Wednesday, April 19, 2006

People I Admire

The Moussaoui trial and, especially, the coverage of the Moussaoui trial have made me very uneasy. It's not Moussaoui, his crimes, or his guilt that make me uneasy; it's the exploitation of 9/11.

Whatever he may have been planning to do (and planning is his crime, along with an immigration violation), this guy did not crash planes into buildings. He did not cause the deaths of the people who died on 9/11. To use his sentencing hearing as an excuse to recapitulate 9/11, to play the tapes of the people in the towers, to bring on the parade of grieving families, strikes me as nakedly opportunistic on the part of the prosecutors, a sick exploitation of tragedy and suffering in the name of pseudo-patriotism.

And I find it appalling that the horror of 9/11 is being paraded before us in service of the death penalty. Which is why these families who testified in support of Moussaoui are so inspiring (since they were not allowed to offer an opinion about the death penalty, supporting him, obviously, was the only way they could argue that he should not be put to death).

1 comment:

Libby said...

that's a great story, Becca, thanks for posting it, and for articulating what I was feeling as well.