ISOLATION, NOT DEATH, FOR MCVEIGH.

Byline: Joseph Staub Local View

THIS country ought to consider an alternative punishment in the case of convicted murderer and traitor Timothy McVeigh.

Yes, he is guilty of heinous acts and deserves to die. Yes, many of the relatives of the Oklahoma City bombing victims want him to die. Yes, as a nation we may want to exact the greatest penalty we can imagine.

But perhaps there is a more fitting punishment. Whenever I think of McVeigh I am reminded of the short story, ``The Man Without a Country,'' published by Edward Everett Hale in 1863.

The story is about a young soldier, Philip Nolan, caught up in one of the struggles for power in this country's early days. He is tried for treason and found guilty.

During his sentencing he shocks the courtroom by cursing the name of the United States and wishing he may never hear the name again.

The judge gives him exactly what he wants, and for the next 50 years the man lives aboard Navy vessels and is not permitted to see or hear anything about the United States - not the flag, nor newspapers, nor books that mention the United States, not even the ``U.S.'' on the uniform buttons of his jailers.

Over the long years the man has a change of heart. He keeps a careful journal of bits of information he catches about the United States, and on his deathbed begs for news of the country he betrayed.

I suggest a similar punishment for McVeigh. He hated this nation and its government so much - forgetting that, for better or worse, in a democracy such as ours the people and the government are inseparable - that he murdered its citizens and destroyed its property.

He wanted the United States and its laws and political processes, to which he once swore an oath of loyalty, to change forever, to be gone.

I say we give him his wish. Let's stick McVeigh in a cell and forbid him any news of the United States until the day he dies.

No news about the United States, or any news story that even remotely concerns it. No book or newspaper or music written by an American, or mentioning an American or the United States, or even any published in this country.

Let us forbid him to see or hear even the smallest detail about the United States. (Perhaps the one book we will allow him will contain the photos and biographies of the people he slaughtered.)

I don't suggest this because I believe McVeigh may have a change of heart - to change one you have to have one. Nor am I against the death penalty: I support it in any case for which it is by law appropriate.

No, I suggest this punishment because it most fits the crime.

Consider: McVeigh will be cut off from life, very much like his victims, and he will have a long lifetime to consider the pain and sorrow he caused. McVeigh will never know if his actions had any meaning.

Without news of the United States, he will never know if his actions were worth what he is suffering. McVeigh's anti-government comrades are waiting for him to make himself a martyr to their cause, to take their secrets to his grave.

Let us deny them that, by giving McVeigh a living death that demonstrates the power of the people of the United States, and what we do to those who would change our way of life by violence and terror.

Some will call this suggested punishment insufficient. But what could be worse than denying McVeigh everything he wants, and furthermore, consigning him to permanent loss and deprivation, as he did the families and friends and fellow citizens of his victims?

Some will say this punishment is cruel and unusual.

The parts of this punishment that are unusual aren't cruel, and the parts that are cruel aren't unusual.

McVeigh brought this nightmare to our country. I say we make him live it through to the end. If that end is destined to come after a lifetime of confinement, suffering and frustration of his purpose, then let's ensure that McVeigh goes to his grave getting exactly that.