Killing the 20th Hijacker

"I support the death penalty because I believe, if administered swiftly and justly, capital punishment is a deterrent against future violence and will save other innocent lives," George W. Bush has said. That has in fact been the argument for years in Bush's home state of Texas?a state that executes someone on average once a month.

But the Bush Justice Dept.'s pursuit of the death penalty for French-born Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged so-called 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, won't do a thing to deter future violence, and may actually exacerbate it. The case of Moussaoui in fact shows more than any other in recent history how transparent the deterrent argument for capital punishment really is.

If indeed Moussaoui was involved in the attacks, the death penalty is not even a harsh punishment for him?or a punishment at all. If he was supposed to be on one of the four hijacked jetliners, Moussaoui was prepared to die, happy to leave this earth as a hero and spend eternity with his virgins in heaven. Investigators have theorized that perhaps only a few of the hijackers knew they were to slam the planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, while the others may have believed they were hijacking the planes to some undisclosed location. But even if he didn't know what diabolical plan ringleader Mohammed Atta and a few others had in store, Moussaoui knew when he entered a career of Islamic terrorism that there is nothing more honorable than becoming a martyr during jihad. And he knew as a soldier in the movement that at one point or another he'd be conferred with such an honor.

To that end, if and when Moussaoui is executed, there will be demonstrations in the streets of the Middle East, from Cairo to Islamabad, heralding him as a champion who died for the cause. (If he'd lived in some parts of the Middle East, his family might even receive a plaque, some cash and health benefits for the rest of their lives from the local mosque.) That in turn will only help to ratchet up the culture of martyrdom that envelops Arab countries where Islamic terrorism is rife, sending lots of teenage boys to their local terror camps to train for jihad. Rather than saving "innocent lives," as Bush states in his defense of the death penalty, the death penalty in this case could very well cost more lives. Certainly, killing Moussaoui isn't going to deter future terrorist attacks.

Of course, while Bush argues that the death penalty is about deterrence, Attorney General John Ashcroft is a bit more honest. In the weeks leading up to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's execution last year, Ashcroft, arranging for the family members of victims to watch the gruesome act, spoke a lot about "closure" for the families?viewing an execution as a sort of demented group therapy to help the families "close this chapter in their lives."

And he's talking that way now again too. There are "numerous reasons, called aggravating factors, which we believe indicate why the death penalty is appropriate," Ashcroft said at a news conference last week. "Among these reasons, is the impact of the crime on thousands of victims. To that end we remain committed not only to carrying out justice in this case, but also to ensuring that the rights of the victims are fully protected."

What Ashcroft is talking about, plain as day, is revenge and retribution, the old eye-for-an-eye argument. As he has said in the past, "We say to individuals who take life that you will suffer the loss of your own." Ashcroft has been wildly hungry for retribution since the 9/11 attacks. The last time he did a major media blitz about 9/11 was to announce that the captured John Walker Lindh?the so-called American Taliban?had suddenly become the new public enemy number one in the war on terrorism. Unable to find Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar?and with Enron and Dick Cheney's energy files just starting to mushroom as stories?Ashcroft held press conferences and did the Today show back in January to tell us that feeble little Walker Lindh was a dangerous plotter who'd supposedly been told by bin Laden himself about the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacks. Walker Lindh not only became a convenient diversion from other unseemly matters surrounding the administration; he was a convenient fall guy to direct the country's collective anger toward.

But while the death penalty was bandied about in the Walker Lindh case?with Ashcroft licking his chops, hinting in January that he may seek it?cooler heads obviously prevailed in the administration. Perhaps they realized that public sentiment might not be there to put to death a kid from the California suburbs who was not directly involved in the attacks, no matter how angry people were over his joining up with the Taliban. Not so with Moussaoui?foreign-born, an Arab and allegedly directly involved in planning the hijackings. The Justice Dept. knows this is an easy one to exploit and that it can get public support solidly behind execution, even if there are other obstacles. So vengeful is Ashcroft that he's pushing a case that many legal experts believe is not there: though Moussaoui allegedly took pilot lessons and was to be on one of the planes, he was sitting in a jail cell when the attacks occurred. He'd been taken in weeks earlier by the FBI, after a Minnesota flight school he'd attended had notified police that he seemed suspicious. Prosecutors will have a hard time getting the death penalty for someone who wasn't even present during the murders, which might be viewed as cruel and unusual punishment.

"There's no chance at all in a death sentence for conspiracy in this case to be upheld by the Supreme Court," Michael Tigar, who represented Terry Nichols in the Oklahoma City bombing, told The New York Times. (Nichols dodged the death penalty on similar grounds.)

But perhaps the greatest evidence of Ashcroft's thirst for blood is that he seems willing to jeopardize the 9/11 investigation entirely. The French government has threatened to pull out of the investigation because the death penalty is being sought, as Moussaoui is a French citizen. French intelligence agencies maintain important files on Al Qaeda links, and the French Justice Ministry's refusal to cooperate would certainly impede the investigation dramatically. Other European countries have in recent months raised concerns about capital punishment as well, and may not extradite terror suspects if the death penalty is on the table.

The Bush administration may believe that in the end European allies have no choice but to swallow hard and go along, knowing it's in the interest of their own national security to cooperate. And on that it may be right. But it's quite a gamble to take?and will still result in the kind of resentment that always hampers sensitive work?not so that we will actually deter future terrorist attacks, but rather so that Ashcroft and Co. can experience, exploit and promote the rush of sick revenge.

Michelangelo Signorile can be reached at [www.signorile.com](http://www.signorile.com).