Some props for capital punishment in the U.S.

Many people in the civilized world are baffled by the extreme and violent reaction of Afghanis to a recent accidental disposal of some Korans by American forces. Their bafflement is confounded by the relatively muted response to the horrible murder of 16 civilians by an American soldier.

Most of the world’s civilized societies have long ago abolished the death penalty, and are baffled that the United States still finds execution appropriate, even, now and then, of the mentally disabled and the young.

These two bafflements scrape against each other in a recent article in the New York Times that attempts to make the first bafflement somewhat less baffling. We need simply understand that in Muslim societies such as Afghanistan’s, belief in the supernatural and reverence for the magic books that accompany it are more important than the very lives of their own children. This makes sense when you understand that, as explained patiently by the quoted mullahs, the purpose of life is to worship the supernatural. Any inconvenience resulting from shooting a child in the head can be compensated for by delivering some cash to the surviving family members, and any lingering resentment can be soothed by the calming contemplation of at least the possibility that the murderer might be executed. This is made clear by Mullah Qayoom: “In your laws there is the death penalty, so we are hopeful.”