John was a smart child, though he had always been a little introverted. He was the kind of boy who would ask for Japanese language tapes for Christmas one year and Gaelic tapes the next. He had an affinity for languages and music, and his parents, to the extent they could, tried to foster those interests. John suffered from chronic diarrhea, most likely caused by a parasite, which dramatically affected his ability to go to school. The school district, because of his many health-related absences, sent tutors to home-school him. That alone made him different. It made him solitary and by turns shy. He had beautiful hair and large brown eyes when he was little, and when people commented on it, Marilyn could see John's writhing discomfort. "He hated attention," she said.

When he was little, Men at Work, an Australian pop group, was constantly playing on the radio. Their hit was a song called "Be Good." His father used to sing the song to John. The song had one voiceover that said: "So, tell me what kind of boy are you, John?" When his father used to sing it to him, John was embarrassed but in that secretly delighted way children are when their parents dote on them.The song was the furthest thing from Frank Lindh's mind when he walked into his wife's house. Marilyn had a poster of Pakistan up on the wall in her entryway. She had always kept close tabs on John when he went overseas. She marked the four or five cities on the map where John had been with push pins. It seemed like as good a way as any to keep track of him.

For a man who would later go to fight for the misogynistic Taliban, John thrived in a family of strong women. In addition to having strong bonds with his mother and his paternal grandmother, Kate, John had developed a particularly close relationship with his sister, Naomi, eight years his junior. He was the protective older brother outside on the streets, and a nurturing buddy at home. After school, John would whip up some macaroni and cheese for the two to share. Frank and Marilyn were used to coming home to find their two youngest kids talking furiously with their mouths full of cheesy pasta.

Continues...
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