At the time of writing, the execution of the Bali bombers, Imam Samudra, the so-called smiling assassin Amrozi and his brother Mukhlas, was imminent. They killed 200 people six years ago, 80 of them Australians who were the real targets when they blew up and set on fire two Bali nightclubs.
They did it for no reason that makes sense to an educated Westerner. They had swallowed a bucketful of religious bigotry and proceeded out of hatred of all people who are not Muslims, in the belief that they would now go to paradise and each enjoy the pleasures of 48 dark-eyed houris (beautiful young women in the Muslim paradise).
They are imbeciles. It is a great pity that they cannot come back to tell their fellow lunatics there is nothing there.
They have their defenders in Australia, naturally, for we have lawyers who make a good living out of advocating the cause of bad people. Death by firing squad is inhumane, they tell us.
But the only survey of methods of execution that I've seen was published some years ago by the New Scientist, which found the converse. They die instantly, unlike those wretches who are euthanised with injections of poison, or in gas chambers, or most barbaric of all cooked alive by electrocution.
It was not by chance that Saddam Hussein, who knew a lot about executions, asked unsuccessfully to be executed by firing squad instead of a hanging, which was bungled and wrenched his head off.
We seem to consider that we are entitled to tell the Indonesians, the Malaysians and the Singaporeans how to administer justice. We are not. That we choose not to execute people who should be executed is our political decision, just as it is the political decision of the people of South-East Asia to decide what to do about their drug dealers, selling death in plastic sachets to their youth.
Kevin Rudd was asked the other day whether the Australian Government approved the execution of all terrorists. He said the Labor Party was universally opposed to the death penalty, but would intervene only on behalf of Australians.
So at least he can distinguish between being an Australian and killing Australians unlike some of our human rights industry. It's a position, but it is also hypocritical, offensive and illogical.
By what right do we argue that those of us who break the law in a foreign land should be immune from the full force of the laws of that foreign land? It would seem to be no more than arrogance, or a base form of neo-colonialism.
By all means help Australians who get into trouble. Consular officers should see them, and assure themselves that justice is being done. Their families should be helped. We should warn Australians travelling to Asia of the laws against drug dealing. In fact, we do all those things.
But we also tell those foreign governments that they cannot execute people who incur such a penalty when they are Australians. We are not entitled to do this. We should reconsider our position.
Furthermore, if we were to take this step away from the hypocrisy that has marked past attitudes, we might ask ourselves whether it makes sense for Martin Bryant, who shot 35 people at Port Arthur in Tasmania in April 1996, to be spending the rest of his life as a guest of the state?
If you divided by three the number of people the Bali bombers killed, their individual share is about twice the number who died in Bryant's rampage.
The fate of the Bali bombers is well warranted. We might now rethink our own position on capital punishment.
My lifetime of opposition to the death penalty began when Timothy Evans was hanged for the murder of his wife and child when the perpetrator was the serial killer Christie, who was the principal witness against Evans.
But that was back in the days when crime was the problem. Now it is terrorism, treachery, and an international trade in drugs.
It would help if the death penalty were to become the subject of public discussion. Polling would be useful.
David Barnett is a Canberra writer.
Email a friend