It seems fairly clear that it has been the intention all along of both the AFP and the Howard government to deliberately allow the Bali Nine to be arrested, tried and sentenced harshly (including being sentenced to death), for the express purpose of deterring Australian drug smugglers from going to Indonesia in order to bring drugs into Australia.
Now Howard is preparing Australia for what is in all likelihood the inevitable – and that is that at least one of the two that have been sentenced to death will actually be executed. (The other will possibly have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment). Howard is now saying that even his personal friendship with Indonesia’s President may not be enough to save those that have been condemned to death.
This entire affair now stinks of collusion. Howard’s double standards with regards to the death penalty are already transparent what with his remarks regarding the death sentence of the Bali Bombers and the possibility of Saddam Hussein being sentenced to death on the one hand and his stance against the death penalty of Australians in foreign lands on the other. Howard’s hypocrisy is very well known but now, it seems, he may well be directly responsible for the death of an Australian by firing squad if he is found to have been aware that the AFP deliberately set the Bali Nine up for arrest and possible execution in Indonesia.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
1 comment:
Being against a certain penalty for some people\crimes and for it in the case of others does necessarily make you a hypocrite.
For example, I wouldn't support sending a person who steals a chocolate bar to prison for five years - but I would support that penalty for someone who steals millions in their capacity as a corporate chief.
Why can't Howard hold the position that death for Australians smuggling drugs is a bad thing, but death for mass-murdering bombers from Bali and mass-murdering tyrants like Saddam is justified?
Courts give different crimes different penalties all the time - even different penalties for the same crime. Is everyone a hypocrite?
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