Coastal
Post Online
January
2002
EDITORIAL
John Walker; Hold On Just a Minute!
John Walker has been held prisoner,
incommunicado, on a US Aircraft Carrier somewhere in the Arabian Sea for the last three weeks while being
interrogated by US officials. He has so
far, not yet been charged with any crime, yet never in the history of the
world, has there such an uproar of discussion and argument over his guilt and
his parents guilt and liberal, affluent Marin County's guilt for something or
other. It is like OJ, Chandra Levy,
Bill and Monica, the Rosenberg Atomic Bomb spy trial, Sacco and Vanzetti, the
Lindbergh kidnapping case, Patty Hearst and Benedict Arnold have been lumped
into one critical explosive mass of media coverage.
The Justice Department has outlined several
charges that might apply to Walker which carry penalties from ten years to
life, to the death penalty and there is even discussion about holding his trial in federal court in
Eastern Virginia where the jury pool is considered to be more conservative than
"liberal" Northern California, which is the Federal District in which
he last lived.
Portions of a
CIA interrogation video have been released of a semi-conscious, wounded Walker,
outtakes of which have appeared on the front pages of the Chronicle and
Examiner , with long hair, filthy face and black eyes rolled back into his head
which make Walker look like a grade B movie maniac. Portions of another CNN
video made early in December while Walker was in US Special Forces
custody. Walkers statements on the CNN
video seem to have released a volcanic eruption of anger towards him as a
traitor or turncoat at worst or as a obnoxious spoiled brat rejecting
mainstream American values. For the time being, everyone seems to have
forgotten Osama bin Laden, the influence of Saudi gold and the involvement of
the Bush Cheney administration in the Enron bankruptcy, the biggest business
disaster in US history.
Who
knows what Walker knows about CIA and FBI interrogation methods and what he
might say when not surrounded by US military and secret agents.
The Justice Department of John Ashcroft has
shown great respect for the constitution in not checking into the gun purchase
records of the thousands of middle eastern immigrants and visitors currently
imprisoned without charges. The Coastal Post would like to remind Mr. Ashcroft,
Mr. Bush and the US Supreme court, that according to the Constitution,
"Congress shall have the power to declare war..." and that it is the
duty of the Judiciary, not Mr. Bush to decide what charges to file. And finally, guilt or innocence are not
determined by opinion poles or the collective wisdom of talk show hosts and
guests.