The Victims of Terror v. the Victims of Treason
And Might v. Right

Americans have always been skeptical of the charge of treason. This is proper, and makes sense, considering that in colonial times treason was a frequent charge levied upon colonists by the British government, as a means to attack separatists or punish those who refused to follow the autocratic dictates of the crown. It is thus no surprise that we are treating the trial of John Walker Lindh, an American who chose to fight alongside Al Qaida in Afghanistan, with extreme timidity.

Treason is a very viable and rational charge, when applied to the proper case and individual, and should be punishable by an appropriately terrible sentence. However, establishing treason as an applicable charge must be as sure as the charge of first-degree murder. One must know for sure that the defendant has committed an act that contradicts the purposes and demands of his citizenship, and at the same time annihilates the rights of his fellow citizens. If these factors are met, treason has been committed.

The problem most Americans have is where to draw the line between dissidence (a justifiably rebellious political stance) and treason (the act of overtly attacking one's own countrymen). Hippies who harrassed soldiers outside of military bases during the 60s weren't traitors. Farm workers and unionists protesting against their employers are not traitors. People who publicly denounce the Constitution are not traitors. A dictatorial government, such as the ones which exist throughout most of the third world, would actively suppress these activities as treason or subversion, but our free society allows individuals to use their freedom to call for changes in their government (however irrational those changes may be in practice).

The litmus test for treason is ultimately the singular factor of fighting an armed fight against the armed forces or representatives of one's government. Americans possess the freedom to alter their institutions, government and Constitution to an unprecedented degree among the nations of the world. The only qualifier constraining this freedom is the fact that, like most mixed economies, Americans even possess the ability to strip their upper class of its rights. However, these rights do not imply that anyone has the ability to begin an armed revolt against their fellow countrymen with impunity.

The fact is, when one is resorting to the use of armed force, one is declaring that all other methods of persuasion have failed. But force must only be used when it is subordinated to reason. If it isn't, it will merely be the clash between one irrational army and another, and neither will win the fight. One must know, in clear, verbally-definable form, what one is fighting for and why. One must also be able to trace one's philosophical premises in their fight to the pursuit of life on Earth - for when fighting a life-or-death battle, if life is not the prize of the winning party, the battle is meaningless.

Al Qaida and the terrorist governments of the world already know what their goals are: death. Therefore any nation seeking to destroy them already possesses the moral high ground. The cult of personality in North Korea spends its time in pursuit of the best propaganda campaign to convince their countrymen that their's is the greatest and most affluent nation on Earth - while most of their citizens starve and their government continues to plot new strategies to begin World War III. The theocrats in Iran continue to route out any sign of dissent among their populace, punishing Christians, authors, businessmen and artists with as much arbitrary wrath as the Taliban, and destroying the rich history of Persia in the process. The military dictatorships in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Lybia and throughout Africa keep such a tight stranglehold on their people that economic innovation and foreign capital are scared away or just squeezed to death. These are the types of states that shrug off globalization and constitutional democracy. These are the states that have no problem enforcing terror as a means of controlling their people. They do not step down when voted out of office (they're rarely voted out because the people are afraid to vote against them). They do not separate their military infrastructure from their government infrastructure. They do not see the difference between fighting for individual rights and fighting to annex a neighboring state. They understand nothing but force.

Thus we properly respond with force. And we are victorious, so long as we always know that we have right on our side and refuse to give up that fact. Thus goes the war against terrorism.

The rest of the world (the states that were not attacked) believe that we are reacting too harshly to a direct attack on our financial and political capitals and the deaths of thousands of our greatest, most productive citizens. They believe we should give terrorist states and their citizens the benefit of the doubt and assume they simply have a different opinion of what America stands for.

But this is a horrible, tragic lie. America stands for life: capitalism, growth, this world, common sense. Our enemies stand for death: faith, religion, collectivism, intrinsicism. This is a war against those who would rather die fighting Americans than live as Americans do. We are fighting because we would rather die as proud Americans than survive a living death under the thumb of religious dictators.

John Walker Lindh is not a dissident: He took up arms against his countrymen. He is not just a misguided youth: he had as much a chance to pursue a rational path as the American soldiers he was killing (many of whom were younger than him). He is not a victim of his upbringing or his social system. As Americans, we should be ashamed that we have allowed the victimization lobby to have such a stranglehold over our culture. What happened to the battle cry of the civil rights movement: "We shall overcome!" Why is the new American motto, "we are so abused"?

John Walker Lindh made a conscious choice to kill his countrymen. When new citizens are sworn in, they must affirm that they wish to uphold the Constitution of the United States. By conferring citizenship to the naturally born, this is assumed. John Walker Lindh thus had the choice: live up to his duties as a citizen or betray that citizenship for the sake of a foreign terrorist organization. He chose the latter. He committed treason.