Coastal
Post Online
December
2001
Johnny Walker: Only One Life To Give
By Stephen Simac
Marin terrorists used to be confined to
mountain bikers or skateboarders but now the little county that could has it's
own official terrorist. Johnny Walker, not the whiskey but the Taliban
terrorist has emerged from the packs of pot smoking Marin teenagers as the new
Benedict Arnold.
More than half
the country, displaying the lynch mob mentality that made America great, wants
to string him up on the plains of Afghanistan. The rest want him tried before
executing him for treason.
There
are only a few problems with that charge, minor technicalities really. Treason is specifically defined in the
Constitution of the united States as waging war on our country, or adhering to
it's enemies and giving them aid and comfort. It must be proven by an overt act
with at least two witnesses.
Law
is all about technicalities, American laws constitutionally are required to use
them to protect the innocent, but only those who can afford justice are
provided it.
The crime of treason
is one of the few actually described in the constitution. It was so tightly
defined because the framers had a long understanding of the tyrannous use of
the charge by the British crown.
New, New War Against
Terrorism
Let's take this step
by step. America is not at War, no matter how many times they call the bombing
of Afghanistan a WAR. Congress must declare war and so far they haven't. Bush
could have gotten a declaration of War after 9/11; he's gotten almost
everything else he wanted. Instead he
chose a congressional cheerleading resolution under the War Powers Act to
sanctify his military actions instead. Thus we have no legal
"enemies," only people we don't like.
Bush has stated that America is not at war with the people of Afghanistan,
no matter that our carpet bombing has killed an estimated 4,000 civilians and
maimed many more.
Even the evil
Taliban weren't America's enemies if they had only given up Osama when he
threatened them. Bush wouldn't provide evidence to them showing Osama's
involvement, still they offered to deliver him to another nation for an
international trial. That wasn't good enough when plans to invade Afghanistan
had already been in the works since early summer and possibly for as long as
four years. The Taliban wanted too big a percentage from the Unocal oil
pipeline planned for Afghanistan.
Vengeance is not Justice, Infinite or otherwise and America's murderous
bombing of Afghanistan can not be justified by international laws or treaties.
In fact the whole bombing campaign is tenuously based on a self-defense clause
of NATO.
Since the Taliban came
to power through American plotting and Pakistani aid, our government reserved
the right to remove them, like so many other puppets gone bad.
Until Sept. 11, the United States was the
main supporter of the Taliban with both financial and humanitarian aid, often
routed through Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI. The state department gave them $43 million
in July for eradicating opium poppy growing, not opium sales.
Religion
Rules
This was after the Taliban
had already blown up the giant Buddhas, banned women from working and going to
school, and executed or dismembered thousands for minor infractions, for which
we are now rightfully condemning them.
Johnny Walker became a Muslim in Marin, described in the NY Times as a
"haven for politically correct Californians who drive Porsches and raise
children who are made muddle headed by too much freedom." His parents did allow him the freedom to
make his own religious choice, a constitutional right.
Now they are bummed that he took it so
seriously, maybe wishing he'd become a pothead like most Marin teens. At the
time they were probably relieved that it wasn't Scientology, or God forbid the
Moonies.
Johnny changed his name
to Suleyman something, traveled to Yemen to study Arabic, but they weren't pure
enough for him. Idealists are never
satisfied. The Taliban's " Muslim purity" beckoned and he ended up in
Pakistan at a madrassah.
At
some point he allegedly penetrated the Al Qaeda training camps, something the
CIA was unable to do. The CIA previously complained that they'd failed at this
because of those clannish Arabs and their agents' inability to speak any
foreign languages, even igPay atinLay.
Along with thousands of other Pakistani Pushtuns, he obeyed the orders
of the rabid imams to join the jihad and marched off to Afghanistan. The jihadi
went off to fight with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance, while the
mullahs stayed home.
At this point, backing out was probably not
an option for Walker, without getting his throat slit as a spy. So Johnny joined the Taliban after marching
over mountainous terrain for a week on scanty rations. Proving at least that not every Marin kid in
his generation is as spoiled as they are made out to be.
Pushtun Up
Daisies
If his experiences were
similar to the other Pakistani volunteers who made it back alive described, he
spent his time waiting to be ordered to the front lines to be shot at by the
Northern Alliance or bombed by Daisy Cutters.
When the battle for Mazar-i-Sharif looked lost, he was abandoned
to his fate with his other Pakistani comrades by the Taliban forces they'd come
to help. The Taliban slipped out the back door, leaving the volunteer jihadis
behind to their fate as prisoners at the hands of the Northern Alliance. These
warlords were even more notorious for brutality than the Taliban. Especially
with foreigners.
It would be
hard to convict him for providing comfort to the enemy since the volunteers
were mainly useless eaters to the Taliban. Even if he had taken up arms against
the Northern Alliance, instead of merely wanting to, these troops were not
American or legally our allies.
