0112220344
DETROIT FREE PRESS
011223
Sunday, December 23, 2001
METRO FINAL
1G
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 2001, Detroit Free Press
NOBODY PUT GUN TO HEAD OF TURNCOAT
Parents should love their children, no matter what, so I understand when the
mother and father of John Walker say "he must have been brainwashed" to be
fighting with the Taliban, that he is basically a "sweet, shy boy."
The problem is that a lot of sweet, shy boys were killed Sept. 11. And a lot
of sweet, shy boys now are fighting half a world away because Osama bin Laden,
the zealot whom John Walker followed, decided to attack this country.
There are a lot of sweet, shy boys not coming home for Christmas. And John
Walker, in his small, contributory way, is responsible.
So he deserves his parents' sympathy, but not ours. And in light of new
attempts last week by Walker's lawyer, James Brosnahan, to paint his client in
a more empathetic light -- making sure photos of John as a cheerful American
youth get to the media, for example -- let's keep a few things in mind here.
The first is, although Walker was willing to hold a gun to an American's
head, nobody, when this all started, held a gun to his.
Trained with Al Qaeda fighters
He left a cushy life in the San Francisco suburbs to "find himself" in the
Muslim culture. By that point, he had already had a dubious life on the
Internet, posing at times as a black man critical of white culture.
In high school, he asked for his name to be listed as Suleyman Al-Lindh. He
did this with his parents' knowledge. His father, in fact, encouraged his
devotion to Islam.
Walker left home at 18, went to Yemen to study Arabic, then traveled to
northwest Pakistan, where he studied Islam and embraced Taliban supporters. He
traveled to Afghanistan to train with Al Qaeda fighters. He was funded by and
fought for bin Laden.
In other words, this is not some kid who got off a bus in Kabul, got clubbed
over the head and woke up in a training camp, groggy and drugged. He made
choices every step of the way. And finally, his choice was jihad. Holy war.
The enemy was us.
Where exactly does the sympathy start?
Martyrdom could have been arranged
Walker, who was captured after the Mazar-e-Sharif prison uprising, told a CNN
reporter that jihad was "exactly what I thought it would be." When asked if he
was fighting for the right cause, he said "definitely."
He made no attempt to apologize, no plea for his parents to forgive him, no
claims of being confused.
On the contrary, he was a 20-year-old man who spoke English with an Arabic
accent -- something I have a hard time accepting, since he lived here until he
was 18 -- and he said he was "100 percent sure" he had been on his way to
Islamic martyrdom.
That could have been arranged.
The American forces could have looked the other way, let the Northern
Alliance administer its own unique justice. What is that? One Northern
Alliance soldier answered the question by pulling his finger across his
throat.
But because Walker is American -- no matter how much he might despise it --
he has received medical treatment, been flown out of the country and will get
some sort of trial. Whether for treason or a lesser charge, it is more than
his jihad brothers will get.
It is more moments alive than the Sept. 11 victims have.
It is more time on Earth than Mike Spann, the CIA agent killed in the prison
uprising, gets to enjoy.
And it might be more than Walker deserves. You leave this country, take up
arms and fight against us, you are, in my book, as much an enemy as any
foreigner could be.
No matter how understandably your mom and dad defend you.
"To think that John has no idea his family is sending him love," his parents
said after learning a letter they gave the Red Cross a few weeks ago had yet
to reach him. "It's very painful."
Yeah. There's a lot of that going around.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "Albom in
the Afternoon" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
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