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Indonesia's brutal Criminal Justice system and the complacency of an Australian Federal Government frightened of an electoral backlash handed The Bali Bombers everything that they had ever dreamed of.
As the moment of their execution neared, saturation from our sensationalist media (particularly the shock jock and yellowpress variety) beamed the smiling, triumphant images of those criminals through every media outlet in the Western World. Anybody who understood anything at all about the media and the power of brand ascendency would have been shaking their head in disbelief as this went forward.
For the three formerly obscure villagers from a remote Indonesian Province; whose greatest dream was to wage Jihad and to die as martyrs for their twisted cause, this was success at an unprecedented level.
Instead of being forgotten irrelevant blips on mankind's road to civilisation they will be remembered instead by these final smiling images.
While their attraction may be lost on most Australians, they nonetheless played their last days to perfection for the market they hoped to reach. For the impoverished and idealistic youth in Muslim nations who, rightly or wrongly, feel aggrieved by Western Foreign policy or our perceived lack of 'proper belief' these men will no doubt become their generations Che Guevaras.
At every level, moral and strategic, these executions dealt an enormous defeat to all Australians.
Our profit driven media, feeding off the lowlife revenge mentality of a large chunk of the Australian public simultaneously became the terrorists most effective PR machine and, by giving vent to the most guttural, ignoble utterings of those Australians prepared to celebrate that stupidity, they dragged Australia's international reputation as a civilised modern nation opposed to Capital punishment through the sewer.
And that's just the commonsense strategic argument against such barbarity as this. The moral argument is even more compelling.
Yes, these men committed an obscene, appalling and premeditated assault against innocent people. They consigned 200 people to torture and death.
The bottom line for a Christian culture, which Australia consistently claims to be; and for all of us individually as Christian human beings, is that we follow an executed man who showed us the way forward not through Revenge based Justice but through Forgiveness and Compassion for our enemies.
Not all of us are Christian.... and I neither seek to convince or convert those who are not., but for those of us who claim to be....this was 'push comes to shove' time when you stand up for The Truth, whether it is popular or not or you become complicit.
It is estimated that death even by a competent firing squad without the 'coup de grace' amnesty shot (often not administered) after the initial shooting can and often does result in death taking up to seven excruciating minutes. The chaplain and eye witness to recently executed men affirmed these details recently to the Indonesian High Court.
Any person, knowing that, who condones, supports or calls for these pre-announced, highly ritualised, scheduled and brutally extended executions, risk making themselves every bit as revolting, brutal and sinful as these men themselves are.
