England's John Walker Lindh

This and this provide another example of this. From the first news story:

Leeds-born Hasib [,now suspected in the recent terrorist attacks in London,] attended the Matthew Murray High School, a few hundred yards from the £75,000 four-bedroom terraced family home in a rundown suburb of the city. According to one neighbour, Hussain "went off the rails" as a young teenager but became a reformed character when he "suddenly became devoutly religious" two years ago.

And from the ARI op-ed (third link, above) on John Walker Lindh:

Attempting to make sense of the situation, there has already been a flurry of attempts at explaining the paradoxical phenomenon of the arch-liberal boy from the bastion of the anything-goes culture, turned armed defender of one of the world's most backward and oppressive regimes.

...

The real answer is that "non-judgmentalism" and "religious values"--i.e. relativism and mysticism--are two sides of the same coin: both deny the possibility of objectivity. To concretize this, let's consider the issue in the realm of ethics.

Relativism holds that all values are equally good, which means that any value you choose is merely an expression of your arbitrary preference, not to be evaluated in any way. This is the point of view that the Walker family exemplified, with their nonjudgmental attitude towards Walker's early affinity for nasty rap music, his later conversion to radical Islam and his decision to move to Yemen, a hotbed of international terrorism. How does a relativist decide what to do? Since every theory of what to do is as good as any other, he just does what he feels like doing.

Mysticism holds that some values are absolutely good and others absolutely bad, but proceeds to defend its values by appeals to authority or revelations, both to be accepted on faith. This makes their values as arbitrary as the ones of the relativists, since they cannot be established by reference to facts, and since you can get an infinite number of opposing authorities and revelations, depending on which of today's thousands of religious directions or sects you happen to stumble upon. How do you decide which faith to have, which revelations to follow and which authority to obey? In short, you feel it. You feel that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, astrology or whatever, is the right faith for you. Walker himself exemplified the mystic view, with his rebellion against the "freedom" of his upbringing, and his subsequent unquestioning acceptance of the precepts of the Koran, dictating every aspect of his life.

In contrast to both of these, an objective approach to ethics recognizes that values are the means of achieving life. The nature of man--the factual requirements of his survival--determines what is valuable to him. It is not arbitrary preference or mystical dogma but objective fact that determines that the air you breathe in and the food you eat are values to you--and poison is not.

Radical Islam is taking advantage of the best within our misguided and unguided youth, and at the very point they tire of drifting aimlessly and begin to seek guidance as they decide to look at their futures.

Our youth desperately need to know that there is an alternative to the pure lack of guidance of subjectivism and the blind obedience of religion.

--CAV