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Getting Away with Murder: The Real Story Behind American Taliban John Walker Lindh and What the U.S. Government Had to Hide
A provocative critique of the Bush administration's dealings with the Taliban in Afghanistan profiles John Walker Lindh, the American accused of fighting for the Taliban, the murder of Mike Spann during an uprising at the Qala-e Janghi fortress, and the legal machinations that followed during LIndh's trial for participating in the killing. 100,000 first printing.
296 pages, Hardcover
First published June 10, 2004
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June 5, 2024
WAS LINDH OFFERED A DEAL TO COVER UP THE BUSH ADMINISTATION’S “UNCLEAN HANDS”?
Richard D. Mahoney was Arizona’s Secretary of State of Arizona (1991-1995), and is the director of the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “At the periphery now of popular memory is the story of a gruesome prison uprising during the American invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001, a battle in which we discovered that an American was fighting for the Taliban and that another, a CIA paramilitary, was murdered by Al-Qaeda-trained prisoners. In the hail of coverage about the American Taliban … and the all-American hero who died, Johnny Michael Spann, the media presented a classic story of bravery and treason. The truth, in fact, is disturbingly different from that, and involves a tangle of deceit and misdirection that has yet to be revealed. The central questions of this book are twofold: first, did [John W.] Lindh conspire to murder Lindh, and if so, why did he get away with it? Even more important: why did the Bush administration, having vowed to make an example of Lindh, suddenly stop his trial hours before it was scheduled to begin? The answer is explosive.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “This book examines how America itself enabled the rise of terrorism. A generation before… the United States had conspired to arm a violent rabble of Islamic fundamentalists in order to eviscerate the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan… Why did we permit two of our supposedly close allies, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, free rein in advancing and financing Al-Qaeda? Was Washington asleep at the switch, or rather, sleeping with the devil? Much of the answer to that question is bound up in the crusade of one FBI special agent, John O’Neill, to sound the alarm in Washington before it was too late… This book sets forth the world of three warriors and, in so doing provides an authentic allegory of America’s war on terror. Mike Spann, John O’Neill, and John Lindh saw themselves as soldiers in a battle of civilizations.” (Pg. 2, 4)
He observes of the interrogations (including O’Neill) after the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole, “the names ‘Khallad’ and ‘Almihdhar’ were mentioned as principals in the plot. These were two of the six men whose pictures and names the CIA had received from the Al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. Had the CIA shared its information about Almihdhar with O’Neill or put his name on the terrorist watch list, he would almost certainly have been arrested on his reentry into the United States en route to the mission on September 11.” (Pg. 96)
He notes, “Mike Spann was an old-fashioned, true-blue, do-it-right type of person, entirely uninterested in rank or remuneration… He wanted difficult work---and he was about to get it. It is worth asking whether Spann knew what he was getting into in joining the operational end of the CIA as a covert operative… [In books about the CIA] there is a definitely negative portrayal of the paramilitary unit Mike was joining.” (Pg. 127-128)
He points out, “O’Neill had done his passionate best. In Yemen he had opened the major leads that should have led to the disruption of the 9/11 plot, if only he had remained in the loop. He WOULD have connected the dots and he WOULD have gone straight to the top… to stop the World Trade Center assault.” (Pg. 182)
He suggests, “Two days after the [9/11] cataclysm, in a country still reeling from the terrorist attacks… something else occurred that revealed Washington’s pernicious compromise with the Saudis… Member of the bin Laden family, with the approval of the administration, were also spirited out of the country. At least one of the bin Ladens who made their escape, Abdullah, had been under FBI investigation for his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, a suspected terrorist financing organization… FBI agents had protested their inability to board the outgoing plane before it took off… While thousands were being detained and interrogate, over one hundred nationals from the state that had financially sponsored Al-Qaeda, a state from which fifteen of the nineteen terrorist-hijackers held passports, escaped unscathed and unquestioned. The difference? Those individuals benefitted from a ‘special relationship.’” (Pg. 186-187)
