March To Death

Well, it looks like the Moussaoui death march will continue. Although prosecutors say that the banning of a key witness guts their case, with the death penalty still on the table, I don't see any way he gets out of getting it.

That's one of the problems with tackling the issue of suicide bombers, or really anyone who kills somebody, then themselves. Americans still have a perverse need for blood atonement, and that's simply not possible in these cases. The perpetrators are already dead.

That's really what this case is about. Look, we've caught some people who had a lot more to do with 9/11 than Moussaoui, who probably had little, if anything to do with the plot. They're people you've never heard of and we're holding them in places you've never heard of, but Moussaoui is the one who ended up with the nickname "The Twentieth Hijacker." That personalizes him in a way to Americans that the others do not. A large number of Americans still feel the need for blood atonement for 9/11, and since this administration is too inept to get the big boogeyman bin Ladin, Moussaoui will be the one to pay the price for their sins.

I'll really be surprised if he ends up with life in prison. For the record, I don't really care one way or the other, but one of the things we must do if he does get life, and this goes for any of these guys we incarcerate, we have to keep them out of general population. That's for our sake, not theirs.