Weblog
12/28/01 08:58 PM: Paradox of Johnny Taliban
I wrote an email to Paul, regarding his critique of a column by Helen Thomas. She basically says that we (namely President Bush) should be more compassionate towards the American Taliban.
Additional Note: View his reply here.
Anyway, I felt the email was long enough and well written enough to be a post. So here it is:
First of all, I have no strong opinion either way when it comes to the American Taliban, it is a complicated case from a legal point of view; as well as from a “moral” point of view. I’ll explain.
From the legal point of view it’s complicated, because it would be hard to make treason on him. As the Constitution does say, you need two witnesses to the same act of treason. That’s kind of hard, because we don’t really have any witnesses, and we don’t really know exactly what acts of treason he committed.
As far as the moral standpoint, I’m not sure what to think. I mean, I thought I would be more angry at him than I am. Most likely this comes from my anti-death penalty stance (Except for if we are at war, we can shoot them…. and military tribunals, I suppose can issue death sentences to the enemy, but that’s kind of hazy I don’t know what to do in that case, yet). Anyway, I sort of can see how his progression into the Taliban happened, and he had gotten into it before September 11. The war kind of came to him, even though it was inevitable. Apparently, he turned down Terrorism class with bin Laden to go fight against the Northern Alliance (This was before 9/11 I believe), so, if true, he didn’t directly assist or take part in the 9/11 attacks, but since he was a member of the enemy army I’m not sure what to do with him.
If he was just a standard Taliban, and this was a standard war, we typically don’t execute the soldiers. Especially foot soldiers like the American Taliban. Objectively I think its kind of silly to punish him more because he was an American. He would have maybe been better off never even saying anything about being American.
Anyway, a paradox of sorts arises. If, he gave up his American status when he joined the Taliban, then he can’t be tried for treason (?). So, he should go to the military tribunals. I don’t know which would be better, and I don’t really know who makes the distinction.
One question though, why is it up to the President what happens to him? I don’t remember the Executive Branch becoming some kind of Prosecutor, but I suppose during war all is fair.
About the war on terror moving on to Iraq. I think the war should also move on to Saudi Arabia, as that is home to the vast majority of the 9/11 terrorists. However, it will never go there, even if Bin Laden himself showed up in Saudi Arabia and went on TV, we would come up with a reason not to go in. The Saudi princes pay off the terrorists not to take over their country, but we turn our back on it so we can get the oil. It’s pathetic really, I think we do need to be nation building, in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and where ever else it has been proven time and again that the people cannot govern themselves. Anyway, mark my words, the Bush Administration (nor any other) will never even consider moving the war to Saudi Arabia, even if it becomes vital to this “war” on terror.