In fact they were heavily supplied with arms and materiel by the
Russians, also not our allies, although they have been going along with the
Bush program. Yes, US advisors were
assisting the anti-Taliban forces but our bombing sorties seemed to target
their side as often as the Taliban side.
Recall that the Taliban
came to power with the gratitude of the Afghanistan people in 1996 after 7
years of vicious, lawless behavior by the Northern Alliance warlords and their
gangs. The initial Taliban action took
place when their mullah intervened because two warlords were arguing over which
one would keep a young Afghani boy to rape.
Now the US has never met a warlord too brutal to support but if
Johnny gets a trial, any defense lawyer worth his retainer is going to bring
this up.
The Taliban were
supplied by Pakistan even after Sept. 11 yet Pakistan is officially America's
ally in the war against terrorism. It's all so confusing, Johnny can be blamed
for not keeping track of who's who in the Great Game to control Eurasia.
The administration has been wavering over
whether he's a "poor kid" or another Timothy McVeigh. They change their minds over what to charge
him with weekly.
Dumb And Dumber Vs. Hannibal
His defense lawyer should bring up the
role of the CIA agents filmed questioning John Walker and other prisoners,
setting off a slaughter.
The
video of CIA dead hero Johnny "Mike" Spann questioning an almost
comatose Johnny Walker after he's been captured appears to show CIA complicity
in a planned extermination of prisoners of war.
In English, "Mike" starts the interview by asking a
slumped over Johnny "What do you speak, Irish, Pakistani?" Assuming
this is an example of CIA foreign language expertise, American taxpayers aren't
getting much for their intelligence dollars. Hot tip to the CIA, most Irish,
even the terrorists speak English, some may have a smattering of Gaelic, but
Irish is not a language and neither is Pakistani. He threatens Suleyman Abdul "Paddy" Johnny Walker
Lindh with imminent death unless he offers some explanation for why he's
there. "Mike" offers to let
the Red Cross rescue him if he talks, instead of leaving him to the Northern
Alliance. Johnny doesn't answer, head slumping back to his dirty chin.
Then "Mike" apparently admits on
camera that he's aware the NA is planning to kill all their foreign prisoners.
"All right, you can spend the rest of your short fucking life here in this
fucking place. He had his fucking
chance, right?" He says to
"Dave", who nods.
The
interrogation has its tender moments. "Mike" is snapping photos of
the dirty face of "Paddy" while an Afghani guard's hands can be seen
gently lifting his head up and brushing his hair back.
Not content with one frustrating interview,
Mike and Dave saunter into the Quala-i-Jhangi fort turned prison where they
arrogantly question more Taliban prisoners with their elbows tied behind their
backs.
These prisoners have a
little more fight left in them. When he asks one "why are you here?"
the prisoner shouts, "to kill people like you!" Stories conflict at this point, and the
video hasn't been released. Either the
prisoner blows him up with a grenade or bites off a chunk of his face, knocking
him down where other prisoners beat and kick him to death.
The prisoners grab his weapons, other
heavy weaponry loosely stored in the prison, and kill the few guards watching
this training exercise of CIA interrogation. "Dave" flees with the
television cameramen and the interpreter and immediately calls in airstrikes on
the prison compound.
The
slaughter of prisoners goes on for days, evidently justified because they had
taken up arms after surrendering. Nevertheless testimony about the
disproportionate massacre will play poorly in any trial of John Walker. Since
it's not a war the Geneva Conventions don't apply, but sometimes the truth
hurts a prosecution.
Ducks In A Barrel
Northern Alliance soldiers, US and British
special operations troops killed as many prisoners as they could for days after
any resistance had ended. This included
bombing and strafing from the air, shooting prisoners trying to surrender or
with their arms still tied behind their backs, shooting rockets down culverts,
pouring oil into basements where prisoners holed up and setting it on fire,
drowning them out by flooding the basements, and shooting anyone who tried to
surrender.
Amazingly 85
prisoners survived out of roughly 900, by hiding out deep in the compound, with
no food for a week, except a dead horse the survivors scrounged. The media had
arrived in force by then, so those still alive were not executed
summarily.
Johnny reportedly
confessed to a Newsweek reporter and CNN cameraman, at length and lucidly
although he was starving, in shock and wounded. Something about the media that
makes 'em open up. CIA take notes.
Almost everything we "know" about his actions and thoughts between
Marin and Mazar-i-Sharif is based on this version of reality. He's been locked
up since then, even his lawyer has been denied access. Hopefully they've
cleaned his face by now.
It will
be interesting to see if any of his "CNN confession" holds up in
court. Yes, Johnny was guilty of religious fervor and stupidity, but if those
were crimes most Americans would be serving life sentences. He served in a foreign army, so he could
be stripped of his citizenship. As a foreigner he could be tried in one of
Bush's unconstitutional military tribunals. Then it would all be secret.
If found guilty by two out of three hooded
judges, it's a tossup whether he would be shot, sent to prison, or put to work
translating Osama bin Laden's videotape collection.