Let me ask you a simple but very important question: How is Khalid Sheik Mohammed still alive? Did we just forget to kill the hairy evil guy? It sure seems that way, because he should have been put down years ago. I’m against the death penalty, but there are a few cases that shake your moral convictions.
Let me give you an abbreviated list of some of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s dirty deeds: in 1998, he planned the bombings of two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. In 2000, he masterminded the attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors. In 2002, he ordered the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and on 9/11, he masterminded the attacks on America that killed 2,996 people and thousands of first responders are dying still from the toxic fumes released into the air on that day.
Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured in 2003 and in 2008 the Unites States Government announced that they would seek the death penalty against the admitted terrorist. In 2009, Mohammed admitted in open court that he masterminded the 9/11 attacks and he said he was proud that he did it. Imagine the pain that moment caused the families of his victims. It would seem that most of us have moved on since the 9/11 attacks and have forgotten all about Khalid Sheik Mohammed. But I guarantee you, the loved ones of the people he killed in the attacks have not moved on and they’re seeking justice.
Instead, he is still alive and living out his days at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. He’s getting three meals a day, he gets to socialize with other prisoners, he gets time every day for prayers and for television. He was 39 when he was captured. He is 55 years old now.
I understand that in 2003 military intelligence wanted to interview him to possibly get information about future terrorist attacks. He was infamously waterboarded 183 times and some in America are very upset about the way he was treated. Really? Upset about the way a mass murderer was treated? (Personally, I would like to see him body waxed to death, but that’s just me.)
The government and its prosecutors should be ashamed that they have tried and failed several times to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and now the trial isn’t scheduled to start until 2021.
Americans cheered in the streets when it was announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a raid on a Pakistani compound. That was in 2011, almost 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. It seemed right, and it seemed just. But Bin Laden was just the money man.
The sick mind that planned and managed the attacks belongs to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the fact that he is still breathing is neither right nor just and an insult to people who lost loved ones in his attacks. They deserve better.