If euthanasia is so efficacious nowadays (one Swiss company seems successful at providing swift and painless death), why then are there so many examples of botched executions? Is it just normal government incomptenence or something more sinister? Says Dalrymple:
I am inclined to the former interpretation. But in my more paranoid moments, I sometimes wonder whether the incompetence of state agents is more than just incompetence and tips over into sabotage.