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May 5, 2006
WB: The Quality of Mercy

Billmon:

America may still be better than the 9/11 criminals (or at least, so I believe) but it’s not that much better — not so much that the neocons were willing to put our moral superiority on the line by renouncing Guantanamo. Nor would our conservative culture warriors have stood for it if they had. They don’t want to be that much better than the terrorists. Still, the Moussaoui trial at least proves that they haven’t succeeded in making us worse — yet.

The Quality of Mercy

Posted by b on May 5, 2006 at 05:06 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Another night. Again, I wake upon the wrong blog. I’ll take the fifth on this post, on the grounds that if I truly said what I think of it, Billmon would get all ruffled up again and refuse to post for four months, and I would be blamed for it.

Posted by: Malooga | May 5 2006 5:54 utc | 1

Moussaoui is a patsy. They’re always useful, why waste them?

Posted by: Dick Durata | May 5 2006 5:59 utc | 2

Okay, me too. I can agree that trying Moussaoui is the correct method. Even if that implies the death penalty as a legal option. I will point out that Afghanistan did offer to transfer Bin Ladin to a neutral third party for the same treatment, rejected by a US administration bent on revenge.
Civilization has tools (war is not a tool) to deal with miscreants. The invasion of Afghanistan in this view is not civilized behavior, and that is part and parcel of my objection to said administration’s methods and actions.
The only justification I can see for the death penalty is that the culture can only defend itself against a proven threat, such as a serial killer, by killing the offender. If incarceration is affordable and possible, it is the correct option. Rehabilitation is a better option if possible.
Rational behavior is a tricky thing to second-guess, yet we have a millennium of jurisprudence (laws, cops, constitutions) that should not be easily discarded.

Posted by: jonku | May 5 2006 7:20 utc | 3

As a U.S. foreigner I am probably not entiled for the fifth. More so, I think it is a duty to speak out against this.
1. Capital punishment is wrong in all cases. It is an insult to humanity. Unlike defense in the face of an immediate attack, it is cold blooded murder for reasons of inferior “moral values”, like revenche.
2. Moussaoui’s guilty plea is invalid. He is a crazy idiot and for sure could use some psychiatric help. A crazy calling himself guilty is in no way proof that he is indeed guilty. Even the prosecuters didn´t believe some of his claims. Why believe his other claims? So why was he found guilty in the first place?
Maybe Moussaoui is a danger to other people -some idiots are-, so until he changes through a bit of intrasight and professional help, he probably should be locked away.
3. The whole trial was an inquisition setup, a show trial that would allow no other outcome. Important witness like KSM were not heard, a clear violation of Moussaoui’s rights. How can that be a “victory” for justice? It can not. It was the defeat of justice and human values.
Your mileage may vary.

Posted by: b | May 5 2006 7:34 utc | 4

couple weeks ago, I heard a family member of one of the WTC victims interviewed on NPR–she was eloquent, making the point that whatever Moussaoui claimed he wanted to do, he didn’t do it, and therefore killing him would not serve justice. i was relieved to hear the verdict. i, too, can imagine dark scenarios in which dubya releases him–not hard to picture things getting more insane before (or if) we manage to wake up from this nightmare. meanwhile, i entertain myself betting on the race between fitz bringing down the the house of cards and cheney bombing iran (more contracts for kbr/halliburton).

Posted by: catlady | May 5 2006 8:20 utc | 5

Excuse the tin-foil hat, but maybe someone here can answer or point me to a reasonable explanation for a nagging question? As far as I know Moussaoui is the only preson tried for the Sept 11 attacks. How many people have been charged in connection with the Madrid bombs (it must be above 30 now)? As far as I know the highjackers were hiding in plain sight. Whatever about before the attacks, it should have been relatively easy to wrap up the whole sorry support network after the fact. I suppose it could be claimed that the network has been carted off to a cosy secret prison, but I doubt the US administration would pass up the chance to parade any definite involvement in the attacks before the public. At best, it is a major investigative failure; at worst, I am going to have to get used to that hat.

Posted by: ted | May 5 2006 9:23 utc | 6

America may still be better than the 9/11 criminals
Billmon doesn’t get the joke.

Posted by: DM | May 5 2006 9:35 utc | 7

WaPo OpEd: How Not to Fight Terrorism

Four years ago Moussaoui was on the verge of pleading guilty to offenses that would have resulted in a life sentence. But he was unwilling to accept the government’s insistence that he admit to being the 20th hijacker of Sept. 11, 2001 — an allegation the government has long since dropped.
For almost two years, the case was stalled as the government sought Moussaoui’s execution while denying him access to witnesses in its control who had testimony establishing that he was not involved in the Sept. 11 plot at all. Due process has long required the government to turn over such “exculpatory” evidence, but the government, citing national security, refused to afford Moussaoui access to this evidence. In October 2003 the trial court offered a reasonable solution: Allow the trial to proceed but eliminate the death penalty, because that’s what the government’s exculpatory evidence related to. The government refused that solution and spent several more years trying Moussaoui. The case ended where it began — with Moussaoui facing life in prison.

