Military officials announced earlier this week that they will pursue the death penalty against Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 plotters via Guantanamo Bay's kangaroo-court-style military commission system.
Don't get me wrong -- I want to see these men prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But trying them in the heavily criticized military commission system and putting them to death will do nothing to discourage would-be terrorists. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It shows us as being hypocritical in all our talk of human rights and justice. And the death penalty would make martyrs of the defendants, which is exactly what they want.
Doing it this way, the terrorists win.
And the worst part is that they know it -- as do their followers.
Best to drop the death penalty, give them fair trials to show that we are a nation of laws, and then let them sit in an American jail for the rest of their lives. That would be a deterrent.
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