Peas in a pod.

I'm not opposed to the death penalty per se—some people really do deserve to die—but I really don't understand hyperventilating over not killing somebody or cheering like a sociopath when we do. Ending another human being's life should be approached with solemnity and regret instead of high fives, else you are as depraved as the person being put down. I mention this because the more undermedicated, spittle-flecked corners of the WingNet have their little pink panties all in a wad that Moussaoui was given a life sentence instead of the death penalty. Ooooh, feel the outrage. Whatever, guys. Gilliard pegs this one properly.

Oh, fuck all this dramatic bullshit. Moussaoui was a half-wit, someone Al Qaeda barely trusted to get trained, and he fucked that up. State murder would have given him a dignity he never deserved.

Believe me, I understand the desire to see this idiot die. Osama isn't gonna be dead any time soon, the rest are in some US gulag, probably to have long trials where their treatment becomes the issue. But murdering Moussaoui would have been a mistake.

First, he's as crazy as a shithouse rat. Most of what he said was bullshit of the highest order, designed to provoke the death penalty and ensure he died a martyr in the hands of the evil US.

Second, he was in custody when 9/11 happened and knowledge does not mean action. Murdering him would have been revenge.

Third, with no state sanctioned murder, no protests, no calls for clemency, no Bush reveling in blood lust, no years of debate on his mental health, no Supreme Court case.

Instead, the prisoner will be tossed into SuperMax, this awful underground prison designed to isolate you in what is in effect a dungeon. And best of all, will be forgotten. He will be lost to the Bureau of Prisons, each day spent in isolation, going madder by the day. No martyrdom, no 72 virgins, no posters in Arab slums. Just a sad loser in permanent lockdown, unable to do anything but think about how he wasted his life.

And that is what he deserves.

I didn't care what the sentencing decision was. He'd been caught, he would never again be a threat to anybody, whatever the jury decided was fine by me. In the end, it simply doesn't affect anybody except Moussaoui. However, having been denied the opportunity to get their little chubbies on by seeing a Muslim executed (or, more accurately, getting to spend the next 15 years complaining that it wasn't happening quickly enough), many of the oh-so-indignant "fry him" chorus have transferred their frustrated libidinous urges and are openly fantasizing about him being gang raped in prison. Which is pretty much par for the course for them, and an interesting reflection of their stunted emotional development so frequently on display.

Interesting how much they seem to have in common with Moussaoui.

Update: The Rude Pundit has a good post on the post-sentencing reactions.

The fact that Moussaoui had about as much to do with 9/11 as a polar bear has to do with rising gas prices didn't seem to matter to prosecutors, who were determined that Moussaoui, being Muslim, crazy, brownish and bearded, would be the nutzoid canvas onto which the bloodlust of revenge fantasies would be painted. So, yeah, sure, this is the "first 9/11-related case" brought to trial only because they called it the "first 9/11-related case."