Actually, the plea bargain was probably a good deal for the prosecution. If he hadn’t plea bargained, his lawyer had intended to move that the information obtained by the initial interviews with Lindh (while he was in Afghanistan and coming over here), which was the backbone of the prosecution’s case, be inadmissable. If Lindh’s attorney had succeeded in doing so (and he very well might have. Lindh didn’t have legal representation for the interviews, and was in a position in which he felt disoriented and threatened), prosecuting him would have been difficult.
I don’t give a rats ass about him one way or another. I just think he is an idiot that was in the wrong place at the right time and 20 is just fine a punishment for being a stupid asshole. Too bad his parents couldn’t get a year or two also.
No matter what happened to him, he was screwed. He’ll probbaly have all kinds of rotten things happen to him in prison, which may possibly include getting beaten to death. If he was acquitted, he would probably get killed by someone on the street since he’s long been convicted in the court of public opinion.
Citizenship or no, I still refuse to judge this guy. I haven’t seen (and it’s my opinion that there isn’t) enough evidence of what he supposedly did to get a conviction. I’m not saying he’s totally innocent, but I am saying that there probably would be enough reasonable doubt to possibly get an acquittal. If the case was that strong, why not go with it?
Well, for what it’s worth, here’s my contribution to this overheated discussion.
The kid himself is largely irrelevant to this thing. We really don’t much care what he did and when he did it. The kid is a symbol, some would say a straw man, for the whole complex of radical America haters. We haven’t been able to get our hands on the brains and money, maybe because we have commercial interests in leaving them alone, at least the part that has a connection to Middle Eastern oil, so we have fallen on some poor schmuck of a rear ranks private and held him up as the appropriate object of our vengeance. Now, because the kid is being dealt with in an institution that traditionally deals with actual fact instead of ideology, demagoguery and political spin, there has been an out come that falls short of satisfying a general wish for retribution for the dead in NYC, DC and Western Pennsylvania and the general insult to our sense of safety. The reality is that in a well run judicial system the rabble rousers of the peoples courts and the committees of public safety seldom get their way.
Remember that the kid has come to our attention only because he claimed the rights of a citizen and was able to have his situation disposed of in a regular court. You can’t help but remember that St. Paul also claimed the rights of a citizen–a significant factor in the preservation of his purported correspondence. Think of the literally hundreds of anonymous young men imprisoned at Gitmo for doing the same thing the kid did without benefit of a claim to the protections of the American Courts. Think of the hundreds if not thousands of young men who were caught up in the Nazi and Italian Fascist war machines who had been US residents and citizens. We did not go chasing after them and try to make them the scapegoats for the horrors of the Second World War. Why should this kid carry all the guilt of September Eleven?
Clearly he should bear the consequences of his own behavior, but it is irrational, unjust and disingenuous to try to make this slow leak a surigate for OBL.
Write when you get out, gato.
Yo, gato: exactly what crime did the parents commit?
I’m with the group that believes he was an extremely naive protected kid who got in way over his head. In another time, maybe he’d have been with Jim Jones instead of the Taliban. Even young and easily swayed people must bear responsibility for their actions. It would be interesting to have his complete story - including the reasoning behind the thoughts expressed in his anti-American emails to his mother.
What pisses me off is his father comparing him to Nelson Mandela. With that man for a father, it’s probably not surprising that the kid went off looking for something of substance in his life.
Nelson Mandela, for heaven’s sake!!!
That’s quite a stretch, Gelding, comparing this American’s actions with those of the regular Taliban against forces of the United States. He was fighting his own people. Actually, so were they before the Americans got there, but that’s for the the new Afghan government to deal with. Those men are lucky they are in Guantanimo instead of Kabul. At least in Cuba they get fed and don’t get tortured or killed.
As for JWL’s asking for the rights of an American citizen, he was such a deeply committed member of the Taliban that as soon as the odds changed the little chickenshit deserted his fanatic comrades to save himself. “Don’t shoot, I’m an AMERICAN.” He wasn’t able to be loyal to anybody. If we aren’t going to mete out real justice to him, I wonder what he thinks Allah will do. He’s going to have twenty years in prison to think about it. I’m not satisfied with that, but it’s better than nothing.
This President only chokes on salted snack foods twisted into a satisfying shape. Sometimes he chokes on his twisted sentences, but that does not change his unmitigated grateness. Twenty years is a long time for this little turd to contemplate the errors of his way. While I would like to see the liberals frightened into silence by his execution, I’m just going to have to live with my disappointment.
Quisling was far guiltier than JWL, having invited the invading forces and approved atrocities as a puppet dictator. Where is the equivilency if guys like Aldrich Ames, Robert Hannsen and John Walker (no relation) don’t get the death penalty when they betrayed a trust and got Americans and intelligence assets killed? JWL getting twenty years for being a jerk is something that doesn’t cheese me off too much in light of the full facts. But these other guys? The only thing that could justify a life sentence instead of death would be a life sentence of watching Oprah.
