Philip Terzian
Chief Justice John Marshall once said that, of all crimes, treason is
the one that can best "excite and agitate the passions of men." How right he
was. Since Mr. Lindh was flushed out of the prison stronghold at
Mazar-e-Sharif, it has been impressive to observe the fury with which
journalists (particularly of the female persuasion) have called for his
head. The fact that he is a traitor, took up arms against the United States,
and deserves the fate of the Lincoln conspirators and Ethel Rosenberg, seems
a given to some of my colleagues. They cannot wait to bring him home in
shackles and, as Judge Roy Bean used to say, give him a fair trial and hang
him.
All I can say is: Be careful what you wish for. If I were a betting man,
I would wager even odds that, six months from now, John Walker Lindh is as
likely to be sitting down for an interview with Diane Sawyer as swinging
from the yardarm. Moreover, the case for treason against this mixed-up youth
is more complicated than it first appears.
To begin with, young Lindh joined the Taliban long before Sept. 11, and
to fight for Pakistan against the Indians over Kashmir. This may strike us
as peculiar, to be sure, but treasonous? There is a long tradition of Yanks
crossing the border to fight, from American volunteers in the French
Revolution to the Lafayette Escadrille (pre-1917 aviators in the Great War),
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War)
and the Stern Gang (Jewish terrorists who assassinated the UN mediator in
Palestine, Count Bernadotte).
Since his capture, Mr. Lindh seems to have expressed satisfaction with
the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen and the destruction of the World Trade
Center. But once again, while his views may be repellant, they are not
necessarily treasonous. If that were the case, John Ashcroft would be
rounding up some of the better-known filmmakers, novelists, political
scientists and all-round cultural jewels in our midst for saying the same
thing.
Moreover, there is an argument that, having taken up arms in a foreign
army, Lindh might have forfeited his U.S. citizenship -- which would make
him a prisoner of war, not a traitor. Moreover, while the United States is
unquestionably engaged in conflict, there has never been a congressional
declaration of war. It is not difficult to imagine a court bogged down in
voluminous debate on whether treason statutes would apply in such
circumstances.
All of which leads to an inescapable conclusion: It would have been
easier if Abdul Hamid had been killed in that prison revolt, rather than
taken alive, because figuring out what to do with him will not be easy. And
when it comes to treason, Americans tend to be more bloodthirsty in talk
than practice. Of the famous Axis broadcasters, for example, William Joyce
(aka Lord Haw Haw) was summarily hanged by the British for treason, despite
the fact that he was of Irish parentage, and born in Brooklyn. By contrast,
Tokyo Rose (Iva d'Aquino) served just a few years in prison and was later
pardoned, while Ezra Pound spent a comfortable dozen years in the same
mental hospital now inhabited by John Hinckley Jr.
President Bush, in his offhand manner, may be closer to the mark: He
told reporters he had no idea, at the moment, what might happen to "that
poor fellow." Every cause, even the worst, has its partisans, and Americans
are scarcely immune to deplorable judgment. Peace activists used to make
pilgrimages to Moscow to compare the United States unfavorably with the
Soviet Union. Two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda once traveled to North
Vietnam to express solidarity with its Stalinist regime, and strike a pose
with an anti-aircraft gun -- perhaps the one that shot down John McCain.
As for John Walker Lindh he is, at age 20, no longer a child and
responsible for his actions. But his upbringing startles me more than his
truncated military career. A convert to Islam after reading Alex Haley's
Autobiography of Malcolm X, his indulgent parents refrained
from guiding his spiritual quest, and dispatched him at age 16 at his
request to an Islamic academy in, of all places, Yemen! From there, in due
course, they lost sight of their offspring until he was found, armed and
bearded, in the Afghan maelstrom.
"I'd like to give him a big hug and a kick in the butt, too," his father
told Larry King. Maybe Dad should assume the position as
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com --
EVERY war has its eccentric features -- British and German
troops playing soccer on Christmas Day 1914; Japanese infantrymen emerging
from the jungles in the 1970s -- and this one is no exception. One
nomination for the distinction must be John Walker Lindh, alias Abdul Hamid,
the 20-year-old Taliban warrior from Marin County, California.
JWR contributor Philip Terzian is associate editor of The Providence Journal.
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