They offer three reasons for not executing the confessed terrorist.

WHAT JURY COULD spare accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui from capital punishment? Mr. Moussaoui does not just admit his role in the attacks, he boasts of it. He claims more culpability than the government can prove. He revels in the attacks' success and sneers at and insults the grieving families of the victims. He mocks the justice system that would hold him accountable. What jury could find the mitigating factors in his case outweighing the aggravating ones? Only a jury -- or individual jurors -- both wise and courageous.

We oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle. But in Mr. Moussaoui's case, there are at least two reasons for sparing him, independent of one's views on capital punishment. The first is that Mr. Moussaoui's actual connections to the attacks are tenuous. The government wishes to put him to death because, by lying to investigators at the time of his detention, he allegedly prevented them from unraveling the conspiracy. This is an emotionally powerful argument, because everyone wants to be able to rewind the clock and have another shot at stopping what happened that day -- or, at least, to hold someone responsible in lieu of 19 hijackers unavailable for trial. And it ironically dovetails with an apparently powerful emotional need on Mr. Moussaoui's part to take credit for the attacks. It may even be correct, as the jury found in holding him eligible for death.

But the government's theory is inherently speculative, and America shouldn't administer lethal injections based on speculation. Mr. Moussaoui is a braggart and at least a little bit nutty. He didn't actually kill anyone. Allowing his execution would potentially open the door for executions of low-level conspirators in other crimes, not for actual participation but for allowing them to happen. It's a dangerous road.

The second reason to spare Mr. Moussaoui is to avoid martyring him -- both in his own mind and, more important, in the minds of al-Qaeda sympathizers around the world. Al-Qaeda is, among other things, a death cult; Osama bin Laden once described his fighters as "The Nation of Martyrdom; the Nation that desires death more than you desire life." Everything about Mr. Moussaoui's behavior throughout his trial testifies to his yearning for martyrdom. Prosecutors are happy to oblige, but it's not the smart response.

I've got to disagree.

First, I've got no qualms about the death penalty -- and ultimately, that is what the opposition to executing Mousaaoui is about. The rest is just window-dressing to support a pre-determined position for the Post's editorial board.

Second, this is not judt speculation -- had Moussaoui disclosed what he knew, American would have been in a position to stop 9/11. As it was, our nation was blind-sided because of a wall built between intelligence and law-enforcement. Cooperation by Moussaoui would have allowed that wall to be breached.

Third, while a dead Moussaoui is a martyr, a live Moussaoui is a prisoner to be traded for by the Islamists. Just as Israel will never stop asking for Jonathan Pollard, hostage-takers will include Moussaoui's freedom as a condition for the release of their freedom.

Kill him -- and every other terrorist we capture. They would have no hesitation about killing us.

Posted by: Greg at 10:21 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Now one can spin this story in a couple of different ways. Is it a case or terrorism, an independence-minuded uprising, or foreign aggression? Regardless, it is an outrage -- the murder of innocents to accomplish a political end is never an acceptable means to any end.

Suspected Islamic militants raided a village and killed 22 Hindus after lining them up outside their homes in India's portion of the disputed territory of Kashmir, police said Monday.

An additional five Hindus were wounded in the attack Sunday night in Thava, a village 105 miles northeast of Jammu in India's Jammu-Kashmir state, said Sheesh Pal Vaid, inspector-general of police.

Some villagers rushed to a nearby army camp and sought help, and the assailants fled the village by the time security forces reached the area, Vaid said. No other details were immediately available.

No one claimed responsibility for Sunday night's killings. But Vaid said, "It is definitely a terrorist attack," meaning that police suspect that Islamic militants were to blame.

Nearly a dozen insurgent groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan since 1989.

Regardles of where one stands on the isue of Kashmir -- and there are good arguments on all sides -- no one can legitimately support murder. The Kashmiri issue cannot be solved in this manner.

Posted by: Greg at 10:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Osama has come out and issued a death sentence against some of us.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called for people who ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad to be killed, weighing into the furor that erupted after a Danish newspaper ran cartoons lampooning Islam's holy messenger.

"Heretics and atheists, who denigrate religion and transgress against God and His Prophet, will not stop their enmity toward Islam except by being killed," the Saudi-born militant said.

Bin Laden's remarks were part of an audio tape which Al Jazeera television aired excerpts from on Sunday. The television station later published a full transcript on its Web site.

Well, IÂ’ve done it before and I do it again now, out of a sense of obligation to exercise the precious right of free expression when it is under siege by those who would impose their backwards faith upon the rest of the world.

