It's shameful that the United States is no better than Indonesia. Oklahoma resumed executions yesterday after the brutal, botched execution of Clayton Lockett. Details here.

What happened? It took 18 minutes for Charles Warner to die. His last words were:

“It feels like acid,” and “My body is on fire.”

Oklahoma officials question whether that was true because his body didn't move. Most likely, his body couldn't move because the first drug they injected paralyzed him.

The Director of the Oklahoma ACLU says:

Rather than face the facts that it is impossible to impose any degree of humanity into an inherently inhumane act, politicians have again chosen to use the condemned as human guinea pigs with unpredictable results. While these same politicians trip over themselves to boast of their support for the death penalty, they have gone to absurd lengths to hide the actual details of the execution from the public. From inventing new limits on the media’s right to report on the execution to the use of a paralytic agent during the execution that could mask signs of extreme pain, the level of secrecy is disturbing and should concern those on both sides of the capital punishment debate.”

Here's the statement of Madeline Cohen, attorney for Charles Warner:

“Tonight, Oklahoma executed Charles Warner using midazolam, a drug that is not approved for general anaesthesia. We know from the three problematic midazolam executions in 2014 that the drug cannot reliably produce a deep, comalike unconsciousness. And because Oklahoma injected Mr. Warner with a paralytic tonight, acting as a chemical veil, we will never know whether he experienced the intense pain of suffocation and burning that would result from injecting a conscious person with rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride.”

You wouldn't do a dog this way. Many states have laws banning the use of paralytics in animal euthanasia.

Here's a 2006 Human Rights Watch report, So Long As They Die.

Anyone remember Stan "Tookie" Williams? He was executed in 2005. It took the medical technician 11 minutes to find a vein, prompting him to say, "You sure you doing this right?" Read this chilling report of his execution, which took 36 minutes.

It's 10 years later and like Indonesia, we are still committing state-sanctioned murder in a wanton and cruel manner. This isn't justice, it's barbarism. In the U.S. the purpose is vengeance, which is not an acceptable purpose of punishment.

In Indonesia, officials rigidly insist on following the country's inhumane law, claiming drug trafficking is such an insidious crime, death is warranted. When ISIS cuts off the hand of a thief for stealing, or beheads a spy, or stones a woman for adultery, all of which are crimes and prescribed punishments under the law it follows, the whole world recoils in horror. When Indonesia armed forces tie a group of non-violent criminal offenders to a wooden cross, shoot them, and then stand around watching them writhe on the ground until they're dead, the world just nods and moves on to the next story.

We can't boycott the U.S. because we live here. Our only recourse is to vote officials who support capital punishment out of office and replace them with candidates who pledge to change the law.

Neither we, nor citizens of Europe and other countries where the death penalty is banned, have an electoral say in the affairs of Indonesia. But we have tourist dollars.

Fiji, the Seychelles and Mauritius have beautiful beaches. If you want an island beach vacation, there are many options besides Bali and Indonesia.