This morning I heard the family members of some of the victims of 9/11 testify against, in a oblique sort of way, the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui.  Outside the courthouse, one woman pointed out that, while some of the actual plotters of the crime have yet to be brought to court, even though they are in US custody, Moussaoui is a peripheral figure, perhaps not even fully knowledgable of the scheme.  This rang true to me. 

     My sense is that the move to execute Moussaoui has more to do with a desire for revenge than with justice for the people actually responsible for 9/11.  He is a small fry, a disturbed and detestable man.  The more important people, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, are shielded from the law in order to press them for intelligence.  Apparently, Moussaoui is expendable, and it is precisely that expendibility that suggests he was not that close to the plot and, therefore, should not be the man we kill in retribution.
 
    It reminds me of this excerpt from passage 74 of the Tao Te Ching (Lau translation):

There is a regular executioner whose charge it is to kill.
To kill on behalf of the executioner is what is described as chopping wood on behalf of the master carpenter.
In chopping wood on behalf of the master carpenter, there are few who escape hurting their own hands instead.

    Some interpreters believe that the "regular executioner" here is Tao.  Thus, only natural death or killing is truly just.  To take up the task of killing, to act instead of allowing Tao to unfold, brings only harm to the killer.  Alternatively, this passage, and some others, could imply that there may be circumstances where execution is justified.  But the key point is to urge restraint in any such sanctioned killing.  The Tao Te Ching is generally against killing.  A Taoist would ask: what is to be gained by killing Moussaoui?  And a Taoist answer might be: we will only injure and bloody our own hands.