Assuming it is important to Norwegians' self-image that they are a state without a death penalty, it's not clear to me what compensatory benefits could be derived from executing Breivik. Appeasing foreign and domestic bubbas would definitely not be a plus for the typical Norwegian.
Norway might not have a death penalty, but Norwegians are probably OK with having a military, and a military's role does cover stopping violent insurgents with lethal force. What it does is defence, not judgment. Like I said, by accepting Breivik's narrative of his "insurgency", Norway can use an extraordinary circumstance to justify an extraordinary response, and then return to "normality".
(Jeez, I just realized this sounds a little like Carl Schmitt. Ah well, fascist times call for fascist measures.)
In line with the results of the poll here, a thread for discussing politics. Incidentally, folks, I think downvoting the option you disagree with in a poll is generally considered poor form.
1.) Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
2.) Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
3.) A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
4.) In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.
If anybody thinks the rules should be dropped here, now that we're no longer conducting a test - I already dropped the upvoting/downvoting limits I tried, unsuccessfully, to put in - let me know. The first rule is the only one I think is strictly necessary.
Debiasing attempt: If you haven't yet read Politics is the Mindkiller, you should.