Come and get me, jihadi swine.

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I mean, any criticism of this is certainly based upon rank Islamophobia.

Separate groups of gunmen entered two primary schools in Baghdad and beheaded two teachers in front of their students, the Ministry of State for National Security said.

"Two terrorist groups beheaded two teachers in front of their students in the Amna and Shaheed Hamdi primary schools in Shaab district in Baghdad," a ministry statement said.

A ministry official said he believed the attacks were aimed at: "intimidating pupils and disrupting learning".

As a teacher, I have three words for those who perpetrate acts such as this.

Burn.

In.

Hell.

Posted by: Greg at 12:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This is the eyewitness testimony of one of those present when a homicide bomber murdered innocents outside a restaurant in Tel Aviv.

Witness Israel Yaakov said the blast killed a woman standing near her husband and children.

"The father was traumatized. He went into shock. He ran to the children to gather them up and the children were screaming, 'Mom! Mom!' and she wasn't answering, she was dead already ... it's a shocking scene," Yaakov said.

The response of the Palestinian “government” run by terrorist group Hamas? It was one of support for the misdeeds of Islamic Jihad, the Iranian backed group that sent a teenage boy to slaughter innocents.

A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri called the attack "a natural result of the continued Israeli crimes against our people," adding that Palestinians were "in a state of self-defense and they have every right to use all means to defend themselves," according to Reuters.

Murdering civilians in the street is self-defense? You cannot even make the case that the dead were collateral damage -- they were the targets of this terror attack.

Has the time come to crush the Palestinians, rather than demanding that the Israelis make one yet another concession in the name of an ever-elusive peace?

(H/T Jawa Report)

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It took way to long to get here, but Sami al-Arian is pleading guilty to terrorism charges and being deported.

apping an ordeal that spanned more than a decade, former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian has reached a deal with prosecutors, agreeing to be deported after admitting involvement with a terrorist organization, an attorney involved in the negotiations said.

"My understanding was that he was to plead guilty" to conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization, said William Moffitt, who represented Al-Arian until a judge allowed him to withdraw from the case last month. The deal calls for Al-Arian to receive a sentence roughly equal to the time he has served behind bars since he was arrested in February 2003, Moffitt said.

The remaining charges are to be dismissed. Moffitt said he and attorney Linda Moreno wrote the bulk of the agreement. "The vast majority of that deal was written on my desk," he said.

But not so fast, say the terrorist sympathizers from CAIR.

Ahmed Bedier, Tampa spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said Moffitt was wrong about the Al-Arian plea. Al-Arian did not agree to admit to any charges associated with terrorism, Bedier said.

"He stayed true to his convictions - he stayed true he wasn't going to plead to those issues," Bedier said. "There is no conspiracy to support terrorism."

Bedier said he could not reveal what charge Al-Arian agreed to, and he refused to reveal the source of his information.

Bedier convened a 7 p.m. news conference, saying he hoped to have Al-Arian's family there. They did not appear.

"Their lawyer would not allow them," Bedier said. He later said Al-Arian's family learned of the plea agreement Friday from a news report.

The evidence of al-Arian's guilt is compelling, though.

It remains clear that what country will receive this terrorist fundraiser.

Personally, I vote for Cuba -- Guantanamo Bay, to be exact.

Posted by: Greg at 11:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I suppose all the left-wing horror at spying on terrorists has got the terrorists spooked.

Terrorist groups, which for years have used the Internet and its various tools to organize and communicate, are paying more attention to addressing security and privacy concerns similar to those of other Web users, counterterrorism experts say.

The Internet has long been a convenient gathering place for radical Islamists advocating violence against Western influences, known as jihadists. Through online chat, e-mail and Web postings, communities of people have relied on one another for advice, political debate, even movie reviews and biographical information on suicide bombers and religious leaders.

Recently, postings on jihadist Web sites have expressed increasing concern about spyware, password protection, and surveillance on chat rooms and instant-messaging systems.

One forum recently posted a guide for Internet safety and anonymity on the Internet, advising readers of ways to circumvent hackers or government officials.

"The Shortened Way of How to be Cautious; To the User of the Jihadi Forums, In the Name of Allah, the most Gracious and Merciful" was posted last month by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group calling itself the Global Islamic Media Front and was translated by the SITE Institute, a group that tracks international terrorist groups.

Good job, liberals -- you've helped make it harder for Americna intelligence agencies to save American lives. And thanks, media folks, for tipping the terrorists off that they need to increase their security!

Posted by: Greg at 10:53 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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