Daphne Eviatar looks at the arguments against giving Khalid Sheik Mohammed the death penalty:
“I think the fact that the defendants want to be executed shouldn't count either way,” said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Cornell University, who advocated against the death penalty for these suspects when they faced military commission trials last year. “However, I do think it is legitimate for the government to worry about the possible counter-productivity of the death penalty here. That is, if the government had concluded that executing [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed], et al were likely to substantially aid Al Qaeda in recruiting, a decision not to seek the death penalty could be based in part on that worry.” According to Dorf, executing the men not only wouldn’t deter other terrorists from committing similar crimes, but could even encourage them.
I've already made my feelings on this issue known--although I will say I find it interesting that conservatives are constantly arguing that liberals somehow ignore specific cultural features of Islamic extremism out of "political correctness"--but then they turn around and ignore those some idiosyncracies when considering how something like execution for KSM might actually be in Al Qaeda's interest because doing so would be somehow "soft".
-- A. Serwer
