Executed in China

A drug dealer, albeit a manic depressive, is executed for trying to smuggle a case load of heroin into a country he knows will kill him if caught. What a plonker! Then toss pot Brown and his twatish ministers decide to destroy what little good will their exists with the Chinese.

On the other hand, we have that little old couple kidnapped with their yacht by Somali pirates, with nothing heard for months, yet alone a word from Gordon. Then of course there's that lad with Aspergers that we are determined to ship off to the States facing a sixty year sentence.

We really are ruled by a bunch of two faced jerks.

They (the lawyers) have to do what they can for British citizens, no matter what they may personally think of them, and no matter what ethic or religious background they come from.

We Brits have our economic heads shoved up the Chinese arses, so are hardly likely to do much about it anyway. Lethal injection is a fuck sight more expensive than a bullet, but - since the family are paying - it doesn't matter to the Chinks.

The South China seas are a bit too big to be patrolled by gunboats these days, so it is cheaper to let the Somalis get a few million quid each time they board a vessel with a couple of machine guns.

We have a better relationship with the US than China, so we are quite happy to let someone with a real mental disease spend the rest of their days in prison if it suits the diplomats, even if they were only playing computor games.

I think it's impressive that we are standing up to China at all! We should make a proper stand about all of the human rights abuses that they perpetrate, but we are all just too damn cowardly.

As far as Gary McKinnon is concerned, he's only being shipped to the States for trial not being executed.

Yet.

Whilst not approving of the death sentence, I think that we do have to respect other Countries legal systems. When you look at the number of drug related deaths in the UK, and the effects of drug related crime, maybe the Chinese do have a point.
Yesterday, the Daily M**l published a list of crimes committed by those on the early release scheme and they made pretty grim reading. Maybe we need to look at ourselves, and the way our liberal crminal justice system puts ordinary citizens at risk before criticising others.

As the Chinese spokeswoman said yesterday 4.5 kilos of heroin would probably kill about twenty six thousand people. The UK spend literally millions on treating drug addiction, anti-drug units customs officers etc. Then you add on the heartache brought to innocent folk, robbed, mugged and murdered by addicts feeding their habit.

The bottom line? I'll take you down to Stapleton Road Bristol, and you can get what you want and however much you desire. This is probably reciprocated throughout the country.

So either legalise it or jump on it from a great height, Chinese style. Make the dealers think twice.

I could take you down to the bottom of your road Dave, in order to get anything you desire. Drug addiction - I reckon - has been pretty stable on a per capita basis for quite a while now, in much the same way as homosexuality and child-molestation. The Chinese way of dealing with it is pretty much exactly the same way as they deal with anything else which threatens it's state-controlled system. Compare it with the way in which the British government is dealing with tobacco addiction.

As for the Daily Mail, they would be happy to see a repeat of the naughtiness which started in Whitechapel in 1888, if it would boost their circulation.

How about looking at it another way.
The UK Prime Minister told a pack of lies to justify (illegally) invading another sovereign state, and in the course of the "war" killed 500,000 or more Iraquis, many civilians, many soldiers (Our brave boys?). And how many Afghan civilians have we "executed"?
Sorry, do we really have a moral high ground?

We certainly don't, Dylan. Also, I've never heard of clinical depression leading to an increased susceptibility to being duped by drug runners.

I don't really understand the point of this thread. We are always saying on here how much we abhor the death penalty. But it's okay if it's done in China, is it?
And if we're talking about drugs, they will aways get in one way or another. The only way to control it is to decriminalise it.
I don't think that anyone should be put to death ever in any country for any reason, but to do it for drug smuggling is bloody stupid. He was just a pawn and a victim. What good will it do and what difference will it make? His mental state is irrelevant. Murdering someone for having a case of heroin is not even "An eye for an eye". It's like killing someone just in case they might in the future murder someone by accident. It is WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

I think what some of us are saying that if China wishes to go down that route for it's penal system, we may not agree, but we should respect their decision. The good could be viewed as acting as a deterrant to other smugglers, it will certainly make it difficult to recruit pawns.
I think that most of us are actually commenting on the sheer hypocrisy of the UK Government. Most of the time we lick arse to get trade, then we get all high and mighty about this case, whilst extraditing UK citizens to the US under a very one-sided agreement, and killing innocent people in Iraq under false pretences. As for Gary McKinnon, he will probably spend the rest of his life in a US jail for exposing security defects, with the help of the UK Government. Is that really any less humane?

Add to that Dylan the fact that we and the Yanks just turn a blind eye when the Israeli's plough into Palestine, kill a few thousand or more and stick two fingers up. Outcome? Washington replaces all the weapons the Jews used up and we say "you shouldn't have done that chaps".

I get a nasty feeling we are heading for a very violent 2010 in the Middle East. Yemen next, then Somalia, and ending up in Iran. All could have been solved if we had put as much effort into a Palestinian homeland as we have in killing Arabs.

Tom's so right. The Yanks and us Brits are shits.

I wonder if the Guardian is right in accusing Iran of masterminding the kidnap of that hostage that has just been released?

If the Yemen becomes the next US target, then that will cause trouble. The Yemenis are extremely popular in the Middle East. Even the Israelis love them, in a romantic sort of way. They look on them in much the same way we regard the southern Irish - fun loving, poetical people who love to party.

That's the problem Tom. Bin Laden is a very astute bloke.

"fun loving, poetical people who love to party."

Just the right cover to train suicide bombers!

They also built high-rise buildings hundreds of years before the Americans.

I know how fun-loving the Yemenis are - I had a Yemeni girlfriend once who broke 3 of my ribs before she walked out. She was a real beauty - just so long as she was smiling...

What is happening in Yemen really surprises me. When we blundered into Afghanistan it amazed me that AQ thought of moving the training camps to another Country. Nobody could have predicted that!
I've never had a Yemeni girlfriend, nost exotic for me was either a nutter with Polish parents or one from Freshford with a thing about chewing food properly, unfortunate as I eat like Scooby Doo!

They never read 'Kim' by Rudyard Kipling, Dylan. I shagged a girl from Freshford once - I wonder if it was the same one?

I wonder if it was the same one as Ruddy wrote?

Did it make you a man my son?

I don't really understand the point of this thread. We are always saying on here how much we abhor the death penalty. But it's okay if it's done in China, is it?

No Am it's not okay if done in China, or come to that anywhere else in the world. But how do you suggest we influence a country of some 1.8 billion souls. The Yanks tried it in Korea and Veitnam, and took a battering.

You also need to take note of the suffering they were subjected to in the 1930's by the Japs, and the manner in which we ripped 'em off a couple of hundred years ago.

As for the drug carrying twit, he should have done what anyone with an ounce of common sense would do. Study the laws, history and culture of the country and the level of risk before embarking on such a trip. He reminds me of the American and British plonkers who led us into Iraq, Cheyney in particular. He probably still doesn't know who won the American Civil War. Come to that he probably doesn't care.

Dave Larkhall wrote:

Did it make you a man my son?

No, but it didn't half make her husband feel a twat (which I now regret)

Probably not Tom, not exactly the highest libido I have ever come across!

Prohibido - Libido - Scooby Doo. How long have you been fluent in Brazilian Dylan?

.....come across! Come across what?

No, she definitely did not have a Brazilian. As you prefer plain English, I'm a greedy bastard who gobbles my food, and she was not the best shag I have ever had. And by 'come across', I did mean "that I have ever met", rather than "that I have ejaculated onto her body!"
With my avatar, I did wonder if it meant it was OK for girls to squat on the Old Town walls, as it does not say that is 'Prohibido'.