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He forgot it was there: TIA Passenger Had Box Cutter In Hollowed-Out Book. TAMPA — A 21-year-old Clearwater man was arrested at Tampa International Airport this weekend after security personnel found a box cutter in a hollowed-out book, authorities said. About 7:30 a.m. Sunday, airport security ran Benjamin Baines Jr.’s backpack through an X-ray machine and saw the image of a box cutter, according to a report from the Transportation Security Administration. When searching the backpack, a security officer found a book titled “Fear Itself.” The book was hollowed out, and the box cutter was inside. After Baines was read...

The concept of mercy spans testaments and faiths, and any system of justice requires the embrace of mercy for leavening and legitimacy. In this case, justice has been served by Lindh's time in prison. Now Bush is uniquely positioned to grant mercy, for while many will long argue over the effectiveness of his war on terror, none question his commitment to it. By giving Lindh a commutation, Bush could prove that his war is, as he often and properly asserts, not against Islam but against those who seek to harm America. Lindh never sought to harm his country; he has...

Burning Car In Airport Terminal Updated: 15:59, Saturday June 30, 2007 A car has driven into the terminal building at Glasgow airport and caught fire. More follows...

San Francisco (AP) -- The lawyer and parents of John Walker Lindh, the American-born Taliban soldier serving 20 years in prison after his capture in Afghanistan, called on President Bush on Wednesday to commute his sentence and set him free. The renewed call to shorten the sentence was based on the relatively light term Australian David Hicks received Saturday after pleading guilty to supporting terrorism. Hicks, who had been imprisoned for five years at Guantanamo Bay and acknowledged aiding al-Qaida during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, was given a nine month sentence. "In the atmosphere of the time, the best...

John Walker Lindh aka John Walker aka Suleiman Ferris aka Abdul Hamid aka The American Taliban is a person that I will mostly likely to be associated for some time to come. I am sure on my obituary there will be a bombastic note that I was “the journalist who “discovered” Lindh after the battle at Qali Jangi” (the afghans have that dubious honor) Many have told me that Lindh’s story was a big deal back in the States. I will never know, I was in Afghanistan covering combat operations with in the ongoing war against the Taliban for CNN...

Frank Lindh is on a campaign to gain clemency for his son, John Walker Lindh, a.k.a Johnny Jihad or (my favorite nickname, courtesy of Michael Savage) Ratboy. And he has the Marin Independent Journal giving him a helping hand. It all started in November, when the IJ ran a front page feature on the traitor by Beth Ashley, the Lifestyles writer. Her article told how Ratboy was bound by duct tape to a stretcher, with a bullet wound which remained untreated for a couple of days. Her story also contained discussions with his lawyers, who are trying to get the...

'American Taliban' Father Urges Clemency Jan 19 5:33 PM US/Eastern By MARTHA MENDOZA AP National Writer SAN FRANCISCO After years of silence, the father of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh said Thursday he has asked President Bush to grant his son clemency, adding that the then teenager never raised arms against the United States. "In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man embarked on a spiritual quest," said Frank Lindh, swallowing back tears at times during a speech at the Commonwealth Club, a nonprofit organization. John Walker Lindh, now 24, was captured by...

American Taliban' tortured: dadFrom: Reuters By Adam Tanner by San Francisco January 20, 2006 THE father of an American jailed for fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan said this morning his son had been tortured and unjustly punished amid public hysteria over the September 11 attacks. "The maltreatment and imprisonment of John Lindh was – and is – a human rights violation," Frank Lindh told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "It was based purely on an emotional response to the 9/11 attacks, not on an objective assessment of the facts of John's case." A 24-year-old Californian dubbed the...

NORMAN - The FBI has found no evidence so far that a University of Oklahoma student who died in a bombing Saturday night tried to get inside the football stadium or had ties to any terrorist organization, officials said Tuesday. The FBI also has found no evidence anyone else was involved, officials said. Still, OU plans to tighten security at upcoming football games. Fans can expect bags and purses to be checked more closely. “They should come a little earlier,” OU President David Boren said. “Be patient with us - know it’s only for their safety that we’re being very,...

