"Moussaoui, you lost. ... We won"

Zacarias Moussaoui is going to prison for the rest of his days on earth. That's not a victory for him.

CNN reports that Moussaoui will "spend the rest of his natural life alone in a tiny prison cell. Once in prison, Moussaoui will have little opportunity for taunting -- he'll be in lockdown for 23 hours of every day, with one hour of recreation daily. He'll spend that one hour alone, also."

Nope. Moussaoui didn't win.

-- Zacarias Moussaoui claimed victory over America after a jury rejected the government's effort to put the Sept. 11 conspirator to death and instead decided to lock him away in prison for the rest of his life.

Moussaoui, who spent much of his two-month trial cursing America, blessing al-Qaida and mocking the suffering of 9/11 victims, offered one more taunt after the jury reached its verdict Wednesday: "America, you lost. ... I won," he proclaimed, clapping his hands as he was escorted from the courtroom.

Moussaoui gets one last chance to speak publicly Thursday when U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema sentences him to life in prison without the possibility of release for his part in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Barring an unforeseen circumstance, Moussaoui then will be sent to a super-maximum federal prison in Colorado under special conditions that will prevent him from having any contact with the outside world.

Why would Moussaoui claim victory because he's not being put to death?

He's suggesting that the AMERICANS on the jury actually wanted to award him rather than punish him. I don't see it that way. Some would consider being condemned to a life without freedom as a fate worse than death.

And at 37-years-old, he's looking at a lot of time as a captive.

There's no martyrdom for Moussaoui, not in Florence, Colorado -- his home until he dies. There won't be 72 virgins waiting for him at the federal Supermax prison.

CNN says the facility is "sometimes known as the 'Alcatraz in the Rockies.'" It doesn't sound very heavenly.

Moussaoui will have no one to talk to. His anti-American taunts will go unheard. He can scream "Allahu Akbar" as much as he wants.

There are many, like President Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and some 9/11 family members, who wanted Moussaoui to be executed.

Commenting from the Oval Office, Bush noted that the jury did for Moussaoui, spared his life, what he "evidently wasn't willing to do for innocent American citizens."

Read the President's written statement in response to Moussaoui's sentence.

I really struggle with the death penalty issue. I'm against it as being inconsistent with my pro-life ethic. Theoretically speaking, that's easy for me to say.

However, if someone I loved was murdered, if someone I loved had been killed simply for being in the WTC or the Pentagon or aboard one of the four hijacked planes on 9/11, I don't know that I could live up to my principles.

Part of me knows that I wouldn't want the perpetrator to see another sunrise. I'd want the killer to be killed. I know it.

It's a moral quandary for me. Reason and emotion are at odds. I'm uncomfortable with my own hypocrisy. I claim no moral high ground on the death penalty issue.

That aside, I think it's disgusting the way liberals are gleefully exploiting the jury's decision as a major defeat for the government. They're acting like he was acquitted.

That's nuts. Moussaoui was convicted and sentenced to prison for the rest of his life. That's not a defeat.

Although Moussaoui is still breathing, his life is over. He has lost his freedom and he'll never get it back.

What sort of life is that? It's death.

It really bothers me that Moussaoui's sentence is being politicized and spun as a loss for Bush.

The self-proclaimed enlightened Left is actually claiming victory over the Bush Administration. They seem to be saying that the death penalty was on trial, not Moussaoui.

In effect, the libs are echoing Moussaoui's words:

"America, you lost. ... I won."

"Bush, you lost. ... We won."

That's pretty sick, Lefties.