So Moussaoui didn’t get the death penalty. I’m probably going to surprise a few folks, especially those who know I favor the death penalty, and those who think that conservative = bloodthirsty baby-killer.

This was the sentence I wanted to see.

I’m a little old-school when it comes to cruel and unusual; I define it the way it was defined back when it was first enacted. It is not necessary to ensure a painless death, just a quick and realtively bloodless one. Hanging isn’t cruel, if done right. Firing squads are a bit bloodier than I care for; they’re borderline. Lethal injection is for liberal wussies. But impaling, drawing and quartering, beheading, and several other methods used in the past are definately executions that fit the bill of cruel and unusual.

Despite that, I favor Moussaoui getting the life sentence, because in his specific case, it’s the best one possible. Best as in the most cruel and unusual.

Consider this:
Moussaoui wanted to be a martyr for his warped religion. The jury has denied him that.

He wants to see his twisted version of God rein triumphant over the decadent West. Instead, while justice has dragged on for five years, he has seen Al-Queda be shattered, its safe haven destroyed, it’s best operatives be killed or captured. Usama’s still on the loose, but so what? He’s a nutcase, not an operative. His pathetic posturing and strategic miscalculations show that he couldn’t plan an orgy in a whorehouse.

Now Moussaoui will rot in a cell for the next 30-40 years, long enough for us to utterly destroy the sick version of the religion that spawned him.

He wanted to die. That’s where his reward is, dying in glorious battle (“Glorious battle” being defined as killing defenseless civilians.) His antics in court show that he’d probably convinced himself that being executed by his captors would qualify–but we refused to oblige him.

Now, he’s going to die from old age, years in the future, after seeing his holy war fail.

He’ll have to sit there in his pen, watching that failure every day, with the knowledge that he’s a total failure as a martyr eating away at him. He couldn’t even convince the captors who have complete power over him to put him to death.

Oh, he’ll bluster.

He’ll sound defiant.

He’ll even taunt us.

But it will be the sounds of a bitter, incoherant, failure of a man (if indeed, the word man could be applied to such as Moussaoui) ranting against the inevitability and power of a storm that blew away his ramshackle hut on the seashore, when the true fault lies with him for defying the fury of nature with such a pathetic structure.

Rot in hell Moussaoui. I cannot think of a more cruel and unusual punishment than to deny you that which you seek the most, and force you to watch the destruction of that which you hold dearest.

It’s only what you wanted for us, after all.