Looking to Die?
Is it just me or is Zacarias Moussaui trying to get the death penalty? Why else would he state that he was supposed to hijack a 5th plane on September 11th and fly it into the White House? Whether or not he's telling the truth doesn't matter. He clearly wants the jury to know depth of his evil.
But this raises a question: if the man is so desperate to die (no doubt so he can be a martyr), should we kill him? The question isn't whether or not he deserves to die, it's whether killing him is the worst punishment we have to offer.
There is a good argument to be made that we would be doing more justice if we just let him rot in jail for the next 30 years until he died pitiful and anonymous. After all, there is no amount of justice in this world that could make up for even a fraction of the horror of 9/11. Perhaps denying this beast the dramatic death is so clearly desires is the greatest punishment we could mete out.
But this raises a question: if the man is so desperate to die (no doubt so he can be a martyr), should we kill him? The question isn't whether or not he deserves to die, it's whether killing him is the worst punishment we have to offer.
There is a good argument to be made that we would be doing more justice if we just let him rot in jail for the next 30 years until he died pitiful and anonymous. After all, there is no amount of justice in this world that could make up for even a fraction of the horror of 9/11. Perhaps denying this beast the dramatic death is so clearly desires is the greatest punishment we could mete out.
posted by Alan Stewart Carl at 11:27 AM
1 Comments:
In the end I don't think it matters. Somehow I doubt ZM really cares how people remember him; as far as he's concerned, he's already earned his 72 virgins, and the most we can do is make him wait a few extra decades to find out if he really gets them (or if, as one of the Mohammed cartoons claims, they've run out of them).
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