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Tuesday, July16,2002
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor:
Jenni Schultz
Editorial
Plea bargain
cheats us all
out of justice,
public debate
John Walker Lindh, the “Ameri
can Taliban,” entered a guilty
plea in federal court Monday as
part of a deal that could keep him in
jail for nearly 20 years.
The news is disturbing for a
number of reasons, and as is so of
ten the case, Americans, their jus
tice system and justice itself are
poorly served by the plea bargain.
The government alleges that
Lindh was involved in terrorism
and a conspiracy to kill Americans,
i If those allegations are true, then a
participant — however tangential
— in the most devastating attack on
America is being let off the hook,
i Twenty years isn’t nearly long
enough, and the country is frittering
justice away.
Many friends and families of peo
ple killed — both on Sept. 11 and in
the violent American response in
Afghanistan — would probably like
to see Lindh executed. They are re
ceiving no justice at all in a 20-year
sentence for “supplying services” to
the Taliban and for carrying
weapons.
Perhaps most disturbing is that
there now will be no public discus
sion and judicial review of the
thorny issues surrounding Lindh’s
actions, constitutional rights, presi
dential power and patriotism.
Was Lindh renouncing his
“Americanism” and thus his rights
when he chose to pick up arms and
fight for the Taliban? Or was he sim
ply expressing an unpopular opin
ion — dislike of American values
— in an incredibly extreme and vio
lent manner? In either case, did the
government treat Lindh fairly and
lawfully, and was President George
W. Bush allowed to declare Lindh
an “unlawful combatant”?
Patriotism and terrorism are in
credibly important issues in Ameri
ca at the moment, and the country
needs to continue the dialogue
about civil liberties and the impor
tance of the Constitution as it pre
pares for what appears to be an
endless “war” against certain types
of actions.
It’s sad that, while he certainly
deserves to be imprisoned, Lindh
may not be receiving a just penalty
for his deeds, and the public isn’t
receiving a thorough examination
of the issue.
Editorial Policy
This editorial represents the opinion of
the Emerald editorial board.
Responses can be sent to
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Letters to the editor and guest
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Letters are limited to 250 words and
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tor space, grammar and style.
A Street full of Gekkos
“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that
greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
Greed is right. Greed works. ”
— Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), “Wall
Street, ”1987.
In the financial realm, too many flesh
and-blood people have heeded the sly
ly satiric words of this celluloid figure.
And for that, in the past 10 months, at
least three CEOs have made off with mil
lions while running their companies into
the ground and leaving rank-and-file em
ployees stranded. It’s past time that corrup
tion was made unprofitable.
Oliver Stone was more prophetic than he
probably cared to be when he wrote the
script for “Wall Street.” Stone, at that point,
was writing from the standpoint of having
watched the scandal surrounding insider
trader Ivan Boesky, who was alleged to have
reaped $19 million and cost $217 million in
damage to Philadelphia-based chemical
concern FMC Corp. in February 1986. FMC,
even 16 years later, has yet to recover.
Nineteen million dollars almost seems
quaint now. Ken Lay’s plunder from Enron’s
collapse, due to corrupt accountants, was
equal to the damage Boesky inflicted on
FMC. Now WorldCom, the well-known par
ent of MCI, may have out-Enroned Enron.
So far we know that WorldCom, faced with
massive losses, cooked the books by claim
ing nearly $4 billion in maintenance costs as
“long-term investments,” thereby easing its
losses and helping the stock price to contin
ue to rise. And, further, WorldCom gave for
mer CEO Bernie Ebbers nearly $400 million
in loans to prevent his WorldCom shares
from being seized due to personal debt.
Now Ebbers, who had kept large amounts
of his fortune in his own company’s stock,
has seen his net worth shrink to a svelte $20
million and can’t pay back the loan. How
can he survive on such a paltry sum? It’s a
hell of a lot better than the 17,000 laid off
employees of WorldCom, who, like their
counterparts at Enron, have seen their entire
futures — retirement, employment, invest
ments — go up in smoke.
The sin was not desiring profit. It was
greed, greed that blinded Enron and World
Com executives to ethical and legal consid
erations. “If something’s worth doing, it’s
worth doing for money” — another Gekko
original — seems to be the order of the day.
The question now facing us is, “What do
we do about it?” Simple. You make the price
of greed so high that CEOs will realize they
can make more money playing by the rules.
Guest Commentary
Pat
Payne
“The penalties should be real, they
should be severe, they should be prompt,”
US Business Roundtable Chairman John
Dillon told Reuters. But how real, severe
and prompt are Dillon and other CEOs in
the United States willing to bear? Both Pres
ident Bush and Congress are pushing legis
lation that would significantly increase jail
time for securities fraud — sentences could
reach as long as 10 years.
Yet jail time is no help. The United States
has a four-tier system of prisons: minimum,
low, medium and maximum security. Medi
um and maximum, the two “hard-time” types
of prisons, are reserved for murderers, rapists,
drug dealers and the occasional spy. Insider
traders? WorldCom executives? They’d be put
into a low or minimum-security setting, and
after their more likely two-to-four year terms
are served, they can go back to a luxurious
lifestyle financed by whatever ill-gotten gains
weren’t salted away by fines.
And the ill-gotten gains are where we
should be hitting them. If it can be proven that
the former executives of WorldCom profited
from their deceit, then we must confiscate
every penny of their earnings at WorldCom.
Take away their luxurious lifestyles. Give
their billions in stock dividends to the em
ployees who weren’t informed that their
stocks were worth less than toilet paper
within the span of an evening.
No, Mr. Gekko. Greed is not good. Greed
is not right. Greed does not work. Greed will
not save America.
Pat Payne is a freelance columnist. His opinions
do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.