Mesa Legend - IDEAS 1


Volume 39, Issue 10. Today is .

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Volume 39, Issue 10
February 12, 2002

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Under the influence
Legend's View

Those of us in our tumultuous 20s, slaving through courses at MCC, are no doubt on a most important quest - to find ourselves. No, perhaps studying isn't that profound for the majority of us. A lucky minority knows exactly what field they want to get into and will not waiver until a degree is in their possession.

But some of us in the "Generation Y" brood, who are products of the last two, very confusing decades, are indeed on a journey to find ourselves, to magnify our talents and make a significant contribution to our little corner of the world.

John Walker Lindh, now considered a traitor by many American patriots, has definitely made history.

Indeed, the world must have been shocked at the sight of a near mortally-wounded 20-year-old white American, Islamic beard and all, relaying the details of a horrific prison uprising to CNN. Lindh was fighting alongside the enemy - the Taliban.

Immediately, the media hurried to find out this kid's story. He was from a seemingly upright, upper-middle class suburban California home. He loved hip-hop.

But Lindh, no doubt fueled by at least a small portion of modern liberal brainwashing, decided to flee from his comfortable environs to study pure Islam in Yemen.

True to spoiled, suburbanite form, Mom and Dad footed the bill.

What Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh didn't realize was that they were funding a most dangerous pilgrimage. Their son became a so-called Islam fundamentalist, at a ripe-young age; the Taliban have been capitalizing on impressionable young men for years, building an army of soldiers as unafraid to die for Allah as any Green Beret would for freedom.

We've already heard the politics in this most unusual case; Lindh is facing charges of conspiring to kill Americans abroad and supporting Osama Bin Laden's al Qadea terrorist network.

Walker may serve a life sentence in prison.

But what of the psychology behind this episode?

In the grand tradition of Charles Manson's family and David Koresh's fated Branch Davidians in Waco, Lindh stumbled into an organization he underestimated and that organization claimed him.

How many of you 20-somethings are prepared to give your life for something you believe in?

Was Lindh truly willing to give his own life or take other lives in defense of the Taliban?

The answer is: yes. He was painfully self-aware of his actions. Lindh was more than ready to die and he was probably dreaming of greeting 67 virgins in the Islamic afterlife.

But how could a young mind have been so drastically shaped by militant men harboring terrorism in their own country?

By now, nearly all Americans are aware of how brutally the Taliban, before it fell, ruled over its citizens - through fear, mass-murders and public executions.

That any American would take up arms to defend a government like the Taliban is unthinkable. It's shocking. Lindh has even spoken of his extensive training in al Qaeda's Afghanistan camps. He should be held fully responsible for his actions.

Americans who cherish human rights will leave Lindh's fate in the hands of the U.S. government; a government that, unlike that Taliban he defended, will at least provide Lindh with a fair trial.

All we can do is safeguard young minds from dangerous propaganda, which manifests itself in many forms - politics, music, pop-culture. Anti-American views simply have no place in a society still grappling with the shock of post-Sept. 11 life.

But our right to pursue our own beliefs, and publicly state them, is absolute in this country - let's not turn our backs on the country that safeguards this right.

Lindh may not have the opportunity to rediscover himself. His bold Islamic reformation just might be his fate, and, unlike Lindh, most of us will still have the luxury to learn from our adolescent mistakes.

Under the influence Legend's View

Under the influence
Legend's View