John Walker Lindh: Saving the ‘American Taliban’ By Steven Hassan, 12/19/2001

I dug up an old OpEd I wrote. Now that Lindh is being released–17 years later– there is a concern that he may not have received proper counseling about cult mind control and brainwashing. My guess is that is correct. Whether or not he is a danger to commit any criminal atrocity, I do not know. What I do know is that the U.S. government continues to be blind to applying the expertise and knowledge of decades of cult experts. Why? In my opinion, if he was properly counseled he would be a huge asset to speaking out against extremism. At least he and his family (I always include working with family members and friends in my approach) would know they did what they could to actually provide specialized assistance.