Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- From: "Bob Cooper" <rcooper1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 15:13:09 -0400
"lanman" <xlanmanx@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:v4qk52pdgr9sq1ncdduu24951vloe8kjqv@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 4 May 2006 10:58:15 -0400, "Bob Cooper" <rcooper1@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
"If Moussaoui didn't deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did?"
========================================================
http://tinyurl.com/ogrw7
They Should Have Killed Him
The death penalty has a meaning, and it isn't vengeance.
Thursday, May 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)--Moussaoui said as he was led from the
courtroom: "America, you lost." He clapped his hands.
Excuse me, I'm sorry, and I beg your pardon, but the jury's decision on
Moussaoui gives me a very bad feeling. What we witnessed here was
not the higher compassion but a dizzy failure of nerve.
From the moment the decision was announced yesterday, everyone, all
the parties involved--the cable jockeys, the legal analysts, the politicians,
the victim representatives--showed an elaborate and jarring politesse.
"We thank the jury." "I accept the verdict of course." "We can't question
their hard work." "I know they did their best." "We thank the media for
their hard work in covering this trial." "I don't want to second-guess the
jury."
How removed from our base passions we've become. Or hope to seem.
It is as if we've become sophisticated beyond our intelligence, savvy
beyond wisdom. Some might say we are showing a great and careful
generosity, as befits a great nation. But maybe we're just, or also, rolling
in our high-mindedness like a puppy in the grass. Maybe we are losing
some crude old grit. Maybe it's not good we lose it.
No one wants to say, "They should have killed him." This is
understandable, for no one wants to be called vengeful, angry or, far worse,
unenlightened. But we should have put him to death, and for one big reason.
This is what Moussaoui did: He was in jail on a visa violation in August
2001. He knew of the upcoming attacks. In fact, he had taken flight lessons
to take part in them. He told no one what was coming. He lied to the FBI so
the attacks could go forward. He pled guilty last year to conspiring with al
Qaeda; at his trial he bragged to the court that he had intended to be on
the fifth aircraft, which was supposed to destroy the White House.
He knew the trigger was about to be pulled. He knew innocent people
had been targeted, and were about to meet gruesome, unjust deaths.
He could have stopped it. He did nothing. And so 2,700 people died.
This is what the jury announced yesterday. They did not doubt Moussaoui
was guilty of conspiracy. They did not doubt his own testimony as to his
guilt. They did not think he was incapable of telling right from wrong. They
did not find him insane. They did believe, however, that he had had an
unstable childhood, that his father was abusive and then abandoning, and
that as a child, in his native France, he'd suffered the trauma of being
exposed to racial slurs.
As I listened to the court officer read the jury's conclusions yesterday I
thought: This isn't a decision, it's a non sequitur.
Of course he had a bad childhood; of course he was abused. You don't
become a killer because you started out with love and sweetness. Of
course he came from unhappiness. So, chances are, did the nice man
sitting on the train the other day who rose to give you his seat. Life is hard
and sometimes terrible, and that is a tragedy. It explains much, but it is
not a free pass.
I have the sense that many good people in our country, normal modest
folk who used to be forced to endure being patronized and instructed by
the elites of all spheres--the academy and law and the media--have sort
of given up and cut to the chase. They don't wait to be instructed in the
higher virtues by the professional class now. They immediately incorporate
and reflect the correct wisdom before they're lectured.
I'm not sure this is progress. It feels not like the higher compassion but
the lower evasion. It feels dainty in a way that speaks not of gentleness
but fear.
I happen, as most adults do, to feel a general ambivalence toward the
death penalty. But I know why it exists. It is the expression of a certitude, of
a shared national conviction, about the value of a human life. It says the
deliberate and planned taking of a human life is so serious, such a wound
to justice, such a tearing at the human fabric, that there is only one price
that is justly paid for it, and that is the forfeiting of the life of the perpetrator.
It is society's way of saying that murder is serious, dreadfully serious, the
most serious of all human transgressions.
It is not a matter of vengeance. Murder can never be avenged, it can only
be answered.
If Moussaoui didn't deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did?
And if he didn't receive it, do we still have it?
I don't want to end with an air of hopelessness, so here's some hope, offered
to the bureau of prisons. I hope he doesn't get cable TV in his cell. I hope he
doesn't get to use his hour a day in general population getting buff and
converting prisoners to jihad. I hope he isn't allowed visitors with whom he
can do impolite things like plot against our country. I hope he isn't allowed
anniversary interviews. I hope his jolly colleagues don't take captives whom
they threaten to kill unless Moussaoui is released.
I hope he doesn't do any more damage. I hope this is the last we hear of him.
But I'm not hopeful about my hopes.
========================================================
I hope his toilet faces Mecca.
It's only a matter of time before some high profile American is
captured and a demand will be made to free Moussaoui or the American
captive will be beheaded. The US showed weak resolve when it freed all
female Iraqi prisons to secure the release of reporter Jill Carroll,
so we can expect such demands to be repeated.
A death sentence would have avoided such a situation. Perhaps the
jury's emotions were dulled by an incompetent legal system which took
four years to try the case. Perhaps it's no longer possible to
assemble a jury capable of rendering the correct decisions. Hopefully
the government has learned that going forward a military tribunal is
the better alternative than a repeat of this circus.
All good points. I wonder, along with Ms. Noonan, about the message
this sends our enemies. Some say the message is that we are better,
more civilized than they are. Maybe. But, I wonder if the message is
rather one of effeteness -- that we lack the will and resolve to do what
clearly needs to be done. As Ms. Noonan says, "If Moussaoui didn't
deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did?"
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- From: Count 1
- Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- References:
- They Should Have Killed Him
- From: Bob Cooper
- Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- From: lanman
- They Should Have Killed Him
- Prev by Date: Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- Next by Date: Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- Previous by thread: Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- Next by thread: Re: They Should Have Killed Him
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
