May
2006
Moussaoui and the Madness of King George
It was possible, however briefly, to be genuinely proud of this country on Wednesday when a federal jury rejected the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, a bit player with no direct role in the 9-11 attacks whom the Bush Administration decided to exhibit in a costly show trial–and who made the most of his moment in the limelight.
The functioning of our jury system, and the fact that these jurors clearly believed that a troubled upbringing for the accused in a Moroccan French family was a major mitigating factor, stand brilliantly apart from the general drift of things post 9-11. That general drift is symbolized by the 500 or so persons detained without charge or trial in Guantanamo, Cuba, and the who-knows-how-many-more persons judged to be “unlawful enemy combatants” and thus held in wretched conditions without charge or trial at Baghram Air Base in Afghanistan and at secret detention/torture centers around the globe. It is these doomed and disappeared, most of them rounded up in haste in the panic that followed 9-11, whose fate dishonors the American claim to be the world’s great defender of human rights and the rule of law. It is our shameful treatment of them that confirms the worst rhetoric of those who do genuinely hate our country and wish it ill, and it is this same treatment–both unconstitutional and in direct violation of accepted international laws and norms–that increasingly pushes these haters beyond mere rhetoric and into acts of actual lethal violence against the United States and its people.
I am among the many millions who really want the United States to defend itself as effectively as possible, but under George Bush our foolish and lawless ways have made us more rather than less vulnerable. The renditions, the torture, and the detentions without charge or trial make a complete mockery of any and all speeches about fighting for liberty and human rights. They invite our enemies to do the same and worse to our soldiers and civilians alike.
What we have done in 9-11’s wake stands in stark and awkward contrast to our conduct following World War II in which the murderers of many millions were properly tried at Nuremberg rather than being subjected to the kind of summary justice they themselves had practiced. As a New York Times editorial noted this morning, our current detention policy means that “those who may be something more sinister [than simply luckless men] cannot be tried because their rights have been so compromised during their imprisonment. They are damaged goods, their very presence staining the honor of the country that imprisoned them, willy-nilly, because it seemed the easiest thing to do at the time.”
I do understand the frustration and rage of 9-11 family members for whom a death sentence for Moussaoui would have provided some sense of equity and, yes, “closure.” And I do not excuse his megalomaniacal ragings from the dock. But surely any small sign or signal that the rule of law still prevails in these United States must be welcomed in a time when, officially at least, we have turned our backs on all of the principles that once made us respected and even loved within the family of nations.
- Peter Laarman