Truth 
in politics. 
What a concept!

Abolish the Death Penalty 

By Kevin Barrett 

"They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!" - Alice in Wonderland 

When I was young, the USA, along with the rest of the civilized world, had abolished the death penalty. But apparently someone forgot to drive a stake through its heart. 

As I said during my tryout radio session as an Air America host back in 2006, the death penalty is wrong for many reasons. First, it cannot be corrected if a mistake has been made. Second, it is cruel and unusual, and therefore banned by the Constitution. (Its cruelty is obvious, and if it were usual, we'd soon have nobody left alive.) Third, it panders to the worst human instincts of revenge and sadism. Fourth, it adds to the state's mystique as the keeper of the keys to life and death, and the monopolist of violence. Fifth, the ridiculous cost of futile efforts to ensure that the person sentenced to death cannot possibly be innocent is, if the efforts are sincere, much higher than the cost of life imprisonment. Sixth, the death penalty in the USA is racist in its application, targeting as it does minorities, especially African-Americans. Seventh, America's habit of executing people is reviled by the entire civilized world, with horrendous effects on our nation's reputation. 

Even the worst crime ever committed in the USA - the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers with more than 2,000 people inside - should not be punished by death. 

That is not to say that it will not be. On the contrary, I am convinced that the perpetrators of the 9/11 crimes against humanity, including their enablers in the controlled media, face the likelihood of eventual execution for their crimes. Noam Chomsky has stated that proof of a 9/11 inside job "would quickly send everyone in Washington to the death chamber." I tend to agree with Chomsky's forecast - though I disagree that the criminals include everybody in Washington - and would add that the proof already exists and merely awaits its day in court. I have occasionally warned the 9/11 criminals that they face likely execution, in hopes of helping pressure them to rat out their fellow criminals. These warnings, which the whole 9/11 truth movement ought to be echoing, should not be construed as endorsements of the death penalty. I am and always have been inalterably opposed to the death penalty. But as Chomsky pointed out, Americans are likely to be so angry when the 9/11 criminals are put on trial that those of us who oppose the death penalty are hardly likely to affect the outcome. 

I hope that things develop in such a way as to open the possibility of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that could expose the full truth about 9/11, political assassinations, the American holocaust of CIA and military massacres of millions abroad, and other high crimes of state, in a context where the perpetrators exchange full truth for relatively lenient punishment. But while I hope for this, I do not expect it. I expect Nuremburg-style war crimes trials for the 9/11 war criminals, followed by Nuremburg-style justice. 

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