Pentagon to Livestream Fort Hood Shooter's Firing Squad Death
The Facts
- U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that the firing squad execution of former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan will be public, and a Pentagon official confirmed it will be livestreamed, adding that further "details will follow."
- The execution is scheduled for Dec. 3 at 1 p.m. at Fort Hood, Texas, matching the day of the week, time and site of the 2009 mass shooting Hasan carried out on the base. Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle selected the method, which Hegseth called a "no-brainer."
- Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, shouted "Allahu akbar" as he opened fire on Nov. 5, 2009, at a Fort Hood medical processing center where troops were preparing to deploy, killing 13 and wounding dozens. A military jury convicted him on 45 counts in 2013 and sentenced him to death.
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The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
Justice delayed for nearly two decades is an insult to the soldiers gunned down by a jihadist wearing the same uniform, and to the victims who saw their deaths dismissed as "workplace violence" for years. A public firing squad sends the only message that lands with anyone plotting the same betrayal inside the wire — murdering brothers in arms ends in a dishonorable death. Squeamishness about cameras matters far less than making the consequence impossible to ignore.
Establishment-critical narrative
Staging an Iran-style execution as a broadcast spectacle drags the country down to the level of regimes that hang protesters in public squares. State killing is barbaric, irreversible and botched often enough to prove no government deserves that power. Claiming the moral high ground while turning a death into entertainment is a contradiction that collapses on itself.
