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is a deep poignancy in the videotape showing Mike Spann attempting
to interview the American jihadi John Walker in Mazar-e Sharif,
shortly before the uprising that took the life of the young CIA
agent. Walker was silent as Spann and another agent named Dave attempted
a mild good cop/bad cop routine to convince him to cooperate. Where
is Sipowicz when you need him? Hours later Spann would be dead,
Dave rescued by the SAS, and Walker, remarkably, pulled alive from
a flooded bunker and choppered away to Camp Rhino for medical treatment.
The attempted
interview illustrates an important point about this young expatriate.
The only reason the United States should be talking to Walker, the
only interest such a dialogue serves, is as a source of intelligence
on the enemy. Walker was part of the terror network, whether he
realized it or not. (One suspects that he did — when he was
sent to fight in Kashmir he probably had an inkling.) The fact that
he is an American citizen means little. He is not owed any better
treatment than would be shown to any other prisoner — he has
no special rights beyond those guaranteed by the Third Geneva Convention.
The Pentagon states that Walker will be handed over to civilian
authorities, and various government agencies are trying to figure
out what Walker could be charged with, from illegal emigration to
murder to treason — but they should save their efforts.
Americans get
into all kinds of mischief abroad. Take for example Lori Berenson,
the young American woman sentenced to 20 years of hard time in Peru
for helping plot an attack on that country's Congress. Her 1995
trial, by a secret military tribunal (note), was widely seen as
a miscarriage of justice; it spawned a grass roots movement for
her release that resulted in a second and public trial held earlier
this year. Working with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement movement probably seemed
romantic to Berenson, very radical chic, very Emma Goldman; but
that group was responsible for brazen acts of terror in Peru, and
few citizens of that country had any sympathy for this imported
gringa terrorista.
Charles Krauthammer's
suggestion that Walker be tried, sentenced to death, and then pardoned
by a magnanimous President Bush has some political cachet —
it's the best suggestion out there if you accept the premise of
a trial. But why should we have to suffer through it? The defense
would be mind numbing. Walker was too young to know what he was
doing. Walker was insane. Walker was brainwashed by the evil Taliban.
Or Walker was a true believer who was only seeking a way to bring
about a utopian government under pure Islamic law — the "Not
guilty by reason of sincerity" defense. We couldn't count on
Walker behaving like 26-year-old New York native Mohammad Junaid,
who went to Pakistan last November and was quoted as saying, "I'm
willing to kill the Americans. I'll kill every American I see in
Afghanistan." (No word yet on the fate of the pudgy, bespectacled
former computer programmer.) The abrasive Junaid would at least
be easier for Americans to dislike. Walker would be shorn of his
"Charles bin Manson" look, put in a suit and coached to
behave like the polite middle class American he used to be. Don't
think it wouldn't make a difference — Walker is getting more
"he was such a nice boy" buzz than the last kid who went
on a shooting spree. If Walker went to trial the TV coverage would
be incessant, the lawyers would be ubiquitous, and attention and
resources would be diverted from continuing the global struggle
against terror.
There is a
way around this problem that doesn't involve simply letting Walker
go free. Interim prime minister Hamid Karzai has stated that "the
foreigners who are here are terrorists, and their hands are soiled
with the blood of the people of Afghanistan." Walker is one
of those foreigners. Let the Afghans have him. Walker was perfectly
happy being part of a theocratic dictatorship that committed atrocities
against the Afghan people. Why shouldn't those same people get to
decide his fate? We did not deny the victims of Nazi rule their
chance — in addition to Nuremberg there were numerous local
trials of lesser war criminals. Walker will get a better deal than
the people who faced the "justice system" in the regime
he took up arms to defend. Furthermore, sending Walker back stateside
would be hypocritical. Suppose we found a foreign-born terrorist
in our midst — would the U.S. automatically ship him back home
for trial? No way.
This is not
a legal issue, it is a question of policy. Walker should be placed
in the hands of the interim Afghan government as one of the foreign
mujahedeen who helped bring terror to Afghanistan. Let's have the
courtesy to allow the Afghans to apply justice to him as we would
to those foreigners who commit crimes here.
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