Um, good news out of Sudan, I think

Sudanese court orders convicts' hands, feet cut off

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — A special court set up by the Sudanese government to end atrocities in the western Darfur region sentenced 10 Arab militiamen Monday to six years in prison and ordered each have a hand and a foot amputated for attacking and robbing villagers...

Under Islamic law followed by the Sudanese government, someone repeatedly convicted of being a thief is punished by cutting off the person's left hand and right foot. If the thief steals again, the right hand and left foot are amputated.

This seems like a great way to punish human rights violators. Not all governments are alike, sure, but that doesn't mean I have to respect their decisions. On the heels of Iyad Allawi's alleged personal executions of six insurgents in Baghdad, now picked up by Newsweek, these stories bring up the very real question of how you balance crackdowns on crime and murder with respect for humans as humans. I'm sure that, if the Allawi thing goes more public in the US, you'll hear the moral relativists from the right saying "Look who he killed, insurgents, and those people deserved it" and the like. I just can't subscribe to that. Murder is murder, and furthermore I don't see how killing insurgent prisoners in cold blood acts as a deterrent, especially in the context of martyrdom. It's getting so that all the moral high ground in the world has been bulldozed, and we're all standing on the same plateau, killing each other and coming up with a good reason for it afterwards. Which ends up solving absolutely nothing.