After Lindh had been captured, “Perhaps we can accept that Lindh found bin laden uninspiring… What is more difficult to believe are sentiments demonstrating his ignorance of bin Laden’s bloody purpose, or his claim that he had never even heard the words ‘Al-Qaeda’ at the camp. The trainers in the camp were Al-Qaeda… funded by Al-Qaeda was the revered leader of Al-Qaeda, but Lindh had never heard of Al-Qaeda?... [Lindh’s] subsequent responses weeks and months later is noteworthy… ‘I tell you, to be honest,’ Lindh replied, ‘every single one of us… was 100 percent sure that we would all be … martyred.’ … The CNN interview demonstrates Lindh’s clear intent to be a martyr in the cause of jihad.” (Pg. 215)
He concludes, “If the trial of John Walker Lindh had gone forward, as it should have, we would also have seen… the government on trial, not just for the malicious tactics the defense team had already brought to light but for the selective prosecution of his client…. Who, in fact, out of a brazen greed had opened the door to Saudi double-dealing with Al-Qaeda?... that trial might have touched off a national debate about the ‘collateral damage’ we have so easily consigned as the patriotic right of government. The death of Mike Spann, for example. Whether John Walker Lindh got away with murder remains an unanswered question. Whether the American government got away with murder is increasingly in question. Did the administration’s policy of preemption, and specifically the decision to seize oil-rich countries, lead to an even more systematic sellout to the Saudi royal family, including giving it clandestine agents in the U.S. the unrestricted ability to interact with Al-Qaeda terrorists? Is this the reason why the twenty-eight pages that spell out the evidence of official Saudi complicity in 9/11 were excised by the Bush White House from the public release of Congress’s joint inquiry report?... Did the Bush administration cut John Walker Lindh a plea deal to conceal its own unclean hands?” (Pg. 234)
Mahoney’s book poses far more questions than it professes to answer. It will be of interest to those interested in Lindh, Spann, and O’Neill, or critics of the Bush administration’s handling of 9/11.
Richard D. Mahoney was Arizona’s Secretary of State of Arizona (1991-1995), and is the director of the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “At the periphery now of popular memory is the story of a gruesome prison uprising during the American invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001, a battle in which we discovered that an American was fighting for the Taliban and that another, a CIA paramilitary, was murdered by Al-Qaeda-trained prisoners. In the hail of coverage about the American Taliban … and the all-American hero who died, Johnny Michael Spann, the media presented a classic story of bravery and treason. The truth, in fact, is disturbingly different from that, and involves a tangle of deceit and misdirection that has yet to be revealed. The central questions of this book are twofold: first, did [John W.] Lindh conspire to murder Lindh, and if so, why did he get away with it? Even more important: why did the Bush administration, having vowed to make an example of Lindh, suddenly stop his trial hours before it was scheduled to begin? The answer is explosive.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “This book examines how America itself enabled the rise of terrorism. A generation before… the United States had conspired to arm a violent rabble of Islamic fundamentalists in order to eviscerate the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan… Why did we permit two of our supposedly close allies, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, free rein in advancing and financing Al-Qaeda? Was Washington asleep at the switch, or rather, sleeping with the devil? Much of the answer to that question is bound up in the crusade of one FBI special agent, John O’Neill, to sound the alarm in Washington before it was too late… This book sets forth the world of three warriors and, in so doing provides an authentic allegory of America’s war on terror. Mike Spann, John O’Neill, and John Lindh saw themselves as soldiers in a battle of civilizations.” (Pg. 2, 4)
He observes of the interrogations (including O’Neill) after the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole, “the names ‘Khallad’ and ‘Almihdhar’ were mentioned as principals in the plot. These were two of the six men whose pictures and names the CIA had received from the Al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. Had the CIA shared its information about Almihdhar with O’Neill or put his name on the terrorist watch list, he would almost certainly have been arrested on his reentry into the United States en route to the mission on September 11.” (Pg. 96)
