Moussaoui Punishment Seems Appropriate

The Islamofascists will say that life imprisonment for Zacarias Moussaoui demonstrates American weakness. As usual, they would be wrong.

Annie Gottlieb puts it well:

...this seems to me the right decision.

Not because Moussaoui's alleged traumatic childhood and possible mental illness provided mitigating factors, as the defense claimed.

But because he wanted to be a martyr. Death would have given him too much notoriety.

And because he was no mastermind, and the extent to which he was a "conspirator" is not clear -- probably inflated by him. He would have been more a scapegoat for 9/11 than a punished perpetrator.

Let him be forgotten in prison.

It's good the jury denied Moussaoui martyrdom, a fit punishment for this ungodly thug.

UPDATE: Peggy Noonan assumes that the jury acted out of fear. We have no indication that that was their motive.