Prison: Merciful or Inhumane?

Earlier in the year, many from the left and members of the American and international media seemed to be somewhat united in their outspokenness about the fate of convicted terrorist collaborator Zacarias Moussaoui. Their opinion? The death penalty is bad — life in prison with no chance for parole is the perfect solution. Reporters anguished in great detail over Moussaoui's chaotic upbringing "in a violent and unstable household." Trial updates for weeks included the defense arguments that rather than execution he should receive "the long, slow death of a common criminal" with life in prison. Columnist Molly Ivins stated what so many of the liberal media seemed satisfied to argue: "Why let this guy have martyrdom and world fame when we could just put him away?"

Only two short months later, they seem to have changed their tune. Over the weekend, it was reported that three of the suspected terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay committed suicide. The liberal media — who so recently praised life in prison as a reasonable penalty — was quick to bemoan the deaths as new American military atrocities and to denounce the imprisonments as cruel and inhumane.

Dispirited and desperate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay look to suicide as a way out of a hopeless situation, and not because they seek martyrdom...

"There is no hope in Guantanamo. The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself..."

In seemingly unrelated news, charity organizations across Texas have reported record increases in donations of rope.