Ms Ashtiani

Gunnar Hökmark: "Domen är ett uttryck för en medeltida brutalitet som ingen borde stå likgiltig inför. Det faktum att vänsterpartiets ledare inte kan säga om han föredrar demokratin Israel jämfört med denna regim som uppsåtligt dödar en kvinna för att hon är kvinna kastar en skam inte bara över honom utan också över dem som vill att han ska vara med om att utforma svensk utrikespolitik."

I also find almost incomprehensible that Lars Ohly has a problem of selecting the better of Israel and Iran. The fate of Ms Ashtiani is of course potentiated by the Biblical story of how Jesus prevented the stoning of an adulterous woman by saying that the one that is without sin should throw the first stone. We are watching the Christian ethic against the Muslim ditto.

Back then, and still in the Ten Commandments, it was a great sin to be adulterous. In the Western world this is now quite common and moral progress does not make it a crime even any longer. It should be noted, however, that in many corners of the Western society adultery is still considered a very serious sin. I for one don't think it is a good practice but I don't think it should be a criminal offense.

A great admirer of the American society I would love to see that all states prohibit capital punishment. Thirty six states so far do this so they have a way to go. The argument for capital punishment is apparently that it acts as a deterrent that saves lives, which I wonder if it is true? On the negative side is that life time prison could be considered a worse punishment than death and that it is much more expensive due to legal fees to condemn a person to death. Being able to reverse a conviction if it has been made wrongly is a great positive. However, stoning a person to death is of course completely atrocious.

I really don't know what to do with Iran. Obviously they do not need nuclear weapons to continue dwelling in the Middle East. They know it worries their neighbors so they just want to be a pain in the neck. The axis-of-evil triade was real. They shoot and beat their citizens demonstrating on the streets and are ashamed of this since they block media from seeing it. The Ahmadinejad government has probably built up an interior tension in the country that would necessitate a bloody correction as the only possible defusion possibility like what we saw in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. No one is ready for one more of those since it theoretically should not be necessary with Iraq serving as a democracy inspired focus.