Who’s the Rat?
by Joseph Sobran

Things are getting a little too unanimous around here. That always makes me suspicious.
Everybody is crying out for the blood of John Walker, or Lindh, or whatever his name is. It’s an ugly, media-driven mob fury. Headlines in the New York Post – over news stories, not editorials or opinion columns – refer to him simply as "the Rat." Unbiased journalism.
What did the Rat actually do? He tried to shed his identity. He changed his name, religion, and country. He took up arms to defend his adopted country when it was attacked. It just happened that the invading country was the one he was born in, something he could hardly have foreseen when he went to Afghanistan.
This is treason? Well, he was still technically a citizen of the invading country, because he hadn’t done the formal paperwork for renouncing his citizenship. On the other hand, the invading country hadn’t declared war, as its constitution requires.
More to the point, Walker is a lone eccentric. If he "gets away with" what he has done, so what? Are thousands of other young Americans going to follow his example and join the Taliban unless we "make an example" of him?
The U.S. Government now believes the anthrax mailings that killed several people and scared the whole country were probably sent by one or more disgruntled former employees of the government’s own biological weapons program who had taken some of the lethal stuff home with them. Under the cover of the 9/11 attacks and the consequent hysteria, the perpetrator(s) knew the deaths would be ascribed to foreign terrorists; and various propagandists were quick to blame Saddam Hussein and to demand that Iraq be punished.
Now all this is far nastier, far more treacherous, than anything Walker is accused of doing. Yet it has aroused far less outrage. In fact, we should be angry that our own government was developing such evil, inhuman, dangerous weapons in the first place. They can only be used to kill innocent people; they are fearfully hard to control and, it now appears, easy to steal. Is this what we mean by "national defense"?

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If our rulers can create such weapons secretly, we can stop pretending that we live in a "democracy," under popular control. It makes nonsense of all our patriotic slogans.
I remember how angry I was when Communist propagandists accused this country of practicing "germ warfare" in Korea. Now I have to wonder. Our government doesn’t deny having a biological weapons program; it can’t be sure the anthrax that killed several Americans wasn’t home-brewed.
Nobody can keep track of all the things our government does in the open, let alone guess what it’s doing behind closed doors. But now and then we get disturbing intimations.
No wonder some foreigners regard this country as the Great Satan. It could have been a wonderful country; so it used to be, and in some respects it still is. But if it equates "defense" with mass murder, "the Great Satan" will do as a rough approximation. In that light, John Walker doesn’t seem quite so goofy.
In fact, he seems old-fashioned, almost chivalrous. He behaved straightforwardly. He fought like a man, as we used to say. He didn’t pretend to be loyal to this country while scheming to get it into war, unlike some people I could name (who are now accusing him of treason, of course). He proclaimed his convictions and was ready to die for them.
But he’s a safe target. We can all vent our patriotism on him. He has no friends. He doesn’t own any media outlets. And he’s a godsend to a government that wants to portray war as melodrama and to channel popular passions against supposed threats. Now all the government has to do is find a charge that will stand up in court.
It may not be that easy. A similarly defenseless woman, also the target of hate and hysteria, was once framed as the semi-mythical "Tokyo Rose," yet despite all the government’s enormous efforts (it spent a million dollars) to stack the evidence and exclude defense witnesses, she was very nearly acquitted of all charges. In the end, she was convicted on only one dubious count, out of eight leveled against her.
Anyway, it seems a bit harsh to call Walker a "rat."
The epithet better fits those who carry germs.
January 9, 2001

Joe Sobran is a nationally syndicated columnist. He also edits SOBRAN'S, a monthly newsletter of his essays and columnsw, www.sobran.com.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Griffin Internet Syndicate. All rights reserved.

Let the flaming begin! [flame] [pyro]

This guy is as bad as Bellesiles. He's not basing his claims on what he has researched about people's attitudes, but on what the media reports about people's attitudes. That type of research is anecdotal at best, and does not give as clear a picture as actually talking to a large cross-section of the population.

I feel no special hatred for "Taliban John" Walker. He should have his head cut off.

Osama? Cut his head off.

Al-Qaida members? Cut their heads off.

Anthrax mailers? Cut their heads off.

