On justice and (bitter, bitter) irony

(Cross-posted at Sine.qua.non)

School work has kept me away from "here" for a while; and, being that finals week is next week, it will some more; but I did want to add my two cents' worth to the commentary on the Moussaoui verdict.

I first of all confess to being a bit slow of study about some things--hence my puzzlement about why, not just with regard to the Moussaoui trial but also also 9/11-related cases in Europe, the U.S. has not permitted the really big fish it has in custody to testify in court in support of the prosecution's case. And, in the particular case of Moussaoui, I'd always thought the government's case was, to be charitable, weak: this man, despicable as he is, is to be put to death because, IF he had told what he had known, the government COULD HAVE prevented the 9/11 attacks? The defense (court-appointed attorneys working on behalf of a man who didn't want them working on behalf of him, by the way) made mincemeat of that argument just by calling attention to the information the government already had before 9/11 and yet did nothing about. I kept thinking, This is the best we can do with regard to bringing to justice those responsible for these heinous acts?

Then I read something by someone of quicker study than I, and all becomes a bit clearer to me.

Via Kevin Drum, Mark Kleiman over at Reality-Based Community provides a quick summary of Michael Isikoff's appearance on Hardball on May 3. Go and read, as they say.

Our nation wants to feel secure, which is as it should be. That sense of security will arise from at least two places: a competent government that holds itself accountable for past errors and shows its willingness to invest time, energy and money in getting things right--in every sense of the term "right"; the finding and prosecution (or, seeing as this has been called a "war," killing) of those responsible for planning and committing acts of terror. I'll leave the "competent government" part alone for now and concentrate on the latter: because we have tortured, or have had other nations torture, the men who really SHOULD be on trial for 9/11, our government has deprived us of a very large measure of the very justice it has promised all of us--and, obviously, the government deprives itself of the opportunity to offer us unmistakable evidence that it is seeking justice.

I agree with the verdict, and I agree with those who say that Moussaoui was wrong, that America DID win this one. But I would argue as well that the jury's verdict was also an finding against how our government has handled the (legal) prosecution of the war on terror. As with the prosecution of the continuing war in Iraq, administrative sanctioning of torture, extreme rendition, secret prisons, and all the rest have effectively disarmed our nation of one of our most important weapons: our system of justice.

So, to summarize: some few people somewhere are deriving satisfaction from beating the shit out of some prisoners in the name of or on behalf of the United States of America, but even whatever information they might gain from those prisoners can never be used in courts of law--except to prosecute those who conducted or sanctioned the torture in the first place. Meanwhile, in public we are asked to put to death a man whose importance to the 9/11 plot, from what I could tell, existed more in his own mind than in anyone else's, his knowledge of that plot notwithstanding.

In the matter of 9/11, our government has emasculated itself and our nation, swiftly and without anesthesia or suturing or, most ominously, disinfectant or antibiotics--and all in the quest for that cheap justice called vengeance . . . which now has deprived all of us of a far more legitimate justice we now can no longer have. Ever. As awful as the events of that day were, what I have just written grieves me even more.

Technorati tags:
9/11, Moussaoui, Torture, Justice, Law