An Afghan warlord who settled in Britain kept a human dog to bite his victims and waged a campaign of kidnap and torture against civilians, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. Faraydi Zardad, a veteran fighter against the Russians and the Taliban, was the commander of soldiers manning checkpoints on the Jalalabad road, the vital supply route between Kabul and Peshawar. He had complete authority in the area between 1992 and 1996 and "had a fearsome reputation for being cruel and merciless", the court was told. In the first prosecution of its kind Zardad, 41, who was arrested while living...

http://www.donfeder.com/ A PURPLE HEART FOR JOHNNY JIHAD? By Don Feder Last week, John Walker Lindh petitioned the president to commute his 20-year sentence for fighting with the Taliban, imposed in 2002. It’s a shame that this pampered child of Marin County is sitting in a cell for something as trivial as treason. Under a plea bargain, Walker Lindh (AKA: Abdul Hamid, AKA: Sulayman Al-Lindh) pleaded guilty to supplying services to the Taliban regime and carrying explosives for Afghanistan’s former rulers. Which is like to saying that Benedict Arnold supplied services to George III. Johnny Jihad trained in an al-Qaeda camp...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Attorney General John Ashcroft on Wednesday opposed an appeal to commute the 20-year prison sentence of John Walker Lindh, an American captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban. Lindh's attorney, James Brosnahan who negotiated the sentence in a plea bargain in 2002, said it was the best deal he could get at the time. But he said the deal should be reconsidered after the government agreed to release another U.S.-born Taliban soldier, Yaser Esam Hamdi, from detention without charges. Ashcroft rejected the idea, saying Lindh received all the safeguards of the judicial process and the outcome...

Just as a legalistic memo defending torture was being leaked out of the Justice Department's inner sancta, the Los Angeles Times was giving all of us a peak at some of the separate but equally legalistic arguments being set forth in defense of John Walker Lindh. You remember Mr. Lindh, also known as Abdul Hamid when he was with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and as Suleyman al-Faris before that, when he was about to begin training with al-Qaida. How could anyone forget him? Mr. Lindh is now doing 20 years for supporting the enemies of the United States. But he...

More soon to follow.

It's ALL America's Fault. :-\ Folks, The Marin Schools have a different view of things, as can be witnessed by one of their products, Johnny Jihad Lindh. KSFO 560 AM has been hammering on the leftist bent of the educational system in the Gol'Darn State this morning Do you know what your kids are being taught?. The pdf file is huge, 57 MB. Download at your own risk.

http://www.marinschools.org/sept11.htm

<p>Family is disgusted.</p> <p>July 16, 2002 -- ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The father of slain CIA Agent Johnny "Mike" Spann reacted angrily yesterday to the plea deal for John Walker Lindh - and charged that it's a blow to everyone who died on Sept. 11.</p>

<p>Washington -- For the first time, federal prosecutors explicitly accused John Walker Lindh on Tuesday of being partly responsible for the slaying of CIA agent Johnny "Mike" Spann during an Afghan prison uprising in November.</p> <p>In a bluntly worded 32-page motion, the prosecutors said the Marin County man accused of participating in a conspiracy to kill Americans overseas and of providing material support for terrorists can be blamed directly for Spann's death under the law of conspiracy.</p>

THE NATION Photos of Lindh Ordered Destroyed Times Headlines Photos of Lindh Ordered DestroyedBy RICHARD A. SERRANO, TIMES STAFF WRITER ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The federal government acknowledged Friday that an untold number of U.S. military service members took "souvenir" photographs of John Walker Lindh during the first days of his captivity, but it added that the images were destroyed because they were taken without military approval. Randy L. Bellows, an assistant U.S. attorney, made the acknowledgment during a hearing in federal court here in which Lindh's defense attorneys had hoped to obtain copies of the photographs and videos. The defense...

Taliban John: The Conventional Wisdom—And the Truth By Henry Mark Holzer FrontPageMagazine.com | April 16, 2002 NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE'S April 15, 2002, issue has published an article by Steven Brill titled, "End of Their Rope," carrying the subtitle "The Feds threw the book at John Walker Lindh, whetting the nation's appetite for vengeance. Too bad the evidence is so weak." Putting aside that the Justice Department has, unfortunately, not thrown the book at the American Taliban - he should have been indicted for treason (see www.talibanjohn.info) - Brill's analysis reveals how little he understands about the law of conspiracy that Lindh...