EXECUTION AND FIRST WORLD MORALS

For decades, Australia has outlawed capital punishment. This is right and proper, and we share this outlook with other enlightened countries. The US is one notable exception, and we recall that President Clinton had to conduct an execution, on his political path to becoming a President.
“Conduct an execution” is a euphemision for state sanctioned murder.
In Australia recently we have again revisited this can of worms. We have witnessed our (much hated) Prime Minister shed crocodile tears over the grief of Van Nguyen’s mother. We stood by and saw his inept attempt at seeking clemency from the Singaporean authorities. He changed his tack when he read the Neilson polls that showed 47% of Australians supported the murder of one of our citizens. “The message “ he said, “is stay away from drugs”. That was so deep, such an insight; it just made it clear why we hate our PM so much.

Singapore is a tin-pot dictatorship. Gatherings of more than two people are not allowed. They have an average of one hanging a fortnight. The population is kept ignorant and downtrodden. It is a clean antiseptic environment, brisling with expensive armaments. The type of island state that Howard only dreams of controlling.
Typically, Howard has blurred the relevant issues, and while feigning opposition to the death penalty, mouths the platitude that Australia has no right to tell another sovereign country how to conduct itself and how to apply their laws. This is not an issue. The issue is that Howard and his cronies have a duty of care to ensure that none of out citizens is subjected to cruel or unusual treatment, in this case State authorised murder.
If Howard’s son had been tried for a similar crime in Singapore, or any other totalitarian regime, he would be flown back to Australia the same day. A human life is a human life, except when it has blue blood. Then it’s more valuable. The German government had no trouble extricating one of its citizens from Singapore for a similar crime. It also demanded and got its citizens out of the Guantanamo Bay hellhole, as did the French and the English. Why not David Hicks? Howard doesn’t like him. He has already (illegally) implied that he is guilty. And his mate George Bush might rouse on him if he tried that.
Howard is a paper tiger. Asian countries know that, and he knows it too. Trying to convert our Asian neighbours to value human life, to follow the UN imperatives is beyond him. They laugh at him and wonder how such a coward ever got to hoodwink the Australians into voting him into government. Well we wonder that too. Often.
The issue is not so much about capital punishment, but about our right to extradite our citizens and deal with them as we see fit. We owe them that, and nothing less.
The law council is annoyed at Howard for not doing enough to save Van Nguyen. Howard would just rather watch cricket, and wait until all the fuss blows over.
It won’t blow over so easily. The Bali Nine are next to face a brutal regime. We are watching to see how our Government squirms out of this one. Also there is that guy in Kuwait. Yeah that’s the country with a marvellous Utzon designed parliament house. Trouble is they haven’t got round to using it yet. Democracy is so much trouble in places like that. And why do you need democracy when you have a US base on your home soil.
Howard will say it’s not in our region, not our concern. One day Teflon Howard might realise that...no it’s not Teflon…it’s shit.