Who would have thought that Michael Mukasey, attorney general under George W. "How many people can I kill" Bush would come out against imposing the death penalty on the six men accused of being associated with the 9/11 attacks. But he has.
Mukasey's logic is impeccable: "[T]hey would see themselves as martyrs," he told an audience at the London School of Economics. Well, the logic isn't quite perfect: There's no particular reason to care what the men who would be executed think--apart from the fact that they are human beings like the rest of us. It is what millions of other people would think of their deaths, and the effect that such thoughts would have on American policy.
Mukasey's view does not render the proposed proceedings by military commission just, or even constitutional. But they do suggest that he's not as out of touch with reality as his boss, and that's something.
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1 comment:
Mukasey's view does not render the proposed proceedings by military commission just, or even constitutional. But they do suggest that he's not as out of touch with reality as his boss, and that's something.
From the article:
Cox said Mukasey's remarks fit a disturbing Bush administration pattern. "So much for the presumption of innocence," he said.
"We have adopted a theory where people are first presumed to be guilty, and then we feel that we don't need to give them the kind of protections that real justice demands. Now we have discussions on whether we are going to kill them or not before the trial is over."
Actually, he seems to be almost as out of touch when you consider he seems to publicly indicate that the accused are already guilty.
That does not seem to me, to be a stance the head of the Justice Department should take.
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