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December 19, 2001
Sam Bahour
Palestine
and You
December 18, 2001
Shahid
Alam
Clash
of Civilizations?
Carl Estabrook
Who
Opposes This War?
December 17, 2001
Edward
Said
Mahfouz
and the Cruelty
of Memory
December 16, 2001
Amira Howeidy
Dangerous By
Definition?
Bahour
and Dahan
Zinni's
Doomed Mission
December 15, 2001
John Isaacs
Bush's 12
Lumps of Coal
for Christmas
Dana Cook
The
Execution of bin Laden
Yusuf Agha
Tale of the
Tape:
Osama Gump?
December 14, 2001
Don Atapattu
A Conversation with
Norman
Finkelstein
December 13, 2001
Trojanow and Hoskote:
Nonsense
Mantras of Our Times
Dr. A.
Tajudeen
Afghanistan
and Zaire
Michael Williams
Prohibit
Prohibition
December 12, 2001
Jack McCarthy
Hitchens,
Walker
and Osama's Tape
Laura W. Murphy
Ashcroft's
Jihad
Shahid
Alam
Race
and Visibility
December 11, 2001
Joshua Orton
University
of Wisconsin
Won't Aid FBI Interviews
Philip
Farruggio
Cleansing
the Nation's Soul
Robert Fisk
Why I Was
Beaten
December 10, 2001
Robert
Dunham
Race
and the Death Penalty:
Partners in Injustice
Andy Kershaw
Chamber of
Horrors
Near the Garden of Eden
John Touchie
Isaac's
on Chomsky
December 9, 2001
Jo Dillon
Journalist:
The CIA Wanted
Me Killed
John Chuckman
High-Tech
Puritanism
December 8, 2001
Laurence Tribe
Military Tribunals
Undermine the Constitution
Patrick
Cockburn
The
End of a Strange War
December 7, 2001
John Troyer
Blacklist Me!
Sen. Edwards
v. Ashcroft
Military
Tribunals
George Naggiar
Occupation
as Terrorism
Hugo von
Sponek
and Denis Halliday
Iraq
the Hostage Nation
David Vest
The Coen
Brothers'
Minstrel Show
Alexander
Cockburn
Sharon
or Arafat:
Who's the Terrorist?
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
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CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
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by James Ridgeway
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The
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December 19,
2001
Don't Pre-Judge John Walker
By Marjorie Cohn
Don't label
John Walker a traitor yet.
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York didn't
hesitate to call John Walker a traitor when she was interviewed
on Meet the Press. The American was recently found with the
Taliban in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, and was taken into U.S.
custody.
The crime of treason requires a prosecutor
to prove both an intent to betray the United States and an act
of levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort
to the enemy. Our Constitution mandates that the act be proved
by the testimony of two witnesses or a confession in open court.
That Walker, 20, was found in the company
of the Taliban, without more evidence, is not sufficient, as
circumstantial evidence cannot serve as the basis for proving
a treasonous act.
Further, the Supreme Court has defined
"enemy" as the subject of a foreign power in a state
of open hostilities with the United States. Since it is the
Northern Alliance, not the Taliban, which has a seat at the
United Nations and is recognized as the lawful government of
Afghanistan, Walker's activities might not fit within the legal
definition of treason.
When Mr. Walker went to Afghanistan,
the United States and the Taliban were still on friendly terms.
In a new book published in Paris, Bin
Laden: The Forbidden Truth, former French intelligence officer
Jean-Charles Brisard and journalist Guillaume Dasquie document
an amicable relationship between George W. Bush, and the Taliban.
The book quotes John O'Neill, former director of anti-terrorism
for the FBI, who thought the State Department, acting on behalf
of U.S. and Saudi oil interests, interfered with FBI efforts
to track down Osama bin Laden before Sept. 11.
The State Department and Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency financed, armed and trained the Taliban
in its civil war against the Northern Alliance to make the
region safe for <U.S.-based> corporate oil interests,
according to Ahmed Rashid's best-selling book, Taliban: Militant
Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia. California-based
UNOCAL was negotiating for an oil pipeline to run through Afghanistan
and Pakistan, but it pulled out of the deal because of feminist
opposition to the Taliban's treatment of women after President
Bill Clinton bombed al-Qaida training camps in retaliation for
the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
said earlier this week that Mr. Walker was lucky he was a U.S.
citizen and was captured by the United States. The implication
was that if the Northern Alliance had captured him or if he
were a <non-U.S>. citizen prisoner of the United States,
he wouldn't have been so humanely treated.
The United States has signed, ratified
and implemented the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It prohibits securing
information by torture, even in wartime. Mr. Walker is reportedly
cooperating with U.S. military authorities; it is hoped he is
being treated humanely as required by the torture convention
and the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners
of War.
Mr. Walker does not come under the jurisdiction
of a military court under the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
as he is not in the U.S. military. He cannot be tried in one
of the Bush administration's new secret military tribunals,
as they apply only to noncitizens. Mr. Walker has not renounced
his U.S. citizenship.
We don't know whether Mr. Walker was
simply an idealistic kid who joined the Taliban when it was
still friendly to the United States in order to help build a
pure Islamic state. We don't know whether he acted voluntarily,
or what his mental state was when he was captured.
The U.S. government may decline to file
charges against Mr. Walker if he provides sufficient information
to help the anti-terrorism effort. But if charges are levied
against him, we should wait until the evidence comes out before
judging him.
Marjorie Cohn
is an associate professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law
in San Diego, where she teaches International Human Rights Law.
This op-ed originally appear in the Baltimore Sun.
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