Moussaoui Wins, America Loses
Thursday, May 4, 2006 at 10:55AM “America, you lost. You lost! I won!” That about sums it up.
Zacarias Moussaoui, the only 9/11 conspirator brought to trial, was sentenced yesterday to life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty.
Moussaoui said:
“America, you lost. You lost! I won!”
“We will come back one day. You will never get him. God curse America. God save Usama bin Laden. You will never get him.”
“I destroyed life” … “maybe one day she (victim’s family member) can think how many people the CIA has destroyed their life.”
Jurors felt Moussaoui’s abusive father and “rough childhood” contributed to who he is today, and that life in prison would be a more just way to punish the terrorist.
His mother, Aicha El Wafi, blames the Moussaoui conviction on France, because he is a French citizen and France did not intervene.
“My son will be buried alive because France didn’t dare contradict the Americans. I don’t share the ideas and the words of my son in the court, but it was because of his words, his color, his race, that he was sentenced to life.”
France, which abolished capital punishment in 1981, had demanded that none of the information it provided for the U.S. case against Moussaoui be used to seek the death penalty. France also has a track record of appeasing violent Muslims. Flashback to the November 2005 riots in Paris by Muslim illegal immigrants:
Meanwhile in Paris, after the 15th consecutive night of riots by young Arabs and Muslims, some offenders are being deported and France is taking a second look at it’s immigration policy. The French equivalent of the ACLU called SOS-Racisme is claiming deportations are illegal and demand rights for these mini-terrorists. Whatever happened to “if you can’t be ‘em, join ‘em”? It worked for Spain. No, wait… that was a disaster, too.
It’s ironic that countries which criticize the US’s war on terror are also suffering from the very source of terrorism they renounce the US for fighting.
The problem with life in prison without parole is that there truly is no such thing as life in prison without parole. Hundreds of convicted murderers have been paroled and released back into society in the United States despite the sentence of life without parole. In fact, a death sentence doesn’t necessarily end in execution. Take for example Sterling Spann, a South Carolina man who spent 17 years on death row for murder only to receive a new trial and then be sent back to prison. He was granted parole Wednesday.
The 5-1 decision by the S.C. parole board ends a decades-long fight by Spann for freedom in a case that gained national attention. He will likely be released within the next two months and will live in Connecticut.
York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant, who attended Wednesday’s hearing in Columbia, said law enforcement officials and the victim’s family were devastated.
“This is a sad day for the criminal justice system,” Bryant said. “This system has failed the victim in this case and the family.”
Spann, 43, was sent to South Carolina’s death row in 1982 after a jury convicted him of murder in the rape and burglary, and death of 81-year-old Melva Harper Niell of Clover. She was found in a bathtub, her neck broken.
Spann served 17 years in prison prior to the murder of Melva Harper Niell.
There is no reason to trust in the American judicial system. The Moussaoui case is a perfect example of that. His abusive father, rough childhood, France…..all guilty…
This is why America loses. We’re soft. Our enemies aren’t.
Michelle Malkin Expose the Left Stop the ACLU
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Reader Comments (16)
What a load of rubbish!
We're weak on justice in America. Period.
I disagree. He is mocking America and our judicial system and rightly so. Our justice system is pathetic. Judges are releasing child molesters and not even sentencing them and now this?!! This is an outrage! He should not be allowed to live. If and when he gets out, he will do it again, I guarantee it.
It may sound unforgiving, but I am not backing down on this issue. He should have paid for his crime with his life. I am sure that is what he prefers anyway. If what I have read about Islam, it is a great honor to die for your country and faith.
surely the best possible result for you would be for this arch terrorist conspirator to come to know your Lord?
This is the criminal justice system. It cannot be run giving the criminal the benefit of the doubt. Period. I thought you believed in separation of Church and State?
Even Jesus on the cross didn't try to rescue the dying criminals from their justice. He did give them hope for eternal life while accepting their punishment.
1) I said best result *for you*. That means from your Christian perspective. Would you not wish for Moussaoui’s conversion?
2) "[The criminal justice system] cannot be run giving the criminal the benefit of the doubt. Period." On the contrary, at the heart of criminal justice is the notion of innocense until guilt is proven. We're talking about the nature of punishment rather than establishing guilt, but the principle you express is at fault, period.
3) Notice that the criminals being executed along side Jesus were not guilty of crimes for which God had specified capital punishment, but were executed under a penal system independently derived by the governing Romans. Does this mean a Christian must give carte blanche to his host nation's judges and legislators without complaint? With or without the death penalty, is every government (including Iran?) appointed by God and must be obeyed by its Christian citizens?
To some extent, a country like Iran is God's dealing with a group of people, or judgment, but I am not in the position to judge what God does or doesn't do in these matters. He certainly has used kings and rulers, for good and for bad, to secure His purpose. We're readaing the book of the prophet Jeremiah and God wanted Israel to submit and even become slaves to Nebukenezzer. Israel refused, they were murdered and the rest dispursed.
Christians can complain all we want about injustices, but Moussaoui receiving life in prison OR the death penalty is hardly an injustice.
This is what Moussaoui has done. He praises what is evil and calls evil what is good. Is there hope for him? Who knows. No where from the compilation of Christian text can you conclude that God is not a God of justice who demands repayment for sin. In fact, the Church teaches that execution can have a redemptive affect for the criminal, and that for some criminals they will find their redemption through the excepting of their just punishment.
