Here's Robert Fisk's view.

http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article3109869.ece

An excerpt:

The ritual of chopping off heads was graphically described by an Irish witness to a triple execution in Jeddah in 1997. "Standing to the left of the first prisoner, and a little behind him, the executioner focused on his quarry ... I watched as the sword was being drawn back with the right hand. A one-handed back swing of a golf club came to mind ... the down-swing begins ... the blade met the neck and cut through it like ... a heavy cleaver cutting through a melon ... a crisp moist smack. The head fell and rolled a little. The torso slumped neatly. I see now why they tied wrists to feet ... the brain had no time to tell the heart to stop, and the final beat bumped a gush of blood out of the headless torso on to the plinth."

And you can bet they won't be talking about this at Buckingham Palace today.

i would prefer a two-handed swing, myself. more reliable, one would think.

no sympathy for lizzie, she gets well-paid for legitimizing these quaintly dressed murderous thugs. just shows what happens when you shake hands with a dictator, to get their oil: you end up having to invite them home for dinner, and it will end with william marrying a saudi girl, a junior princess(the windsors aren't important enough for access to the line of saudi succession).

Stephen...(and Demos).....

and you blokes wonder why we GB's point to 'something better' in Christ ?

I cannot find anything even remotely resembling a 'general timeless command' to lop the heads off the 'enemies of God' in Gods name....in the Bible, but I can find chapter and verse in 'another' supposedly holy book.

In that book...it's not even about 'crime'....its just about being 'enemies' of God....which can be as simple as not having a current 'peace treaty' with that faith.

While the idea is marketed as being defensive, the reality is not the case, as needing to be 'defensive' against people you have already threatened, and intend to invade, is hardly not to be expected. So, the situation becomes self fulfilling...self propogating.. We threaten so and so... who sees the writing on the wall....and then they avoid being attacked by attacking us first.. "Oh.. we must honorably defend ourselves now"...what rubbish.

In the same way that a certain unamed religious leader pre-emptively attacked people as they were going about their daily chores.. the reason given was 'they were planning to attack us' and this.. OFFENSE is portrayed...marketed.. as.. 'DEfense'.

So... the Royal Family... the Saudi's.. the machinations of state and royalty generally.... are devoid of any enduring values, and where else does mankind look ? You both know where I look... but I won't bore you with a sermon :)

So, Boaz, in your warped view of the universe, this was a religious act, not a statutory one? That can be your only excuse for turning, yet again, a perfectly secular argument into one of your religious polemics against Islam.

Saudi Arabia is an unpleasant place, to be sure. And it is in love with its system of capital punishment. Here's an excerpt from an Amnesty International article:

"Saudi Arabia has one of the highest rates of capital punishment in the world. Of the 766 executions recorded by Amnesty International between 1990 and 1999, over half were of migrant workers and other foreign nationals. While a high proportion of those were Asian migrant workers mainly from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal -- who comprise between 60 and 80 per cent of Saudi Arabia's workforce -- at least 72 were Nigerians, mostly convicted for drug smuggling or armed robbery."

Meanwhile, instead of are getting all heated about heads rolling in Saudi Arabia, cast your eyes for a moment over these little items, from a jurisdiction heavily populated by self-proclaimed Christians.

http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html

The death penalty is barbaric - second only to fathers beating their daughters, in my view - but that does not allow you carte blanche to leap onto your whack-a-mozzie bandwagon, as if the only places in the world that this stuff can happen is under Islam.

Lopping people's heads off has been part of our shared history, and has been perpetrated equally by people who call Jesus Christ their saviour. In fact, for the longest time, such acts were carried out "in his name".

So, get off your high horse, and stop this pretence that you are in possession of the only shred of decency left in the world.

It is a very, very boring refrain.

DEMOS: "...it will end with william marrying a saudi girl, a junior princess(the windsors aren't important enough for access to the line of saudi succession)."

Please, please let it be true! Imagine what fun we could have with the monarchists then.

Hi Pericles and Boazy,

For the record I support the death penalty in some obvious cases like drug smuggling, serial killers, child&serial rapists, etc. Having said that, I find the American-style (ie electric chair or needle) to be more human to terminate a life.

I would probably have supported it anyway regardless of my religious belief.