The Walker Facts
The fact that John Walker is an American citizen means little.

By James S. Robbins, a national-security analyst & NRO contributor
December 12, 2001 9:10 a.m.

here 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.