So no, I don't care about Moussaoui's soul. Maybe I should, but I don't.
Amy,
You are a certified IDIOT. I've never heard of you before (thank God) but when I do a search for Sterling Spann--one of the grossest miscarriages of justice when he was railroaded and convicted in 1981--I find you STUPID post right next to the one about Mousssaoui. Spann was convicted of a murder that was part of a string of seriel murders in York County, SC. One of the murders that was almost identical to the one Spann was convicted of happened while Spann was in the county jail. I know because I am from this area and I followed the case.
If really care about the truth read this little sample of some of the evidence for Spann's innocence:
Spann, convicted in 1981 of murdering 81-year-old Melva Niell of Clover. In a unanimous decision, the S.C. Supreme Court cited new evidence that suggests a serial killer murdered Niell and two other elderly Clover women. All three victims were strangled to death and sexually assaulted between July and November 1981. The three victims were elderly, heavy-set white women, living within 12 miles of one another. The first two victims were left in the bathtub, while the third victim was drenched in fruit juice because the bathroom was outside the house.
Much of the new evidence surrounds Johnny Hullett, a Bowling Green man convicted of murdering 69-year-old Bessie Kate Alexander -- the third murder in the series. He is also the suspect in another elderly murder case. In a diary kept by a relative, Hullett admitted to committing the murder blamed on Spann. Skidmore said the diary entry included details of the murder that never came out in the trial or in subsequent appeals.
No one has ever been arrested for the first murder. Mary Ring, 57, was found dead in her bathtub in Clover on July 18, 1981. Spann's defense included three experts to try to prove the serial killer theory. Dr. Werner Spitz, a forensic pathologist, said the three victims were killed with a unique chokehold he had not encountered in his 43 years of practice. A forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Emanuel Tanay, said a "sexual, sadistic murderer" committed all three crimes. The third expert was a former FBI ace-agent (and accomplished author) Robert Ressler who said the circumstances of the three murders indicated they were committed by a white male in his 20s or 30s with a dysfunctional marriage and a history of psychological problems. Spann is black, was not married in 1982 and was not diagnosed with mental problems. On the other hand, Hullett fit the profile, Ressler said in a 1996 appeal.
Amy,
ROCK ON WITH YOUR HALF WITTED HOT AIR NEO-FASCIST BLOG! that's sarcasm you half wit...
will, I hope your research is not for a school of higher education because it'd be scary to think you are America's next "educated" working generation.
I think I'll stand by the victim's family on this one. Even if I were totally wrong about the assessment, which by the way I am not alone in, it wouldn't make me half-witted to adhere to it. All you did was copy and paste someone else's writing with no reference. Why do I get the impression you're a prisoner with time on his hands doing research? God help us if you are in university.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Well, it's obvious that you've decided on what the facts are without doing much research. Not only is Sterling Spann most likely innocent, as he repeatedly insisted for about 20 years until his final plea deal, but Johnny Hullett, who had been convicted for a similar murder at about the same time in the same area, at one point admitted to also having committed the murder that Sterling Spann had sentenced to death for.
Oh, and one more thing, Johnny Hullett, the convicted murder who may have killed all three women, including the one Spann was convicted of, and fit the FBI profile as Will mentions above, was a former minister. Is that why you really refuse to admit that Spann is probably innocent?
I'm sure you'll make up more ad hominems against me, like you did against Will, so you can discount what we say out of hand, but might I recommend instead trying this new fangled thing called "research"? Personally, I don't think there is anything "scary" about Will's education, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about much more than you. I certainly hope there are plenty more people like Will out there than people like you.
In case you're curious about the timing of my post here, I came across your blog because a short while ago I was watching "Anatomy of a Murder" on MSNBC (if you're interested, a transcript of most of the show can be found here and here) which covered this case and I wanted to find some more recent information on the case. Sadly, I came across your self-indulgent edited version of the case, which distorts and hides the facts to support a poorly thought out conclusion at the expense of the facts and someone else's good name.
Besides that misinformation, your conclusion, "This is why America loses. We're soft. Our enemies aren't." fails to notice that we're "soft" because we're (usually) not the kind of evil which allows our enemies to be "hard." It is also apparently (as best I can make out) based on the false assumption that "America loses" because of our underuse of a death penalty. The death penalty wouldn't have prevented 9/11, you dingbat, those guys committed suicide, remember? The fact that we don't have to give Moussaoui endless appeals for a death penalty is not a "win" for Moussaoui nor a "loss" for America.
The fact is, there is no evidence that the death penalty is more of a deterrent than prison, and there is plenty of evidence that innocents have been wrongly put to death, when they could have been released had they gotten life without parole instead of begin given the death penalty. Personally, I'd rather let a few guilty men go free than ever put an innocent to death; but you apparently have no problem with putting innocents to death, or even pretending that they are somehow an example of a problem with our judicial system. I'm sure Jesus would be pleased.
Oh, and finally, from your response to Will, "Even if I were totally wrong about the assessment [...] it wouldn't make me half-witted to adhere to it." Actually, yes, adhering to a totally wrong assessment does make you half-witted; an ignorant half-wit at best, self-deluded half-wit at worst. I have no idea how you could have written that line with a straight face, so I think you've just given more evidence supporting Will's case about you being a half-wit by saying that.
Now, on with the excuses so you can avoid admitting error...!