If Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is to be believed, America will soon gain the dubious distinction of joining the only four countries on the globe that carry out executions in public. Hegseth said Thursday that he wanted the execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, to be available for public viewing.
Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” The execution is scheduled to be live streamed Dec. 3 from the same military base where Hasan opened fire in 2009, killing 13 and wounding 32. The planned public display is, in a word, barbaric. It’s the archaic act of tyrannical monarchies, staged in the shadow of a looming tower or in the town square.
The Taliban and ISIS were big on public executions. They were either fighting a war on their own soil or had just come out of one. It’s a poor excuse, but the U.S. military can’t even point to that as justification for the animalistic intention of broadcasting a state-sanctioned murder.
Should plans for the live stream of Hasan’s killing become a reality, our peers will be countries that the U.S. has long held up as the worst of the worst. Oppressive “shithole” countries, to use a Trump term, that wield intimidation and the threat of death to keep their people in line. Iran carries out its hangings in public squares, typically using truck-mounted cranes as makeshift gallows.
The Taliban exacts its death penalty in sports arenas. Amnesty International reports that North Korea forced local residents, students and workers to watch the 2008 execution of 13 women and two men as a deterrent. Attempting to flee to China.
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist and a Muslim, opened fire on dozens of his fellow soldiers as they were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. He was reportedly angry about the U.S. involvement in the region and in Iraq. In court, prosecutors argued that he was radicalized online and motivated by an ideology that called for “jihad duty.” His crimes were horrific, and he should be punished.
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