There's a good possibility that John Walker will receive no academic credit for his study-abroad experience.

If you are unfamiliar with the name, surely you've seen his dazed and weary face. Walker is the 20 year old American member of the Taliban who was caught with over 80 other Taliban fighters after a brutal confrontation in the Northern Alliance fortress of Kala Jangi earlier this week. With his long, grungy hair, full, black beard and emaciated pale white frame, Walker looks more suited to be part of the Lord of the Rings cast than a hardcore Muslim extremist.

Speaking from a medical facility after his capture by U.S. forces, Walker told CNN that while studying at an Islamic school in Pakistan, as he began to delve into the history of the Taliban's struggle and soon his heart became attached. So in May, he left his studies in Bannu, Pakistan to offer his services to the Taliban. Not to make too sweeping of a generalization, but seeing Walker's face has filled Americans' minds with this pressing and difficult-to-answer question: Dude, what the heck is going on? Attempting to understand exactly what is the heck and how it is going on, one immediately turns to Walker's past. For the last four years, Walker has lived the typical affluent-sixteen-year-old-white-boy-from-San-Francisco-Bay-area-converts-to-Islam-changes-name-to-Sulayman-moves-to-Yemen-enrolls-in-religious-school-in-Pakistan-heads-to-Afghanistan-changes-name-to-Abdul-Hamid-joins-Taliban-to-help-build-"true-Islamic-state"-type of story. A common life narrative, I know.

Walker's parents seem as confused as the rest of America concerning their son's present state. Walker's mother said that his participation in the Kala Jangi prison riot was completely out of character. "He's totally not streetwise," she states to Newsweek. Walker's father echoed the sentiment: "I can't connect the dots between where John was and where John is." "He's a really good boy," he says. Suggesting how lil' Johnny became lil' Abdul, Walker's mother speculates, "If he got involved with the Taliban he must have been brainwashed."

Such sentiments stemming from Walker's parents are understandable. After all, parents are often the main source of values for their children. Thus, it's hard for parents not to feel somewhat culpable for the choices their offspring. Being "brainwashed" by the Taliban is quite different than freely choosing the Taliban. So if Walker's brain had indeed been washed, then his parents wouldn't have to worry about being a formative factor in his choice, since there wouldn't have been a "choice" to begin with. I know if I were Walker's mother, I'd definitely subscribe to the theory that my son received a good brain scrubbin'.

Less predicable has been President Bush's reaction. In an interview Wednesday with Barbara Walters, the president empathetically stated, "We're just trying to learn the facts about this poor fellow." One of the facts, according to the president, appears to be a simple case of old-fashioned brainwashing. "Obviously, he has been misled, it appears to me," Bush concluded. If Walker was misled, does this mean that the thousands of other young men who joined the Taliban were merely misled as well? Are the ranks of the Taliban filled with brainwashed legions, followers who are unable to exercise free will? "No!" we shout. "The Taliban-fighters have each made a choice, and have to live with the consequences!"

I contend that John Walker has also made a choice, and that any talk of him being brainwashed is a hypocritical double standard. Walker was no more susceptible to brainwashing than anyone else. In fact, Walker's context of choice was even more fully realized than that of the average Taliban-fighter. Walker was raised in America (San Francisco, no less), thus making him fully aware of the alternatives to the Taliban-a point of view that the average Taliban grunt lacked.

By the time he chose to join the Taliban and enter into the al-Qaida network seven months ago, Walker was an adult. To speak of him as an unfortunate youth who has been led astray is to malign the idea of an adult's ability to make rational decisions. As an adult, Walker should be held fully accountable for his decision to join the Taliban. He is only a "poor fellow" in the sense that he chose to dedicate this life to a destructive, inhumane regime.

I question whether anyone would be calling Walker a "poor fellow" if his background had been different. Imagine that instead of a skinny, well-off white kid from San Francisco, Walker had been a second-generation Saudi immigrant from Detroit. Would there be any shaking of heads and chalking up of his position to youthful ignorance? No -- the American people would be forming a lynch mob.

As we continue this war on terrorism, we cannot find ourselves falling into simplistic definitions of what constitutes the identity of a "true American." Walker, since much of his early upbringing mirrors so closely the upbringing of an "all-American kid," has his actions with the Taliban written off as uncharacteristic and coerced.

Meanwhile, hundreds of American citizens of Middle Eastern descent are being indefinitely held in secret, only a tiny fraction of who have been in any way implicated in any terrorist attacks. The unimplicated detainees aren't viewed by the American public as misled or brainwashed. Instead, they are seen as not fitting in with what we define as a "true American." Consequently, even without any evidence, they are designated as legitimate targets of suspicion.

The appearance of John Walker proves that we as a nation cannot and must not rely on such racial profiling as we continue to wage this new war on terror. By creating the category of the "brainwashed poor fellow," we ignore the fact that individuals make the choice to become involved with evil, and that such a choice is one that cuts across all ethnic and racial lines.