[rant warning!]
 
Wait, who’s dead? Three of the bastards who carried out the Sari club bombing in Bali in 2002. They’ve been sitting on death row since then and within the last 24 hours were shot dead by an Indonesian state death squad. Their coffins, predictably, were paraded through the streets like trophies, held aloft by screaming family members and bellowing supporters who have made it very clear that their jihad against “the West” will continue. Naturally, a governmental advisory against travelling to Indonesia has been issued and some of our airlines are allowing people to change their plans without penalty. Fair enough: who knows who’ll take up the jihadi cause now and decide that killing white tourists, enjoying the exchange rate and out for a surf, a beer, some cheap weed on the sly perhaps or just those infernal hair beads, will make Allah happy.

OK, so some people might be rejoicing. These animals killed over 200 people in cold blood, 88 of them Aussies on holiday. They were mindless apes, jumping on the ol’ jihad bandwagon at the urging of some bloviating, hatemongering imam somewhere (these mental children do need to be told what to do after all; independent thought is not a hallmark of your average jihadi) and striking at soft targets with homemade bombs – with obviously no regard at all for the lives of fellow Indonesians, let alone fellow humans. But hey, that’s what fundamentalism does to you: makes anyone who’s not on your team fair game, even if they’re a neighbour. It splits the world into enemies and friends, and all enemies deserve a gruesome death, followed by hell. The most infuriating thing was that footage of these – people – from their jail cells and from the courtroom showed them grinning like idiots and raising their fists in triumph, like they’d won gold medals. That grinning halfwit Amrozi, nicknamed “The Smiling Assassin” was the one everyone down here wanted to damn well smash in the face with a pint glass, me included. I wouldn’t even have finished my beer first. He’s killed 200 people and he’s grinning like the cat who got the cream. Smug bastard. Smash!

But do I want him dead? Hell no! Why? Because he believes when the Indonesian government murder him, he’s going to Heaven to screw his brains out for eternity. He’s getting exactly what he wants. He’s fulfilled the orders of his bizarre & barbaric corruption of a god (head of the alleged “religion of peace”) and is about to score bigtime. Which, to me, is the complete opposite of what punishment should entail. It’s no punishment to kill a man when all he wants is to die and be martyred, a hero to his polluted herd, and achieve paradise. You commit a crime against society, you should be deprived of the privileges of being a member of that society. Take lives and your quality of life should be forfeit – but not your life itself. I’d much prefer if they kept the little shit alive, in the squalid filth of a Indonesian jail, until his lifeless flesh can be fed to sharks. Don’t let him wear his jihadi hat. Don’t let him read his precious goddamned scripture. Don’t give him a prayer mat. Let him have a skylight, not a window – don’t let him know which direction Mecca is. It’s his religion (his twisted version of it anyway) that turned him into a murderous, easily-led automaton – deprive him of all the comfort it gives him. It’s his comrades that conspired with him to kill all those people – deprive him of their company & any comfort that they may give him. Let him befriend the guards (who should be under strict orders of complete silence) if he wants company. Even better, let him have a TV behind a grille that plays nothing but evangelical Christian shows with the volume way up and don’t give him the remote. Don’t let him have any control over his life, starting with the damn TV. Don’t let him have anything he’d have on the outside, save food & water & light. But give him a nice cold hosing every month. Hey, it’s a hot country. He’ll be fine.

But, no. Indonesia, having a backward & reactionary justice system (which I define as “any system which includes death as punishment”), follows the law … and lets these bastards have exactly what they want. Then their bloated corpses get treated like rock stars, crowd-surfing to the grave, held aloft by adoring groupies.

Now, apart from wanting that haunted meat-bag Amrozi to suffer properly and apart from the fact that he & his chums wanted martyrdom and therefore should have been deprived of it, I don’t believe the death penalty makes any sense as either a punishment or a deterrent. It didn’t deter these primates. It didn’t deter fellow mindless shaven ape Tim McVeigh, the dim-as-a-two-watt-bulb Australian smack-smugglers known as the Bali Nine (for whom I have little sympathy and who still rot, awaiting their own Indonesian murder squad) or anyone else who’s been executed lately. Anyone currently on Death Row, anywhere in the world, had to know the possible penalty for what they were doing yet they went ahead anyway (provided they were convicted fairly – another giant problem with death penalties is that you can’t be sure 100% of the time that you even convicted the right person). If the death sentence is meant to be a deterrent, news flash: it isn’t damn well working.

The state, whether it straps someone to a table and injects lethal poison, ties them to a chair or electrocutes them, suffocates them in a gas chamber, breaks their neck on the gallows, kills them with robot lions or just lines them up and has soldiers shoot them, is no better than the criminal they’re ostensibly punishing. It’s the 21st century for crying out loud. We’re better than this. We have to be if we want to progress.

Anyway, Amrozi (and your fellow murderous intellectual cripples), now that you’re dead … I hope you go straight to hell. Which I suppose, to a randy, stunted animal looking forward to deflowering children for the rest of eternity – and considering I don’t believe in hell – would be not existing at all (which would be unpleasant as long as you knew you didn’t exist anymore, which implies that you’d have to exist to know you didn’t exist – quite a paradox I know, but I’m annoyed, so give me some latitude). To me, non-existence is no substitute for being treated like the sack of manure you are for the rest of your sad little life, but I guess it has to be good enough for me. You might not be suffering, as the victims of your righteousness and their families still suffer, but it’s at least nice to know that you’re not getting your perverted little slice(s) of heaven.

OK, rant over. Nothing to see here. Return to your homes!

—

PS: I noticed a certain senator from Illinois was elected last week.

America, thank you.

Barack Obama’s not Jesus, Batman or even Buzz Lightyear, I know, but with a level-headed, educated, well-spoken, caring individual like Barry O at the helm I have high, even audacious hopes that, come January 2009, America can start to drag itself out of the hole that Team Bush have been digging for the last 8 years.

Good luck!