On Not Executing the Insane

So a jury voted to let Zacarias Moussaoui live.

Good for those 12 citizens.

America's record in bringing to justice the men behind the 9/11 attacks is deplorable.

On the other hand, we have done a really terrific job in killing and maiming tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

It is hard to tell, on a given day, whose hands are bloodier: Bush/Cheney or Bin Laden.

As for Zacarias Moussaoui, he stands in the middle on the guilt spectrum.

Clearly, he delights in American planes crashing.

Without doubt, he revels in Americans jumping to their death from a high floor or being turned into ash in burning buildings.

He is also insane--a grinning fool, an idiot who grovels for scraps at the feet of any court that will let him in.

That court--the kingdom of Bin Laden--was smart enough to keep him at a distance.

He knew who, but not when. Not what. Not how. He was muscle.

To have killed him would have elevated him to the ranks of the great war criminals.

It would have given him the martyrdom that is, for him, triumph.

If only as an act of refusal--if only as a perverse gesture--thank God we did not make this man happy.

But this drama is far from over,

Now comes Act II.....the cry of our "patriots," for whom there is never enough misery, never enough death.

As long, of course, as they're not in any personal risk of dying.

Go to it, boys. Show the world the "real" America--not the one that had mercy on a lunatic, but the one that has no mercy at all.

Oh well.

But wasn't it sweet, for an hour or two, not to be ashamed of our country?