Terrorist’s short term, early release, should be inconceivable

In 1953, turning on your country was a crime punishable by death. Ethel, 35, and Julius Rosenberg, 37, the parents of two young sons, were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage.

On March 29, 1951 the couple was found guilty of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union, and were executed in the electric chair on June 19, 1953, although the evidence against Ethel was weak.

Fast forward to 2019. John Walker Lindh, 38, a Californian who converted to Islam at age 16, provided support to the Taliban. He became known as the “American Taliban” after his battlefield capture in Afghanistan in November 2001, where he was fighting with the Afghan Taliban two months after the 9/11 attacks.

On February 5, 2002, Lindh was indicted by a federal grand jury on ten charges of conspiracy, including conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens and providing material support and resources to terrorist organizations. He could have received up to three life sentences and 90 additional years in prison.

Instead, Lindh, who now uses the name Abu Sulayman al-Irland, has preposterously been granted an early release from a federal prison after being sentenced to a paltry 20 years. Lindh is getting out 3 years early for “good behavior,” though his actions resulted in American deaths.

In 2010 Lindh and a Syrian-American prisoner, represented by the ACLU, sued to lift restrictions on group prayer by Muslim inmates. U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson, an Obama appointee, ruled in their favor, saying that the government had shown no compelling interest in restricting the religious speech of the inmates by prohibiting them from praying together.

According to an internal report by the National Counterterrorism Center, Lindh told a visiting television news producer that he had not renounced extremist violence and continues to advocate for global jihad, saying, “ISIS,” the terrorist group that beheaded Americans, “is doing a spectacular job.”

The burning question is, what can we expect next as this America-hater is free?