March 15, 2006 - One thing we know. Zacarias Moussaoui will spend the rest of his life in prison. The only question is whether that life of confinement will extend to the number of days allotted to him by Allah or be cut mercifully short by a jury’s decision. The trial is not about guilt or innocence. Moussaoui removed that decision from the jury when he pled guilty. It is not about terrorism or the events of September 11, 2001. Moussaoui loudly proclaimed his membership in Al Qaeda and despite the passage of four and a half years the government with all of its investigatory resources has not been able to turn up any evidence that ties the defendant to the 9-11 attacks or that he had knowledge when he was arrested that the attack was to be launched a month later. In its case to qualify Moussaoui for the death penalty the government has relied upon the proposition that had he spilled his guts on the day of his arrest the FAA might have been able to save lives on September 11th. It was a case of showing the jury what might have been. Now even that thin reed has been broken by the blatant but inept violation of the Court’s orders by one or more government lawyers.

In a larger sense this trial is not about Zacarias Moussaoui or whether he lives in prison or is put to death. It is really about us, you and me and whether we really believe in the principles we claim to be defending in Iraq and around the world. Do we really believe that even the most vile of our fellows is entitled to a fair trail before our government can exact a punishment? Do we really believe that the most mighty are equally restrained with the meanest by the rule of law? Is our government appealing to justice in that courtroom or does it pander to a blind and unreasoning thirst for vengeance frustrated because the perpetrators are beyond the reach of earthly justice and author of the crime has eluded capture for more than four years? Is America really dedicated to the rule of law or are we governed by the power of the fang and of the claw? That is what the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui is really about. It is about US.

It is important that whatever the outcome for Zacarias Moussaoui it be the just result of a fair trial. But it is more important that the world see that justice for him is the result of a fair trial employing impartial and just law. It he is to be put to death it must flow under the law as a consequence of that which he did not that which he may have thought or wanted to do. The trial must be seen to have been more than the show trial by which 148 Shiite villagers were condemned and for which Saddam Hussein now stands trial. Justice must be seen as more than a Newspeak slogan in an Orwellian nightmare. So, my friends, Moussaoui’s trial is a matter of life and death, the life and death of America’s ideals.