Death for Moussaoui?
Now that the prosecution has wrung the jury members' emotions in the sentencing hearing for Zacharias Moussaoui, the self-proclaimed would-be 9-11 hijacker, the defense gets a chance to save him from himself. I hope they succeed for several reasons.
First, I think Moussaoui is demented, regardless of what the court's psychiatrists said. His courtroom behavior is often bizzare, and the filings he entered when he was defending himself were incoherent. The only thing that seems to organize his perceptions is his claim that he is al Quaeda (a claim that some al Quaeda operatives have denied) and his eagerness to be executed.
Second is that he is so eager to be executed so that he can be a martyr. In the US, we overlook the seriousness with which suicide bombers approach martyrdom. Suicide is such an anathema that we don't accept any possibility that a suicide could go immediately to paradise and be surrounded by seventy virginis ready to perform whatever sexual favors or other services he wants. (Yeah, it sounds pretty far-fetched.) But the fact is that there are people in the al Quaeda world who really believe it. There's a possibility that we're wrong and the guy really does get paradise and the virgins; I'd hate to give even a terrorist wanna-be a reward like that. And why let would-be terrorists know that we're willing to help them get what they are after? Imagine for a minute that you're one of the guys who's susceptible to this stuff in the first place. Moussaoui is executed, your leaders tell you that he is a martyr and got the paradise and virgins package, and you know that you're going to get the same package, even if you don't succeed in your mission. You're more likely to take on your mission because you can only win. If you think that you might just end up rotting in a cell in a super max prison for the rest of your natural life with no hope of parole, that could give you pause.
Finally, we need to stop promoting this notion of closure through execution. It's terrible that people lost loved ones on 9-11, and I can't imagine their pain. But I doubt that executing anybody is going to relieve that pain. No one will ever see the families of victims after the execution; no one will see that the execution did nothing to diminish their sense of loss and may, thereby, have made them even angrier. Increasingly, the media presents execution as something that we do to ease the pain of survivors, and that makes it a more desirable act. I think it overlooks that loss is loss, and tragic loss is unalterably tragic.
Don't get me wrong. Moussaoui shouldn't live because he's innocent. He shouldn't live because I don't believe in capital punishment to begin with. He should live the rest of his life in prison because jerks like him shouldn't be permitted to go to their executions cheerfully, expecting that they are on the verge of something wonderful.
First, I think Moussaoui is demented, regardless of what the court's psychiatrists said. His courtroom behavior is often bizzare, and the filings he entered when he was defending himself were incoherent. The only thing that seems to organize his perceptions is his claim that he is al Quaeda (a claim that some al Quaeda operatives have denied) and his eagerness to be executed.
Second is that he is so eager to be executed so that he can be a martyr. In the US, we overlook the seriousness with which suicide bombers approach martyrdom. Suicide is such an anathema that we don't accept any possibility that a suicide could go immediately to paradise and be surrounded by seventy virginis ready to perform whatever sexual favors or other services he wants. (Yeah, it sounds pretty far-fetched.) But the fact is that there are people in the al Quaeda world who really believe it. There's a possibility that we're wrong and the guy really does get paradise and the virgins; I'd hate to give even a terrorist wanna-be a reward like that. And why let would-be terrorists know that we're willing to help them get what they are after? Imagine for a minute that you're one of the guys who's susceptible to this stuff in the first place. Moussaoui is executed, your leaders tell you that he is a martyr and got the paradise and virgins package, and you know that you're going to get the same package, even if you don't succeed in your mission. You're more likely to take on your mission because you can only win. If you think that you might just end up rotting in a cell in a super max prison for the rest of your natural life with no hope of parole, that could give you pause.
Finally, we need to stop promoting this notion of closure through execution. It's terrible that people lost loved ones on 9-11, and I can't imagine their pain. But I doubt that executing anybody is going to relieve that pain. No one will ever see the families of victims after the execution; no one will see that the execution did nothing to diminish their sense of loss and may, thereby, have made them even angrier. Increasingly, the media presents execution as something that we do to ease the pain of survivors, and that makes it a more desirable act. I think it overlooks that loss is loss, and tragic loss is unalterably tragic.
Don't get me wrong. Moussaoui shouldn't live because he's innocent. He shouldn't live because I don't believe in capital punishment to begin with. He should live the rest of his life in prison because jerks like him shouldn't be permitted to go to their executions cheerfully, expecting that they are on the verge of something wonderful.
posted by amsterdr at 8:34 AM
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