Mixed Messages
So let me see if I get this right, an American jury was willing to put to death Timothy McVay a home-grown terrorist over the Oklahoma City Bombing, but another American jury was not willing to do the same to confessed foreign born al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui in the 9/11 case. That doesn’t make sense to me. 168 people died in Oklahoma City as a result of the terrorist attack on April 19, 1995. Nearly 3,000 died when four commercial passenger jet airliners were hijacked and then crashed on September 11, 2001. And we won’t even talk about the financial devestations that it cause to so many families, companies, never mind the City of New York and the rest of the nation.
Now look, I am not an advocate of the death penalty, but when someone has so much hate in their heart that they would choose to take part in a plan that cause thousands of death, never mind destroy the livelihood of so many people, they deserve death. Definitely not life at the tax payers’ expense. Particularly, as the evidence clearly stacked up against him and yes – even at the risk of him becoming a martyr.
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4 Comments
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May 5, 2006 at 2:04 am
Andrew
More:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/04.html#a8159
Isikoff: This entire Moussaoui trial was a side show. The Justice Department indicted him at the time, they thought he might have been the 20th hijacker. They later learned he was not. But there was a feeling, that for altogether understandable reasons, that the country needed a trial, the cathartic effect of a trial to deal with the most horrific crime in American history. What this trial ought to do at this point provoke a debate and discussion and concentration on why we haven`t tried the people who were responsible for 9/11. But there was a feeling, that for altogether understandable reasons, that the country needed a trial, the cathartic effect of a trial to deal with the most horrific crime in American history.
But the point is that after the time that they indicted Moussaoui, we came to get into custody the people who were directly responsible for that crime, the architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was Mohammed Atta`s collaborator at every step of the way — twice in 2001, Atta leaves the country to consult with Ramzi bin al-Shibh about the for the attack — the financier who was also in custody, Qualli bin Atassh (phonetic) who helped planned it at the Malaysia meeting.
But the government has been completely stymied about what do to with these people. Why — and this is the one where it is really worth connecting the dots. It goes straight into the White House, the Oval Office and the vice president`s office because key decisions were made about aggressive interrogation techniques that were going to be used on these people.
May 5, 2006 at 1:54 am
Andrew
I’m not apolosigt for Moussaoui. The guy is despicable and he deserves the sentence he recieved. However, he is as much responsible for 9/11 as a polar bear is for global warming. The real people responsible (forget Osama for the moment), guys like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramsey Bin Al-Scheib are in US custody but probably can’t be brought to trial in the US because of the methods used to extract information for them, namely torture, is inadmissable. So we are presented with Moussaoui as red meat for the 9/11 families and other aggrieved parties to sink their collective teeth into.
May 5, 2006 at 1:19 am
Ursula
He may not have taken part on the actual day, 9/11 but if he helped in the planning stage knowing full well what he was doing, he is just as culpable.
May 5, 2006 at 12:34 am
Andrew
Not to be contradictory or anything, but Moussaoui didn’t actually kill anybody. Plus, life in prison is a far, far worse punishment than the death penalty. The death penalty is the easy way out for a guy like Moussaoui who really just wants to be martyred. Instead he will spend 23 hours a day for the rest of life locked in a box of solitary confinement. You tell me which is the worst punishment?
As far as the expense, certainly it’s not cheap to keep prisoner’s in maximum security prisons, but it’s also not inexpensive to give a death penalty sentence with all the appeals that are certain to follow which could keep Moussaoui aliver for years and having to be supported by court appointed attorneys, taking up the valuable time of the juduciary and having a platform to rant and rave.