The American Spectator : Turncoat or Straitjacket?

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Turncoat or Straitjacket?

By Clinton W. Taylor on 10.18.06 @ 12:07AM

The odd case of "Symbol Susan" Lindauer.

People betray their country for several different reasons, most commonly money or ideology. While many traitors live deeply troubled lives, and a touch of megalomania and messianic fervor often motivates them, none of the traitors I am familiar with have been certifiably crazy. Which makes sense, since an agent worth recruiting by a foreign power needs to be lucid enough to avoid detection, and stable enough to be entrusted with enough power or responsibility to betray. That is what makes the case of Susan Lindauer so unusual.

My first venture into punditry dealt with the arrest of Susan Lindauer on various charges, amounting to her acting as a paid agent for Saddam's intelligence service. Lindauer worked for several Democratic lawmakers, including Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Peter DeFazio, and Senators Ron Wyden and Carol Moseley-Braun, and also wrote for Fortune and U.S. News & World Report. According to her indictment, Lindauer worked with Iraqi agents based in New York starting in 1999, and even met them in Manhattan on September 19, 2001. That's right: eight days after the atrocity of September 11, Lindauer was allegedly meeting with enemy intelligence agents somewhere near the ruins of the World Trade Center. (According to the New York Times, her last job with Congress ceased in 2002, so she was allegedly working for both the Iraqi government and ours at the same time.)

She is also charged with flying to Baghdad in 2002 to meet with Iraqi intelligence agents (who dubbed her "Symbol Susan"), accepting money from them, and then attempting to influence American foreign policy. Apparently she contacted a distant relative, then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, about mediating the crisis between President Bush and Saddam.

p>After her arrest, it emerged that Lindauer was...not all there. Two court-appointed doctors found her mentally incompetent and unfit to stand trial. She was committed to a Federal hospital in Texas last October. The New York Times quotes one doctor as finding that br> /p>

Ms. Lindauer had a history of psychotic episodes going back to her childhood, possibly at the age of 7, the judge said. These include her contention that she had gifts of prophecy that allowed her to report 11 bombings before they happened, that she spoke with divine inspiration and that she was an angel.

br> In retrospect, that probably shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise. In a 1998 statement asserting that Syria, not Libya, had ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Lindauer asserted that she had been the victim of some rather unusual harassment: br>

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topics:
Foreign Policy, Trade, Business, Islam, Law, Iraq, NATO, Oil

Letter to the Editor View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

louis vuitton| 4.27.10 @ 1:09AM

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peter| 7.21.11 @ 7:24PM

In light of the content in Lindauer's book "Extreme Prejudice" why haven't all parties named in that book sued her for libel ? She has made some very serious allegations that go to the heart of US government competence and pre-knowlwedge before 9/11 and IRAQ invasion yet no one has wanted to take her to Court. Interesting that the reason for not doing so was her mental state but her book lays out her case and if she is wrong then for the sake of families of americans killed in 9/11,Oklahoma bonbing,IRAQ,etc her evidence ought to be put to the test.What are the Congress and political leaders of US afraid of? For any American concerned about the leadership and direction of their country her book is essential reading as only then will the reader come to their own conclusion of who is responsible and who has accountability to the citizens of America for these events.Informed discussion is healthy. If a quarter of what Lindauer lays out in her book as fact in the book is true then the elected representatives owe their fellow Americans a truthful explanation.When you look at the number of lives lost and financial costs of events covered in her book then this explanation is long overdue.Thank God America still has the right of freedom of speech for it's citizens and that books like 'Extreme Prejudice' get to see light of day and under the Patriot Act today if the evidence she presented in the book was untrue she would be back in custody

So if she is the traitor mentioned in this article why isn't she? Perhaps,as she has proven,her evidence if presented in open court would expose a truth no elected official wants the average americans to see .

In a great democracy like USA this is a great pity and goes to the core of waht Americans stand for as a people

Richard| 12.22.11 @ 7:25PM

For prevalent point Peter. I think you hit the nail on the head. It is sad that in our great democracy how easily we dismiss anyone or anything with even the slightest voice of dissension.

Marla in PA| 2.16.12 @ 8:34AM

Lindauer was interviewed on Coast 2 Coast this past weekend. Her presentation was borderline incoherent. She wouldn't answer direct questions from the host, instead just rambled off onto long dissertations that sounded like a patchwork of factoids culled from every truther website. Her demeanor was not that of a serious woman who had endured a grievous wrong at the hands of the government. She sounded ditzy and disjointed, especially when she referred to numeric values.
She's really out there.

I'm not a psychiatrist, even if I were, there's no way a diagnosis can be rendered on the basis of listening to one radio interview. But I have worked with the mentally ill for many years. I wouldn't diminish their very real afflictions by calling "Lindauer" crazy...but there is definitely something amiss.