Word: walkerism
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...members. Dressed in blue jeans, with an AK-47 strapped across the back of his black sweater, Spann passed through several rows of Taliban before crouching in front of a prisoner who had been separated from the rest, a mass of tangled hair and tattered clothes once named John Walker. "What's your name?" Spann asked. There was no response. "Hey," he said, snapping his fingers twice in front of Walker's dirt-caked face. "Who brought you here? Wake up! Who brought you here? How did you get here? Hello...
...John Walker, a 20-year-old from Marin County, somehow ended up fighting for the Taliban. When his parents saw him on TV, it was the first time they had laid eyes on him in six months...
...Then, if we're willing to abandon, just for a moment, the framework of legal retribution, there is another lens through which to examine Walker's situation: The Taliban could easily be considered a cult, and Walker simply one of its brainwashed groupies. That's the take from Rick Ross, an expert on cults who lectures frequently on the topic. "My conclusion," Ross explains, "is that this group is an apparitional cult, and not in any way indicative of Islam in general. We've suspected this for some time now, and Walker's presence and behavior provides a sort...
...Ross speculates that Walker, who by all accounts went through a truly astonishing metamorphosis - from shy, quiet teenager drawn to the peaceful tenets of Islam to armed military man - was sucked into al-Qaeda networks during his time in Pakistan. He was taken to Afghanistan, and that's when the trouble really began. "Walker's transformation probably place in one of al-Qaeda's training camps, which are very similar to training ground we see in American-based cults. Bin Laden does what every good cult leader does: He isolates these people within an environment he totally controls - everything they...
...While he's personally sympathetic to Walker's situation, Ross doubts the law will share his view. Generally, he explains, the law will excuse cult members' behaviors up to a certain point. "Once you cross that line," Ross says, committing rape, for example, or murder, "regardless of an undue influence of a leader, you are held responsible for your actions...