This Is Not A Plea For Sympathy For The Bali Bombers

The Bali bombers are set to be executed very shortly. The temptation is to say "good riddance". But when one ponders the attitudes of some of the families of the victims, it all starts to seem a bit creepy and disturbing to call for blood.

In this case, it would seem to be absolutely justified to call for the death penalty. The Bali bombings were horrific, a crime, cowardly. No sympathy should be extended to those who carried them out.

But there's that word - justified. The bombers believed that they were absolutely justified in what they were doing. The belief that another human ever deserves to die is what caused all this in the first place. And if it wasn't for that belief, the families of the victims would still have their children with them - how can they share the love of death and revenge?

Unlike my feelings regarding the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van, I don't have any sympathy for the bombers. I certainly won't be sad when they are executed - but that doesn't shake my belief that it's the wrong thing to do. Lock them up in fetid hell holes for the next sixty years with gruel and whippings, for all I care. But believing that the death of another person is ever justified is wrong. I don't care what side you're on.

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