He notes, “Mike Spann was an old-fashioned, true-blue, do-it-right type of person, entirely uninterested in rank or remuneration… He wanted difficult work---and he was about to get it. It is worth asking whether Spann knew what he was getting into in joining the operational end of the CIA as a covert operative… [In books about the CIA] there is a definitely negative portrayal of the paramilitary unit Mike was joining.” (Pg. 127-128)
He points out, “O’Neill had done his passionate best. In Yemen he had opened the major leads that should have led to the disruption of the 9/11 plot, if only he had remained in the loop. He WOULD have connected the dots and he WOULD have gone straight to the top… to stop the World Trade Center assault.” (Pg. 182)
He suggests, “Two days after the [9/11] cataclysm, in a country still reeling from the terrorist attacks… something else occurred that revealed Washington’s pernicious compromise with the Saudis… Member of the bin Laden family, with the approval of the administration, were also spirited out of the country. At least one of the bin Ladens who made their escape, Abdullah, had been under FBI investigation for his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, a suspected terrorist financing organization… FBI agents had protested their inability to board the outgoing plane before it took off… While thousands were being detained and interrogate, over one hundred nationals from the state that had financially sponsored Al-Qaeda, a state from which fifteen of the nineteen terrorist-hijackers held passports, escaped unscathed and unquestioned. The difference? Those individuals benefitted from a ‘special relationship.’” (Pg. 186-187)
After Lindh had been captured, “Perhaps we can accept that Lindh found bin laden uninspiring… What is more difficult to believe are sentiments demonstrating his ignorance of bin Laden’s bloody purpose, or his claim that he had never even heard the words ‘Al-Qaeda’ at the camp. The trainers in the camp were Al-Qaeda… funded by Al-Qaeda was the revered leader of Al-Qaeda, but Lindh had never heard of Al-Qaeda?... [Lindh’s] subsequent responses weeks and months later is noteworthy… ‘I tell you, to be honest,’ Lindh replied, ‘every single one of us… was 100 percent sure that we would all be … martyred.’ … The CNN interview demonstrates Lindh’s clear intent to be a martyr in the cause of jihad.” (Pg. 215)
He concludes, “If the trial of John Walker Lindh had gone forward, as it should have, we would also have seen… the government on trial, not just for the malicious tactics the defense team had already brought to light but for the selective prosecution of his client…. Who, in fact, out of a brazen greed had opened the door to Saudi double-dealing with Al-Qaeda?... that trial might have touched off a national debate about the ‘collateral damage’ we have so easily consigned as the patriotic right of government. The death of Mike Spann, for example. Whether John Walker Lindh got away with murder remains an unanswered question. Whether the American government got away with murder is increasingly in question. Did the administration’s policy of preemption, and specifically the decision to seize oil-rich countries, lead to an even more systematic sellout to the Saudi royal family, including giving it clandestine agents in the U.S. the unrestricted ability to interact with Al-Qaeda terrorists? Is this the reason why the twenty-eight pages that spell out the evidence of official Saudi complicity in 9/11 were excised by the Bush White House from the public release of Congress’s joint inquiry report?... Did the Bush administration cut John Walker Lindh a plea deal to conceal its own unclean hands?” (Pg. 234)
Mahoney’s book poses far more questions than it professes to answer. It will be of interest to those interested in Lindh, Spann, and O’Neill, or critics of the Bush administration’s handling of 9/11.
December 5, 2024
another example of government corruption
The author has written a comprehensive book about America’s involvement in Afghanistan and the death of a CIA agent, Mike Spahn. The subsequent discovery of an American Taliban, John walker Lindh, adds to the tragic story following a horrific battle. This superb book only adds doubt to the motives behind decisions made by our leaders during times of war. I highly recommend this book.
The author has written a comprehensive book about America’s involvement in Afghanistan and the death of a CIA agent, Mike Spahn. The subsequent discovery of an American Taliban, John walker Lindh, adds to the tragic story following a horrific battle. This superb book only adds doubt to the motives behind decisions made by our leaders during times of war. I highly recommend this book.
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