As for liberals being traitors and me being full of shit, you are entitled to your opinion, and I’m entitled to mine. Liberals have loyalty oaths, lie detectors, drug testing and bans on flag burning for half a century, and they have even argued that Alger Hiss wasn’t a communist. Well if Whittaker Chambers, winner of the Medal of Freedom from the Great Ronald Reagan, denounces someone for being a commie, that is good enough for me. They fight all of these things because when combined, these methods of ensuring loyalty work! Druggies are liberals, and liberals don’t want to be tested. They recruit youngsters to take drugs to perpetuate their libertine lifestyle. The refuse lie detectors because they don’t want to be found out as liars! They oppose loyalty oaths because they are disloyal. Use some sense. Take them at their word. If we had taken Marx seriously, we might have been able to avoid a century of communism.
“Unmitigated greatness”? You don’t write trailers for movies do ya?
I’d like to see him executed, too, and I think of myself as largly liberal, though not by your twisted definition.
I agree with you. They should have been executed, and so should JWL. Traitors should die. Period.
Huh? Liberals have always argued against those things.
The Hiss case is fodder for a different thread, but your “that is good enough for me” quote is really sad. But I guess it’s only natural that you will become confused when you speak from someone else’s mind.
Drug tests, lie detectors and loyalty oaths are all subjects for their own threads. But your positive assertion that people who oppose you on these topics are disloyal, lying druggies does not rise to the level of debate. Suggesting that anyone who is politically liberal is, ipso facto, a dealer of drugs to children is way beyond offensive. Liberals are not libertines, as a trip to your dictionary would reveal. You don’t like being called full of shit, when you claim that anybody whose political philosophy differs from yours is a traitor? You stand convicted by your own words. You ARE full of shit. Godbye!
Actually, part of the bargain was that he specifically could NOT profit from books or media exposure about his experiences. Very wise move in my opinion. That doesn’t stop him from making the book deal, but he sure as heck won’t see money from it.
And I disagree with your idea of what the CIA should be doing. If we don’t have to kill them, why should we? This method actually got decent information on what he did, and dealt out a relatively appropriate punishment. Plus he’s going to start giving a bit more information, and some people will be a bit calmed at how he’s going to be treated.
Of course, prison life won’t be fun for him. But, that’s his problem.
Wish I did write trailers for movies, those guys make beaucoup bucks.
Umm, yeah, typo on lie detectors, drug tests, etc. Should have been an “against” in there. :eek: :smack:
Look, the Hiss conviction was good enough for Richard Nixon (then Senator) and President Ronald Reagan, it’s good enough for me. What great Americans they were/are. I cannot wait until the day that there is a Ronald Reagan Memorial in every county in the country. As you may know, we conservatives are working on that with great success. My favorite is the Ronald Reagan National Airport. Now, I don’t want to be accused of satire again, but the irony of having the national aiport named after him after he fired all the air traffic controllers is just so delicious for someone like me who can’t stand unions. It is so in the face.
But arguing over the Hiss conviction really dates us Geezer. Kids nowadays have never even used a typewriter, much less will they understand all that hoo haa over worn keys.
Well as far as being full of shit, I’ve got a pretty thick skin, I’m going to break my no satire rule: Nature calls and I’m going to go get a load off my mind.
I gotta admit, taggert, that your last post sounds almost civil. But if you don’t take back the equation of liberals with traitors, I think the, um, head is exactly the place to get a load off your mind.
The irony is that, while we seem to disagree on almost everything else, we seem to be in accord on the subject of the OP, which is that Lindh is getting off easy, and also that, sadly, Ames, Hannsen and that other Walker also got less punishment than they deserved. I am ultra conservative when it comes to law and order, and I think the only penalty for treason should be death.
When you get that load off (by whatever means) we’ll no doubt argue again. But lets take the other topics in other threads as they arise, mmmkay?
I don’t take things personally, life’s too short. I figure that if I keep my nose clean, I’ll get to be a geezer too one day.
I can live just fine with JWL in the hoose gow for two sawbucks, minimum of 17 served. Compare his deeds with Richard Hanssen’s , and its a stiff sentence. Hanssen epitomizes everything that was wrong with the FBI (and commie symps). Arrogance, like it was all a game. His treachery killed many people and cost Americans in a way that we will probably never know. JWL was off on a goof quest of some sort and had some bad timing, bad place, bad karma. But I’m sure he was guilty of something, so 17 years should educate him nicely. Death penalty would be wasted on him by comparison. But not on liberals watching. They would know fear. Yeah. It would set a great example. Ann Coulter is prescient.
I know that you would really like me to take back that stuff about liberals being traitors, but it really wouldn’t be sincere. Liberals just don’t have moral absolutes and moral clarity. They are always qualifying everything, like I did just above for JWL. Geez, all the liberalism around here is infectious. Now I gotta go bathe. Next thing you know, I’ll start tipping more than 10 percent.
Liberalism convinces taggert to bathe. Film at eleven.
At least I bathe. Damn liberals.