According to the father of al-Qaeda terrorist Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who attempted to blow up a plane bound for the United States from Britain, his son was once “gentle and caring,” reports the BBC. But then Reid’s father says his son was “brainwashed” by Muslim extremists to do things “not by our family beliefs.”

However, the father of John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” apparently doesn’t see his son as “brainwashed,” despite his strange transformation from a California child of affluence to an Afghan “freedom fighter.”

Frank Lindh instead seems to think that his son found his “inner Muslim.” Mrs. Lindh explains, “As a parent, you want your kids to follow their heart,” reports Time Magazine.

Frank Lindh takes the stance of almost an apologist. He concludes, “John went (into Afghanistan) to help the mujahedin, as he understood the people Ronald Reagan called the ‘freedom fighters.'”

Mrs. Lindh explains, “When kids get a certain age, you let them go. You wish them well, and you help them, and you support, and you never stop loving them, but you let them explore the world and find themselves.”

The Lindhs not only let their son go, they paid $6,000 for him to be “brainwashed” at an Islamic school in Yemen and quite literally were his “support” financially to “explore the world” of radical Islam.

Should the Lindhs have paid closer attention to their vulnerable son? Did their permissiveness and money enable John Walker Lindh to ultimately become an “American Taliban”?

John Walker Lindh apologized and wept when he was recently sentenced to twenty years in prison. Now the Lindhs will only be a part of their son’s life through scheduled visits observed by guards.

Richard Reid laughed when he pled guilty in a Boston court and boasted of his commitment to Osama bin Laden. His father expects him to die in prison.

There is little sympathy for “brainwashed” Islamic extremists in the United States. The hijackers who murdered more than 3,000 people on September 11th ended that.

As other terrorists and extremists are arrested, more sad stoies will likely emerge of children lost to “brainwashed” fanaticism. But hopefully these fanatics will be stopped before murdering the members of other families.

Richard Reid’s father said, “I am just grateful that he did not succeed. There were 196 other souls on that plane other than my son.”

It is now one year since the most heinous attack ever launched against America took place. More than 3,000 died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But what have we learned in the past year about the dynamics of groups like al-Qaeda?

It seems like we are still struggling to understand why well educated men from mostly affluent Arab families would throw away their lives to serve the agenda of one madman.

Osama bin Laden, not unlike Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh and Shoko Asahara had a self-obsessed dream, which became a nightmare for others. He too believed that horrific murders would somehow fulfill his prophetic view of the world. And as David Koresh twisted the bible, Shoko Asahara maligned Buddhism, Jones and Manson manipulated racial tensions and politics, bin Laden came up with his own bizarre, destructive world view and version of Islam.

Rather than looking at the Arab-Israeli conflict, United States foreign policy or the living conditions within the Arab world to explain the motivation for bin Laden’s brand of terrorism, perhaps we should examine more closely the history of destructive cults and the psychopaths who frequently lead them, to better understand September 11th.

Lee Harris wrote a long analysis about al-Qaeda and September 11th, which was published by the Wall Street Journal. His somewhat pedantic article goes on about everything from Aztec King Montezuma, to the game “Dungeons and Dragons.” Harris ultimately makes the point that Osama bin Laden was an actor within a kind of “theater” based upon “radical Islamic fantasy ideology.”

He concludes, “We are fighting an enemy who has no strategic purpose in anything he does–whose actions have significance only in terms of his own fantasy ideology.”

However, Harris failed to cite bin Laden’s most obvious parallels, such as Shoko Asahara of Japan, who gassed the subways of Tokyo in 1995 to initiate “Armageddon,” or Charles Manson who believed a series of murders would facilitate his fantasy called “Helter Skelter.” Both men, like most destructive cult leaders, were possessed by “fantasy ideology.”

Simply put Osama bin Laden can easily be seen as both a cult leader and a psychopath. And the “martyrs” who murdered some 3,000 Americans on September 11th, as his “brainwashed” followers. To see the longer version click here.