| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Peggy Noonan: "If Moussaoui didn't deserve the death penalty, who does?" |
| 2006-05-04 |
| Wall Street Journal EFL'd. Peggy nails it, as usual. 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. . . . 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. . . . 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. . . . 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. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #8 I date this to the OJ jury. It's all OJ's fault. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-05-04 11:57 |
| #7 He dies, he's a martyr. He lives, he's a living icon. Either way, in some way, we're screwed. Time to pick the long-term* better one. * Long-term can necessitate short-term concessions (but only those that guarantee long-term results). |
| Posted by: Spomogum Fleper7978 2006-05-04 11:40 |
| #6 he wants martyrdom, we can not give it to him. |
| Posted by: bk 2006-05-04 11:32 |
| #5 James, I do believe that "the meaning of the subway bombings hasn't fully set in for the electorate there; and the average Britain isn't with us in the war effort." If we don't want to have to deal with all of the world's problems ourselves, or really do need allies, then somebody's got to be around to deal with them for us or for us to ally with, and metaphorically shanking them for not hewing to your own ideology... doesn't that sound familiar? To be honest, "a useful injustice. Could be worse," definitely applies, emphasis on the latter. Honest to gosh, my message to certain people who might complain about that -- welcome to 21st century warfare. "Politicized, mediacized, PR-icized" is the new "crude grit." |
| Posted by: Spomogum Fleper7978 2006-05-04 10:17 |
| #4 I agree that the result was unjust, but I think it was useful anyhow. We're at war, and at the moment some of our allies are at best rather wishy-washy. Blair may be solidly beside us, but what I read suggests that the meaning of the subway bombings hasn't fully set in for the electorate there; and the average Britain isn't with us in the war effort. {Of course that's filtered through the British media, so I could be wrong. HowardUK?} For reasons I still don't fully understand, the death penalty really gets European panties in a knot. Moussaoui on death row would have caused a major row, making it harder for Europeans who understand the war to keep/win support. And that hurts our war effort. So, a useful injustice. Could be worse. |
| Posted by: James 2006-05-04 09:47 |
| #3 The political leadership hosed this one, as well as all terrorism cases within US borders by defining this as a criminal case. This is war in the most foul, to kill as civilians possible in the name of an Arabian moon god. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-05-04 09:27 |
| #2 "(then)who does?" How about, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad or Ramsi bin Al-Sheib. Don't blame the jury process, the prosecution hosed this one. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2006-05-04 09:15 |
| #1 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. From what I've heard, all of these hopes are substantiated enough that she doesn't have to worry (making this article possibly redundant) in the form of supermax... |
| Posted by: Spomogum Fleper7978 2006-05-04 08:01 |