See, no special hatred for Taliban John. No special leniency for anthrax mailers. Heads off for all of them.

I never really got all that righteously indignant  at Taliban John. He's basically an idiot, who made his choices, and now has to live with them. Is that REALLY a newsflash???

If they execute him, that's fine with me. If not, and they keep him in jail for the rest of his life, I'll wake up each morning smiling knowing my tax dollars are being spent to ensure Taliban John has his daily "date" with Bubba.

My greater beef was with his parents, who raised him to be a truant.

My greatest beef is with the mindset that doesn't see the wrongness in the parenting style (aka child neglect) of Taliban John's parents.

Great post Gman!

Well schittt, there's nothing I don't agree with here.

One small addition.
If it were in my power I would give the parents the opportunity to save their child.  (Comment based on the facts as now known/believed.)
If the parents would agree to do twenty years I would give Johnny twenty years.  A real 20 - serve every day and not in a "country club" prision.

The family that does time together stays together !

[smoke]

I like it!!!!!!!!

Throw the choice in the parents lap.

If they serve 20 years with him, he gets life imprisonment, hard labor, with no possibility of parole.

If they won't do teh 20, he gets exectuted.

While I am STRONGLY against punishing them for his actions, they ARE resposible for his lack of charachter and inability to make right judgments. This will FORCE them to face the music for the litle piece of vermin they raised.

Good one, 5subslr5!!!!!!!!!

By joining a foreign army he automatically renounced his citizenship. He should have been handled like the rest of the Taliban scum. Firing squads for every one of them.

The problem with the idea of sending them all to prison is that daddy dearest would think of it as a vacation..

Remember he is a fudgepacker!!!  He would welcome some Bubba time.

There is only two problems with your suggestions.
By all accounts thus far he probably still retains his U.S. citizenship.

The second is most of the Talib's will go free and unpunished.

[smoke]

Stormbringer,
this is no shot for a shooter !

Put him in a cell with a guy with no pecker.  If there's not one available simply have one cut-to-order by one of the Brother(Hoods).
These guys may be criminals and psychopaths but believe it or not most are really patriotic.

[smoke]

We don't know if he still has his citizenship...I'd bet that we let that traitor's story sit on the back burner for months now and he'll get the military tribunal. People will say "He can't he's a U.S. Citizen." But they forget that when you join a foreign army you automatically renounce your citizenship, so he is eligible for the tribunal. We should have just put a bullet in his head along with the rest of them. The Taliban fighters will regroup in the future and fight, That's the problem.

Why waste all this time talking about what to do with him. There is no point in trying to be Politically correct about the situation. Just chop his head off and get it over with!

John Walker Lindh...The other white meat!

Heads will roll!!!

BigDozer66

"What did the Rat actually do? He tried to shed his identity. He changed his name, religion, and country. He took up arms to defend his adopted country when it was attacked."

Well he did what I tell people to do..."If you don't like AMERICA go back where you came from...or just leave!"

He believed in his religious views enough to die for them...And he should!

BigDozer66

I don't think you do either.  Remember the U.S. General (Shalishkivili, or something like that?) who helped organize one of the Baltic nations' armies (Lithuania?) after the fall of the USSR?  He almost took the job of commanding their army, but the U.S. State Department got pissed about the idea and told him they'd persecute him if he tried.

No offence Maynard but I think the reason he chose to put "democracy" in quotation marks was to highlight the oft-overlooked point you brought up...the Constitutional Republic.

You are correct.

Hell it is a free country right?

Well at least it used to be.  [:(]

rDAm

Very good point you bring up.  The damage done by Walker "the elder" should make anyone remotely familiar with the cryptologic/NSA  community shudder, while the "younger" is nothing more than bad press about the state of todays American youth more than anything else, not like we didn't know things are going downhill in that department anyway.

Personally I believe that he should be considered for having his citizenship stripped.  I can't think of much worse than being deported back to Afghanistan at this point in time...After all he did go there of his own free will, to join a military force, send him back to his new country.  For those calling for his head, I would not give any odds on him living more than 48 hours upon return to Afghanistan.

                          I LIKE it!.....EQUALITY for all.....that`s what America is about!!! (p-s...is that anectodotal equilibrium?)....funny...[thinking]