I was just reading up on John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” and
I must say I am morally perplexed. How does one pass judgment on such an individual?
The real story of little Johnny Walker (Lindh is his father’s name; he evidently prefers his mother’s) began in 1997, when, at age 16, he sold his hip-hop collection and converted to Islam. It’s hard to fault him here. When I was 16, I converted to agnosticism. A friend of mine became a Taoist and another a Pentecostal, of all things. Still another “converted” from punk rock to techno.
My point is this: 16-year-olds are freaking crazy. We all went through drastic changes in those years. Most of us were lucky enough not to have ex-hippie, so-liberal-it-hurts parents willing to support and fund our radical tendencies. My mother sure as heck wasn’t sending me off to agnostic camp in Sweden, or wherever agnostics come from.
But Walker’s parents were different. Only a year after his conversion, they sent him to Yemen so he could learn the archaic form of Arabic spoken there, the form closest to the original language of the Koran. He came home for a while, then went back to Yemen and on to Pakistan. In 2000, about six months before his capture, he made his way to Afghanistan.

One report says he was given the choice, upon completing his military training, of either becoming an al-Qaida fighter or a Taliban warrior. He chose the Taliban because of that government’s immersion in Islamic law. Another report says Walker claimed, during his imprisonment, that he was indeed affiliated with al-Qaida. Neither is verifiable, as far as I can tell. But at the time of his capture, he was only a lowly Taliban foot soldier.
Does this make him a traitor? When he joined the Taliban, they were not our enemies. He did not sign on for a war against America. And when that war came, what was he to do? Respectfully resign his commission? “Hey, Ahkmed, I’m afraid this whole thing with the United States is a bit of a conflict of interest for me. If I could just pack up my stuff and be on my way… I’m sure you understand.”
I’m not positive, but I believe our Army can still shoot deserters on sight if they like. I doubt the Taliban was any less stringent.
Then what was John Walker’s crime? Choosing a way of life fundamentally opposed to our own? If this is treasonous behavior, half of Eugene should be behind bars. Was participating in the prison uprising at Mazar-e Sharif a crime worthy of punishment? Only one American died, and no one claims Walker killed him. He did what everyone else does in a riot — go with the flow and try not to get shot or trampled to death — and he was shot in the leg.
After careful analysis, I must say Walker is on trial for his political and
social beliefs, nothing more.
But still, part of me wants to condemn him. He chose to participate in a government that routinely brutalized its citizens, shot women for going to school or work and beat people for watching television or listening to music, according to pundits on the news shows. He made himself into an oppressor, so it is somewhat poetic justice that his rights as a free-thinking American are being oppressed.
Walker shunned modern American liberties, abandoned them for medieval fundamentalism, so why should he have them now? At the same time, tolerance for differing viewpoints, even those as despicable as the ones adopted by Walker, is an essential part of the American ideal.