My $.02 on the Moussaoui life sentence

For my part I believe the decision to sentence Al Qaeda wannabe Zacarias Moussaoui to be the correct. And not only because I'm generally suspicious of the death penalty.

A quote from the Christian Science Monitor story seems dispositive:

Moussaoui stunned many terrorism experts when he testified that he was tasked to fly an airplane into the White House on 9/11 with convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid. The government's own evidence suggested that Moussaoui had preknowledge of the plot, not that he was to become an active participant in it.

Many legal analysts said it suggested Moussaoui wanted to become a martyr and was tailoring his testimony to help achieve that result. [Emphasis mine-SK]

And why should we assist such martyrdom?

No reason I can think of.

A 9/11 victim family member put it best: "Let him rot".

I couldn't agree more.