Understanding or Sympathizing? – Sasha thinks I was being too harsh on the Post Style section in this post on this article on Moussaoui’s linguistic genius. And perhaps I was. Some of Moussaoui’s insults are funny, certainly, and the article was only in the Style section. I shouldn’t have called it news, although in my defense, someone quickly reading it from its position on the front page of the Post’s website might not have noticed it was in the Style section. And besides, it’s frequently difficult to tell the difference between Post news stories and style/opinion pieces.
Still, I think the article’s overwhelmingly sympathetic tone is a bit excessive. True, Moussaoui feels that we are abusive and hypocritical. But, the article states that truth and uses it to indicate that Moussaoui is not as bad as many think he is, that’s he’s only misunderstood. I’m all for understanding one’s enemy, but understanding him shouldn’t have any bearing on what he did. If he wants to kill as many Americans as possible, that’s simply bad, whatever tricks he can play with three-letter acronyms. The Style section article suggests that once we finally understand Moussaoui, we’ll see that he’s not crazy, he’s not evil, he’s just a different kind of genius. Moussaoui, clearly, is only afraid for his own safety in a hostile, unfair environment and trying to defend himself the best way he knows how, with humorous, insightful motions, and “playful,” “tweaking” asides.
He asks rhetorical questions, makes sarcastic asides and sometimes indulges in an almost whimsical irony.
Sasha agrees, and calls this “creative use of language.”
I think that is giving Moussaoui too much credit. I can understand why someone with Sasha’s verbal dexterity would be impressed by, well, verbal dexterity, but surely he gives too much credit to occasional expressions of cleverness. I don’t think Moussaoui is clever. I think he’s nuts.
An excerpt from one of Moussaoui’s motions, after he fired his lawyers, from The Smoking Gun:
Taking account of the viciousness of the tactic employ (no legal assistance, no phone, no information, 24 h light and surveillance.) I expect anything from the US government. Lee Harvey Oswald [?] end is a distinct possibility. Alexandria jail is constantly having new Deputy, it will be easy to claim that a distraught Sept 11 family member gain employment and shoot me. Or they might claim that I committed suicide after all they already have done the ground work by claim that I was mentally unstable, paranoid.
From the Post article:
Taken out of context, Moussaoui’s individual requests seem erratic, at best. In an effort to prove that the FBI had him under surveillance long before his August arrest, he asked for a forensics expert to examine an electric fan that he claimed had been bugged by federal agents. He claimed that the fan had been left “on my car” and that he had unsuspectingly taken possession of it. The FBI, in his account, could claim he had stolen the fan, willingly taking possession of the bug and thus, whatever it revealed would be admissible in court. In pleading after pleading, his demand to see the fan becomes obsessive, the request shortened, and syntactically garbled into something that sounds manic and delusional: “Where is my Bug FAN!” and, “The FBI must give me the bug fan.”
Even with the background, it still seems erratic, manic, and delusional. This guy is dangerous. I think he should probably have been tried in a military tribunal in the first place; if they can hold US citizens militarily incommunicado, why not an insane propaganda-spewing foreigner? But, for some reason they didn’t, so here Moussaoui is, in a civilian court, with people understanding and sympathizing with him because of his requests for his “bug fan.” And it looks like the Post is helping him.
