Thinking of Zacharias Moussaoui

A few months ago Zacharias Moussaoui was convicted of having some part in the attacks of September 11, 2001, and was sentenced to life in prison. That he wasn't executed is a victory of sorts for opponents of capital punishment, but not really a victory for the principle of humane and just treatment for offenders
Consider the statement at this website. Note that the writer feels life imprisonment was a more appropriate sentence than death, but note also the reasons:.

Second, by sentencing Moussaoui to life in prison at the federal Supermax facility in Colorado, we have done far worse than put him to death. He will be in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. He will have no visitors. He will have no contact with other inmates. He will be locked in his cell 23 hours a day. The only persons he will see will be the guards who will deliver his meals three times a day or escort him to a room for his daily 60 minute exercise period. That is it. He may, on occasion, be visited by some law enforcement or governmental official, but that's all. No friends. No relatives. No imams. Nobody.

To reiterate, we have done far worse than kill him. We have made him a non-entity, a living ghost who will quickly fade out of the the public's memory. And then he will die, as the presiding judge said, quoting T.S.Eliot, “with a whimper.” I can think of no better fate for him.

I am not an expert on the facts of Moussaoui's case. I don't know whether he actually had a role in 9/11, or whether he actually knew when and where it would take place. The jury heard the evidence and concluded that he did, so I tentatively assume that they are correct. I also don't know whether Moussaoui was mentally ill - though some of his actions and statements suggest that to a non-medical person like me. I certainly acknowledge, based on things he said in court, that he was a person filled with rage and that he directed that rage at all Americans (among others) - presumably including (not to be personal about it) ... me. So I have no problem seeing that innocent people should be protected from him, even if this means confining him for life.

BUT

If the above description of conditions for his confinement are accurate, I find them absolutely horrifying and absolutely unjustified. What could motivate such treatment except society's rage at his crime? How does this cruelty in any way redeem the suffering of the victims of 9/11? How does it advance justice? Or peace?

Jesus urged his followers to 'love your enemies and do good to those who hate you' (Luke 6:27-28). I have not taken this to mean that we necessarily have to feel warm and tender emotions toward specific people, but that we should intend (and act for) their good rather than their harm. Jesus modelled this attitude himself, even on the cross. Millions of people who think of themselves as followers of Jesus do not seem to want to apply this teaching in cases like Moussaoui's, but it seems to me that if we really become His Friends we will become able to do so: not only in the case of big and public and 'political' cases like Moussaoui's but in our daily interactions with "enemies" whose actions are merely inconvenient or annoying rather than evil.

I claim no great acheivement on this score, but I at least feel clear about what the direction should be.

I also wonder whether in fact Moussaoui is permitted visitors and whether he gets any? Is there anyone anywhere still looking out for his welfare, able to communicate with him and listen to him? Are Friends or others concerned for his rights and willing to believe that he is capable of growth?

These are sobering questions. I have been pondering them from some time and feel no clearness at all about what can be done.

- - Rich

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A Voice From My Personal Past

Within the last few days I have been rooting through some old and musty piles of papers. Among them I found the January 13, 1969, issue of "Suppression", an underground periodical published in and around the State University of Albany campus. It contains an article by a young man I remember rather fondly, though it amuses me now to see how seriously he took himself and how important he thought his thoughts and actions were. He, of course, was the younger me - known in that innocent time as "Dick Evans". I've decided to republish that article from 1969 - written one week before I turned in my draft cards to the U.S. attorney and became a draft resister - right here in my blog. I may follow up in a few days with some commentary and information about context and about what happened next.

Why I'm Breaking Off From Selective Servitude
by Dick Evans
Henry Thoreau wrote in 1849 that “under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison…the only house in a slave state where the free man can abide with honor.” It happens that I cannot quite agree with this statement. But because the American government today is imprisoning many unjustly, because we still have what is in many ways a “slave state”, and because something in Thoreau’s attitude rings true for me, I have chosen to begin with his words in my explanation of why I am willing to go to prison.
The man who has been drafted is a slave of the state. He is serving it involuntarily, directing his life for two or more years according to the dictates and directives of “superior” officers. He is not free to choose his own job, to quit and go home, to live where he wants, do what he wants, or in any way shape his personal life-style in accordance with a privately worked out system of values. He can even find himself murdering “enemies” he really has nothing against.
No matter that a selected few, myself included, are exempted from military service by the law itself because they are pacifists. No matter that countless others are deferred while they serve the “national interest” in other ways. No matter that the rich, the educated and the powerful find ways out. The brutal fact is that America is enslaving her sons in order to fight a dirty and dishonorable war.
We have an opportunity, I think, not only to wash our hands of this system and this war, not only to work covertly for peace and freedom, but also to speak openly and declare the truth as we see it. Washing one’s hands is easy, any old deferment will do. Real, as opposed to symbolic, anti-draft work is more dangerous, but it is best carried out in secret (underground) and is relatively secure. But speaking the truth in the open, being honest and hopefully unafraid, telling it like it is with our lives as well as our words, is the kind of thing that leads to prison.
Albany could post an honor roll of resisters: Brooks Smith, Steve Trimm, Stanley Bennett, John Beauvais, and Dan Morrison. All of them are good men: honest, brave and gentle people who will probably be sent to Allenwood, Danbury, Lewisburg or Petersburg. Their lives and acts are shattering the myth that America can have her war and freedom, too. They are saying that the draft is a prison, that the draft is slavery, that the draft is illegitimate, and that they – the sons of America’s middle and working classes – are therefore using their lives as a counter-friction against the draft machine.
So going to prison has its postive side. The shocking audacity of doing so deliberately is enough to open many heads and raise many doubts. Through its association with resisters the movement acquires an aura of seriousness not easily laughed off by the man in the street. When Steve Trimm is arrested and I turn in my draft cards and leave my civilian service job, the very illegality of these actions should lend a paradoxical kind of legitimacy to my whole anti-war position. In the months after that I will speak and write and agitate, trying for as wide an audience as possible.
Draft counseling is still important. Demonstrations are still important. The creation of an underground railway for deserters and draft-dodgers is still important. But there is a real need for bravery and open resistance that says “I will not be a slave, and I will not be ashamed to be free.” This need, in my overweaning pride, I am hesitatingly joining with others to fill.

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