I was thinking about the Moussaoui case a short while ago, while discussing the issue of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners with some friends. The US government, in prosecuting Moussaoui, claimed that he knew about the plans for 9/11 and, had he told them about them, they would have been able to prevent it. What I was wondering is if anyone in the Justice Department, the American intelligence forces or anywhere in government, actually believes that claim.
Do we have a government that is plain evil or plain incompetent?
The best evidence that Moussaoui did not know about 9/11 is that it happened. I’m pretty sure that the one lesson they teach you in Terrorism 101 is that if a plan you’ve made has been compromised, then you should not carry on that plan. If they arrest someone who knew about the plan, you have to assume the plan was compromised. No matter how much you trust the person or how much you like them (and really, would anyone have even trusted Moussaoui?), you have to assume that they will be tortured or otherwise “pressured” and that they will sing. So you change your plans, or at least you postpone them.
Now, you’d expect the administration and the justice department to both know that this is basic operating procedure for any organization of any kind conducting secret operations, and to trust that al-Qaeda members would be intelligent and organized enough to follow procedure. If they don’t know this, then we might as well give up on this so-called War on Terror, we just are not going to win.
If they do know that, and their whole point on going after Moussaoui was, as it’s safe to suspect, a clumsy attempt at propaganda – then perhaps we should start thinking that our government is filled with people who really have no respect not only for democratic ideals, but for the American people in general. Ok, OK, this is what many of us have thought for a long time. But there is always the voice of doubt (in my case, my husband) standing up and shouting “it’s incompetence, not evil” – but just how incompetent can a government be?