At Large
Turncoat or Straitjacket?
The odd case of “Symbol Susan” Lindauer.
(Page 2 of 2)
“Someone put acid on the steering wheel of my car on a day I was supposed to drive to NYC for a meeting at the Libya House. I scrubbed my hands with a toilet brush, but my face was burned so badly that 3 weeks later friends worried I might be badly scarred,” Lindauer told MEIB. “Also, my house was bugged with listening devices and cameras — little red laser lights in the shower vent. And I survived several assassination attempts.”br> (Again: she said this publicly in 1998, when she also admitted to working with Libyan officials since 1995. Her last job with a Democratic congressman? 2002.)
What did come as a surprise, however, was that she was freed from custody last month. She refused to take antipsychotic medication. A judge refused to order her to be medicated forcibly, and instead ordered her set free. Another judge will decide whether and how she will stand trial.
p>If you read the Times account, it would seem like all this fuss was just about Lindauer’s overtures to Andrew Card on behalf of the Iraqi government. It wasn’t. To clarify Lindauer’s intent, the FBI also ran a sting with an undercover agent posing as a Libyan Intelligence operative. According to her indictment, Lindauer met with him in June 2003 and discussed the need for foreign nations to support the Iraqi resistance against United States troops. Then, at this “Libyan agent’s” request, she performed “dead drops” she thought were helping the Iraqi resistance. The timing of these alleged dead drops was as damning as that of her September 2001 meeting with Iraqi intelligence. As I wrote back in 2004: br> /p>It has not yet emerged what was in the dead drops, but the indictment alleges that she executed one of them “on or about August 6, 2003.” That was one day after a “resistance group” which Lindauer supported killed an American civilian mailman in Tikrit. Her second alleged dead drop occurred “on or about August 21, 2003,” two days after these “resistance groups” killed U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others with a horrific truck bomb at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. How could Lindauer not have known the malignant character of the terrorists that continue to murder Coalition forces and pro-democracy Iraqis every day? The rubble, after all, was still smoking when Lindauer made her drop.br> If these charges are true they utterly destroy Lindauer’s pretense of wanting peace in the Middle East. A charge of active support for Iraqi terrorist groups ought to ensure Lindauer is ostracized from political life until she can refute the charges. But this charge is not the focus of the coverage. p>An essay about Lindauer’s release at the left-wing website TPM Cafe quoted from my piece, but neglected to discuss the allegations of espionage for the Iraqi resistance. When I saw that, I began to wonder whether there was a groundswell to rehabilitate Lindauer’s reputation as a left-wing activist. Soon another journalist for a Takoma Park, Maryland paper contacted me for an upcoming retrospective on the Lindauer case. And recently I saw an article in the Detroit News about an FBI raidlast month on the Michigan headquarters of Focus on American and Arab Interests and Relations, an anti-war advocacy group. Who should be quoted defending the charity, but… br> /p>
Susan Lindauer, a Takona [sic] Park, Md., woman who has worked with [FAAIR founder Muthanna] Al-Hanooti on Muslim causes in Washington, said he met monthly with the local FBI task force in Detroit on anti-terrorism and was a liaison between Arab-Americans and the community. He’s spent considerable time in Iraq since the start of the recent war acting as a bridge between the U.S. troops and Iraqi citizens, she said.br> With a character reference like “Symbol Susan,” the raid on FAAIR and a related raid the same day on Life for Relief and Development, a major Islamic charity headquartered in Southfield, actually begin to look more ominous. The reason for the raid is sealed, but the legal director for LR&D noted that the investigation was “tax-related, not terror related” — although he told another paper that the agents “were interested in whether its aid to Iraq violated U.S. sanctions in place before the war.” Why, then, does the reason for the raid remained sealed, and why was the FBI assisted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force?“I’m amazed, given all the excellent work he’s done, that they would come after him,” Lindauer said.
LR&D has a checkered history itself, as it was supported by someone else uncomfortably close to Saddam’s regime: Iraqi-American businessman and Oil-for-Food beneficiary Shakir al-Khafaji. They were the group who, with al-Khafaji, sponsored a September 2002 trip to Baghdad for (Democratic) Congressmen David Bonior, Jim McDermott, and Mike Thompson.
These connections between Saddam’s stooges, Lindauer, and al-Khafaji, and this investigation suggest that an Iraqi connection may lie behind last month’s FBI raids.
One hopes FAAIR and Life for Relief and Development are wise to Lindauer. On October 6 one of LR&D’s humanitarian workers in Iraq, Abdel-Sattar Abdullah al-Mashhadani, was murdered (along with his driver) by “sectarian militias.” Al-Mashhadani, a husband and father who directed several charity projects including a water development plant in Southern Iraq, was pulled out of his taxi at a checkpoint in Huriya, Baghdad, and executed by a “sectarian militia.”
Recent clashes in Huriya between the Sunni Al-Mashhadani clan and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militias provide some context for the murder. Sadr’s goons may have been attempting to rid the neighborhood of everyone named Mashhadani, in retaliation for a failed raid on Sadr’s headquarters a week earlier. In a press release, LR&D called the murdered Al-Mashhadani “another victim of the senseless violence in Iraq.”
Was this senseless violence what Susan Lindauer envisioned in her machinations on behalf of the Iraqi “resistance”? At best Lindauer is, as the court found, a deeply disturbed fantasist; at worst, she is a traitor who tried to support terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in their attempts to kill American soldiers in Iraq. Either way, it will be instructive to see which groups offer her an opportunity to continue her poisonous activism.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (5) | Leave a comment
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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.
dragonintheclouds| 8.28.12 @ 12:18AM
As a trained counselor, I would say that Susan Lindauer is one of the most truthful, authentic and important voices I've heard in years. She is sane and her story deserves to be listened to. She is a woman struggling for peace.
As for the U$ government, all I can say is people can see through the facads and the lies that are told. People knew of 9-11 beforehand and nothing was done. False flag operations as a pretext for going to war is getting very old. I stand in solidarity agree with Susan~no blood for oil!