Don't Worry. Vengeance is Thine.

This ought to go a ways to reassure those who worry that we're not showing sufficient ruthless cruelty in our punishment of Zacarias Moussaoui:

Officials at the Federal Bureau of Prisons said that Moussaoui was destined for [the federal government's maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo., known as Supermax], high in the Colorado Rockies.

Already there is a veritable "bombers' row" — Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center blast; Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski; Terry L. Nichols, an accomplice in the Oklahoma City bombing; Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber who Moussaoui testified was to join him in another Al Qaeda hijacking; and Eric Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympics.

All, like Moussaoui, are serving life without parole — spending their days in prison wings that are partly underground. They exist alone in soundproof cells as small as 7 feet by 12 feet, with a concrete-poured desk, bed and stool, a small shower and sink, and a TV that offers religious and anger-management programs.

They are locked down 23 hours a day.

Larry Homenick, a former U.S. marshal who has taken prisoners to Supermax, said that there was a small triangular recreation area, known as "the dog run," where solitary Supermax prisoners could occasionally get a glimpse of sky.

He said it was chilling to walk down the cellblocks and glance through the plexiglass "sally port" chambers into the cells and see the faces inside.

Life there is harsh. Food is delivered through a slit in the cell door. Prisoners don't leave their cells to see a lawyer, a doctor or a prison official; those visitors must go to the cell.

But prisoners can earn extra privileges, like a wider variety of television offerings, more exercise time and visitation rights, based on their behavior. [An unacceptably wussy loophole to the likes of Peggy Noonan, no doubt.]

There are 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors. Motion detectors and hidden cameras monitor every move. The prison walls and razor-wired grounds are patrolled by laser beams and dogs. [ . . . ]

In his trial testimony, [prison expert James E.] Aiken said the whole point of Supermax was not just punishment, but "incapacitation."

There is no pretense that the prison is preparing the inmate for a return to society. Like the cellmate of the count of Monte Cristo who died an old, tired convict, Aiken said, "Moussaoui will deteriorate."

The inmate "is constantly monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. [ . . . ]

Christopher Boyce, a convicted spy who was incarcerated at Supermax, left the prison about 100 miles south of Denver with no regret. "You're slowly hung," he once told The Times. "You're ground down. You can barely keep your sanity."

Bernard Kleinman, a New York lawyer who represented Yousef, called it "extraordinarily draconian punishment." [ . . . ]

Ron Kuby, another New York defense lawyer [said] "It's designed in the end to break you down."

No mercy. The unstable Moussaoui will go mad, a punishment that makes oblivion look sweet. We're denying him his fantasy Paradise and putting him in our real Hell.

Meanwhile, an antidote to Noonan's verdict that the verdict represents "not the higher compassion but a dizzy failure of nerve" is provided by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, who sees in the jury's action not compassion at all, but an admirable dispassion:

[T]he jurors seemed to be acknowledging that while Moussaoui wanted 9/11 to happen, wanted many more innocents to die, and that he plotted and planned for a future 9/11, he wasn't sufficiently central to this particular plot to be credited, or killed, for its hideousness.

And that's the message we can also glean from the jury's findings of mitigating factors—revealing that three separate jurors believed Moussaoui had "limited knowledge of the 9/11 attack plans" and three believed he played a minor role.

In the end, the only real link between the acknowledged fact that Moussaoui was a terrorist who was willing to die in a suicide attack and the actual attacks of 9/11 existed in the minds of the prosecution. And, at the last minute, these links sprang to life in the fantasy world of the terrorist himself, who cooked up a strange Forrest Gump plot—starring himself and Richard Reid—that the judge herself considered to be hooey and that even the prosecutors didn't believe.

This case was about a conspiracy, about some factual connection, however attenuated, between Zacarias Moussaoui's jihadi heart and the events of 9/11. And although the government has steadfastly stood by its legal claim that it was enough for Moussaoui to have wanted to be on those planes on 9/11, enough for him to have delighted as those planes went down, the jurors recognized this afternoon that a conspiracy to aid in a terror plot requires more than just a bad heart, and more than mere willingness to participate in the next one.

This decision, which will doubtless bring with it some serious national fallout, is more subtle, and more courageous, than the prosecution itself. Acting as a check on a runaway state, these jurors refused to allow a government needing a scapegoat and a man wishing for martyrdom to stand in the way of the facts.

