Reflection On a Life Sentence
Feelings run deep and broad on this issue, I am sure, but I needed to at least make a comment or two about the life sentence given to Zacarias Moussaoui for his part in the 9/11 attacks. I obviously know nothing about the jury deliberation and whether they were just too deadlocked to give a death sentence or what. But I personally am heartened (??) by the sentence.

I have always been an opponent of the death penalty for religious, social, and lots of other reasons. I would hope that if someone I loved was killed that I wouldn't want the killer killed.(I live in a state without the death penalty.) Obviously that is a hypothetical situation that is impossible for me to wrap my brain around. All I can deal with is what I know. And I know that the death penalty is a barbaric, primitive, inhumane, and lowers the standards of all our humanity. For that reason alone I am grateful for the life sentence.

But more than that, there is a witness to the world that this shows. We are one of the very, very, very few "developed" countries in the world that still has the death penalty. Those who would call us "weak" for not having it are not those whose opinions of us would be good anyway. This sentence does not tell the world we don't have any resolve. On the contrary it shows the world that there are times and places when we do live up to our morals and ideals and what we truly believe in. To have executed Moussaoui would have been to witness against life.

It would also have been exactly what Moussaoui and bin Laden et. al. would have wanted to happen. They would have had a new martyr to hang on their wall. They would have had a new icon of the strength and determination of their cause. They would have had a new poster boy for recruiting more terrorists. It is a greater victory for the "war on terror" to not execute Moussaoui than to do so. The "20th hijacker" would have finally joined his comrades from 2001 and all could have rejoiced. Except us.

Perhaps someday we will know the inside story of the jury deliberations. It was, I am sure, a very complicated and emotional and heated discussion. As an American, I am glad that they made the decision they did. It says a great deal about who we are as a people and as a nation.