Posted by: b | May 5 2006 9:44 utc | 8

Okay, me too, hornblower.
However, I can agree with the poster that trying Moussaoui is the correct method. Even if that implies the death penalty as a legal option. I will point out that Afghanistan did offer to transfer Bin Ladin to a neutral third party for the same treatment, rejected by a US administration bent on revenge.
Civilization has tools (war is not a tool) to deal with miscreants. The invasion of Afghanistan in this view is not civilized behavior, and that is part and parcel of my objection to said administration’s methods and actions.
The only justification I can see for the death penalty is that the culture can only defend itself against a proven threat, such as a serial killer, by killing the offender. If incarceration is affordable and possible, it is the correct option. Rehabilitation is a better option if possible, and can I suggest prevention as the finest option. Why didn’t responsible adults intervene?
Rational behavior is a tricky thing to second-guess, yet we have a millennium of jurisprudence (laws, cops, constitutions) that should not be easily discounted.
On the other hand I can see the need to kill someone as being cathartic, and in some sense that might lead to a better life for New Yorkers and Americans in general. At least, I’m beginning to absorb my own feelings about the way that the September 11th 2001 attacks, and the aftemath, have affected me. Not to mention New York’s reflection of the country’s failing economy at the time. Life was beginning to suck, but me and mine were still doing okay, then that happened.
It gave a higher precedence to youth, motherhood, serving in the National Guard, being burly and working at the site. Feeble people like me were left to offer blood at the Red Cross, only to be turned down because we were at the tail end of the line.
So why am I not pissed off about this, not looking for revenge? I lost big-time, not in friends but in my loss of the people I love to a different aspect, I have loved ones who lost loved ones — but we didn’t lose our sense of safety — that may be the crux.
The anger and vengefulness may (may) be attributed to the loss of something deeper, the sense of safety and strength and unknowing bliss shared by the American community.
I’m not so sure but I do know this — whoever is responsible for bringing down those buildings, where I have worked, and seen awful power at work, is worthy of contempt and even perhaps hatred. We went each day to work in a building, then someone destroyed our place of work, where we had, and wished to continue doing meaningful labor. But those feelings should prompt a rational behavior, an impulse toward justice as we currently practice that fine art.
The perpetrators of this attack, as should any like them, deserve the highest justice civilization can afford.
To my mind that includes investigation, charges, a trial and, if proven, a sentence. Only that transparent process can be relied upon as successful, or even aspiring to catharsis.
Found, charged and tried before the public. That is the nature of justice.

Posted by: jonku | May 5 2006 10:05 utc | 9

Okay, sorry for being pompous. My feelings are that we have governments, laws and agreements.
Let us use them. Who knows, maybe then we won’t have so many scared mothers, alhough after reading about the guy (has a book called something about “Ghosts”) who signed up for active duty in Iran rather than Wall Street, maybe we should all be scared.
Is war simply an outlet for the necessarily violent? As a long-time pacifist and also long-term science fiction reader, I rationalized the two impulses as saying that we need a defensive military, even though we should have no global or regional conflicts. But just in case there might be a threat from somewhere else (space aliens?) that our forgetfulness about war might bring our downfall.
So there may be a reason to keep our swords sharp.
Isn’t there saying that one aspect of the state is that it shall have a monopoly on violence — perhaps the question of what is the state — a house, a district, a city, a province or a country — or a planet. Legitimacy is conferred on a state, it cannot be simply claimed.
Oh that’s right, statehood is now claimed by countries (nations) because they have the power, er, legitimaate tools of violence, I mean weapons. Er, tools.
Upon reflection I am still unsure, but my vote is still and always that war is wrong; killing is wrong.

Posted by: jonku | May 5 2006 11:01 utc | 10

And even though the prosecution threw every cheap, manipulative trick in the book at them, 12 ordinary Americans, good and true, (if not particularly coherent) were able to see past the demonization and the raw thirst for vengeance, and deliver the punishment that they believed best fit the crime.
You can’t corrupt all the people, all of the time.

Posted by: yesh | May 5 2006 13:47 utc | 11

I think this trial was an important moment to show that rule of law hasn’t totally been tossed out the window…at least below the level of the executive branch.
Something I have wondered about for a while now is this: what will happen to the ppl in gitmo? how will that situation be resolved? it seems impossible to know who is there, much less if they have committed a crime or if they were swept up as part of general fears.
is that barbed wire prison camp there until the ppl die of old age?
If it’s unrealistic to think that terrorism will go away as a form of war against great powers, how does America make the move away from hysteria?

Posted by: fauxreal | May 5 2006 14:29 utc | 12

I’ll give a government absolute power over human life when it can exercise that right perfectly. They’ve killed too many petty criminals on fault evidence, in my opinion, and thus forfeited their right to kill another person for the sake of sanctioned revenge.
I just want to say that when the Economist is reporting on the witness tampering that went on during the trial, we’ve got a problem. When we can’t even have a fair trial against a man who admitted he tried to kill thousands of Americans… More damage has been done than we saw on 9/11.

Posted by: Lennonist | May 7 2006 14:23 utc | 13

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