Last semester, I tried to make it a regular routine to log on to the New York Times Web site and read at least the first few “above the fold” stories. But this semester, probably due either to the lack of political science classes in my schedule or the gradual seeping in of college apathy, I fell out of the habit. However, with the recent high-profile immigrant protests and various other issues (was I the only one that missed the Bausch and Lomb contact lens solution recall?), I decided it might not be a bad idea to start being a little more proactive. Ironically, at about the same time, a good friend of mine decided that she’d start sending me forwarded newspaper editorials and anecdotes – most of them distinctly pro-war or anti-liberal (and there is a distinction between the two, apparently). I was reading one of these e-mails recently when I decided to make another visit to the New York Times Web page. Hence, my coming upon the Moussaoui story.

On May 4, 2006, Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement with the attacks on September 11th. The headline describes Moussaoui as “defiant,” and I would say that’s a pretty apt description. He’s quoted as yelling, “America, you lost! You lost!” as he was led out of the courtroom, to be transferred to a Colorado prison to serve a life sentence.

Moussaoui described his trial as “a wasted opportunity” to understand why individuals involved in Al-Qaida do what they do. Neglecting all else said, including his allusion to America’s grief as “selective” and the general closed-mindedness of our people, I found this statement to be startlingly true. I can’t even count how many times I’ve sat around my dinner table while my liberal aunts and grandmother heatedly curse out the Bush administration for their shaky justifications and, according to my second eldest aunt (after a few glasses of wine), flat out lies, and the only thing I’d had to contribute was the fact that I simply didn’t know enough about the situation to make any determinations at all, other than the obvious ones.

Yeah, undeniably, war bites the proverbial big one, and however many moral or ethical justifications are being spouted, there’s almost always an economic motivation tacked on to the rhetoric. That’s been true in this country since the Spanish-American War. We can thank Teddy Roosevelt for the abandonment of our former isolationist point of view, and our irreversible economic ties to the other countries on this planet. And that’s certainly not a bad thing; it’s part of why we’ve come so far, and hopefully, still have far to go as one of the planet’s leading political powers. I have always held the belief that America has always strived to be the Athens of the modern world. What distresses me about this article in particular, though, is that it renews the fact, in my mind, that we are straying farther and farther from this internal ideal I established for my country back when I was first starting to learn to think for myself (something encouraged by my bleeding-heart liberal family).

I find that an interesting lack of linguistic understanding on the part of many Americans today is knowing the difference between sympathy and comprehension. Moussaoui’s description of his trial as a missed opportunity rang true to me because of my own lack of knowledge of the politics and culture of Middle Eastern countries. I don’t think that any exceptions should be made for Moussaoui or any of his peers, and I think the outcome of his case was an extraordinary display of understanding on the part of the judge and jurors (though they came to their verdict against the expectations of even the defense attorneys), but I also think that more of an effort should be made to educate Americans about terrorism – why it happens, where it stems from and who takes part in it.

I think something that a lot of people potentially skimmed over in the Moussaoui article is the fact that his mother plans to petition to have her son transferred to a French prison – because Moussaoui is not Iraqi or Afghan, he is a Morrocan immigrant who spent near the entirety of his life living in France. One thing I do know about Al-Qaida and Islam-based terrorism is the fact that it doesn’t really have a “base” country – it spans Europe, South America and all of Africa, not just the Middle East. Its members hold citizenship in dozens of countries, speak dozens of languages; the only thing they share in common is a fanatical interpretation of the Quran (an interpretation that sits comfortably in the minority). I think that we also forget that these faceless terrorists are indeed sons and brothers of people just like us. Moussaoui himself, as his defense attorneys brought to the attention of the court, had a determinedly unstable childhood, full of hostility and complications. We forget that fanatical and suicidal tendencies are not always genetic, and they can never been entirely culturally motivated.

I certainly don’t presume to put forth any suggestions as to how we should fix this widespread problem of lack of education and understanding, nor do I profess any special or advanced knowledge of the topic myself. This brings me to one last point. How many people reading this article right now can honestly say they’ve read even one page of the Quran? Since I can say that I haven’t, and don’t want to tread on the dangerous ground of making religious assertions, I’ll just leave you with the words of Immortal Technique:

“…God is not a religion, but a spiritual bond And Jesus is the most quoted prophet in the Qu’ran.”

Katy Bruck is a Collegian columnist.