May 3, 2006

        Zacarias Moussaoui has been punished in exactly the right way.

        The jury in his pathetic little case has recognized him for what he is, and in their own, silly, bumbling way, have given him precisely the punishment that he deserves, and made America look great, at the same time.

        Silly. Oyeas, Oyeas, just about as ridiculous as you can get. Legally, his silence about what was on his hard drive makes him a definitive accomplice to all of the 9/11 horror. Even if he was not to be one of the pilots, he knew about the attack in advance and could have said something that would have saved three thousand people from a burning, crushing, hideous death. He deserved to be put out of our misery. Self defense.

        We're told the jury didn't believe that he was nuts. They didn't believe that killing him would have made him a martyr. They DID believe that he was a bigger fish. They did believe that he WOULD HAVE flown an airbus into the White House, given the chance. So WHY did they not kill him for us in self defense?

        Even my guess, that the jury did it because they really wanted him to rot in hell, was wrong. They did it because they thought his upbringing made him bad. This is, of course, utter nonsense, as there are millions of Americans with crappy childhoods, who turned out with tortured souls, yet honest lives. But the truth is that Moussaoui WILL rot in hell.

        Now, a maximum security prison is not exactly Dante's idea of an inferno. But think about it: For the rest of this pathetic little man's life, he will see noone, hear noone, touch or feel noone except for one hour a day when he will see the backs of ten other prisoners and eight guards, loaded to the teeth. He eats alone, sleeps alone, lives alone. Alone. Alone.

        There are some very credible theologians that think this is a worse fate than hell, which is the absence of everything.

        It was very irrational thinking. It was silly. But it probably is the best thing that could happen. It sends a message to al Qaeda that even their worst is a mere buzzing of flies, in human terms. It says we don't even think enough of him to treat him like one of our own soldiers, whom we would kill and HAVE killed for such treason.

        It says to Zacarias Moussaoui that we don't give a good damn about him and have given him the Bronx cheer: "fuhgedabowdit." And only as America can do, we WILL forget about it, him, and when the war is won, about al Qaeda too.

        This is why we must have the jury system. Even when they get it wrong, they get it right.

Dick Anderson