My sentiments exactly, although I part company with her last sentence, where I think Lithwick gets carried away by her own rhetoric and goes too far:

These jurors understood that for this country to kill a terrorist for his ideas, hopes, and dreams is not much different than the terrorist's desire to come here and kill us for ours.

Uh, no.

UPDATE: A WaPo news story backs up Lithwick's take:

A juror in the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui said yesterday that some members of the panel decided that the al-Qaeda conspirator should not be executed because he was a bit player in the Sept. 11 attacks and did not kill anyone that day.

"He wasn't necessarily part of the 9/11 operation," said the juror, who spoke about the panel's deliberations on condition of anonymity. "His role in 9/11 was actually minor," said the juror, who voted for a life prison sentence even though he considered Moussaoui "a despicable character" and someone who "mocks and taunts family members whose loved ones died." [ . . . ]

It was precisely Moussaoui's testimony -- when the Sept. 11 conspirator took the stand and gleefully said he had planned to attack the White House with a crew that included "shoe bomber" Richard Reid -- that convinced one of the jurors that he was embellishing his role.

"The moment he said the name Richard Reid I thought he was lying," the juror said in an interview yesterday. "It seemed like Moussaoui's role in 9/11 was increasing over time."

In other words, jurors resisted the emotional and propaganda pressure to sacrifice a smelly scapegoat, a stand-in. The rule of law, one of our glories, holds out for the real thing.

UPDATE II: More good stuff at Bloggledygook:

I have read reactions to the decision of the jury to sentence this lunatic to life in prison, and they repeat much all the same sentiments. He was the only person charged, he admitted to planning the attacks, he prayed for more attacks, he mocked the victims, he went to flight school, had the FBI been able to search his computer, the attacks could have been stopped. What I have not seen is proof that he was anything more than a fringe-dweller, whatever his delusions of grandeur.

In America, we do not kill people for want[ing] us dead. We may jail them, [lock] them away until their minds and bodies have been eaten away by time and madness, but we leave the ultimate verdict for action, not intention. [ . . . ]

I don't care about Moussaoui's life. And I am not particularly squeamish about the death penalty. But for death to have meaning, it must be reserved. [ . . . ]

Moussaoui's blood is a proxy for that blood we wanted that day, but it isn't the right blood to take. Moussaoui's blood is an empty symbol that would have satisfied temporarily, but would have extracted a higher price from all of us. Better that American justice has demonstrated that it can discern the levels of guilt and complicity, that presidents do not dictate to courts, that we do not kill indiscriminately.

Read the whole thing.

Comments

[Daniel Berczik]

Nice post, amba. And thanks for the editing of my typos. It reads much better in English.

I have tried to veer away from some commentary that reasoned that life in prison for Moussaoui might mean all sorts of dastardly deeds. Some (and where this came form surprised me) reacted with a kind of glee that Moussaoui might be tortured or sexually abused, and as such, life was a far better punishment than death.

I think this was a better sentence because it was the right one (excuse me for the Bushism), not because it will cause more pain. It really shouldn't be any more complicated than that.

[amba]

Yes, the low-down emotions of vengefulness are natural, but like so much that's natural, they need to be reined in, ridden with control -- not least because, to me at least, they smack of impotence. They show that the enemy has gotten to you and made you lose your warrior cool, and you are in danger of doing something foolish and foolhardy.

I'm repelled by some people's insistence that indiscriminate violence is the only true sign of strength.

[meade]

"I'm repelled by some people's insistence that indiscriminate violence is the only true sign of strength"

Yes, especially when it's a sign of what is exactly the opposite of strength. Your repulsion, Amba, in my opinion, reflects a profound sense of humanity and courage. Reminds me of a quote from your astute bottom post on The Feldenkrais Method®

"General Washington said we will not do this. He said these people will be treated with respect and dignity and they will suffer no abuse or torture, because to do otherwise would bring dishonor upon our sacred cause[...]"

As if the war on terror isn't difficult and complex enough without having to reign in our own baser impulses. Let the dishonor remain upon the "sacred cause" of Zacarias Moussaoui and his consorts in cruelty and barbarism -- their so-called jihad. Our sacred cause, the idea of America, clearly requires our protection both without and within.

[abhcoide]

Good post. All of the revengespeak I have seen on other sites is quite alarming.