The Australian PM and Foreign Minister acted like hicks with their attitude to the inevitable execution by another sovereign nation, in a accordance with its laws and the support of 85% of its citizens. So did the usual small minority of peculiar people who treated the two criminals like heroes.

However, have I misunderstood the writer's statement that the crime committed by the thugs was not malicious? I would have thought drug smuggling was malicious.

ttbn,

Perhaps not malicious but a callous disregard for the effect of their actions on others, particularly youth.

General Comments

Thank you to the author for a good article.

The Australian government should have restricted its comments and communications to diplomatic channels while assuring the concerned public that all was being done that could be done, which would have been the truth. The media and some politicians should be hanging their heads in shame for the circus it became.

Here are some other reasons why drug trafficking should be regarded much more seriously,

The Threat Posed from the Convergence of
Organized Crime, Drug Trafficking, and Terrorism
http://epsilennyt.com/NYTContent/Test/Template33/Images/threadconvergorgancrime.pdf

Why is it that authors like this can't be honest? Do they really think twisting the facts after the event will influence people? If so they are dills.

I did not get past this "it is sickening that two young Australian drug mules", because we all know this pair were not just mules, but much more organizers of the crime. In fact the term mule is just another concoction to try to downgrade the seriousness of the crime of transporting drugs.

If Mr Lillingston were to write something a little more honest & less emotive, I might actually read it.

Have to agree with Has, and add, we really do need to have a debate on reinstating the death penalty!?

But not as revenge, but both totally appropriate, and just for ANIMALS that can only ever re-offend their whole lives; but even more importantly; forever contaminate first time offenders who might yet be rehabilitated; and perhaps with the money saved by adopting the recommended course of totally justified action!

And given there is not so much as a scrick of reasonable doubt! And given the will, we could establish genuine guilt or innocence within days; (we have the means) such sentence should be carried out within days!

And without all the media maelstrom and the circus of frenzied farcical interest; this drawn out justice became; along with the almost endless false hope it gave grieving relatives.

As a one time paramedic, I rescued many hugely ungrateful substance abusers from certain death and only due to the fact that addiction almost inevitably leads to the O.D. death of the addicted!

And the inevitable outcome of illicit drug trafficking!

But not before they themselves may have committed many mostly break and enter crimes, and often with countless ( sometimes unsolved) tragic circumstances!

Save your sympathy and rivers of crocodile tears for them, and their countless grieving rallies, the real and totally forgotten victims here!
Rhrosty.

Onthebeach,

Yes, "callous disregard' suits, but what I fail to see is how anyone could talk about lack of malice or use any phrase to make these criminal seem less deserving of the punishment they were well aware they would receive in Indonesia if caught.

It's all very well for naive demonstrators and funeral goers to wail about the death penalty not applying in other countries just because we don't use it in Australia. These people have grown up in a very soft Australia where it often seems that criminals, not victims, receive more concern when they are given soft sentences.

It's arrogance, really, brought about by ignorance.

It's interesting that when discussing the Bali 9 executions in real life almost nobody I talked to had any idea that Japan, India and China enforce the death penalty and execute people.