Should Nidal Hasan’s firing squad execution be streamed live?
And to stream an execution live – isn’t that a kind of oxymoron?
The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”
That is quite a turn-around. It’s been 17 years since the shooting, a terrorist act that killed thirteen military members and injured 33. So the carrying out of the verdict has been much delayed by appeals. Now that the appeals seem to have run out (although I’m not 100% sure they have), the military seems to want to make up for lost time by using an especially violent means of death and by making it public.
There’s a long history of public executions in the US and elsewhere, but the last public execution in this country was in 1937. The idea was that the spectators would learn a lesson from the spectacle, but I find that unconvincing and I’m not in favor of making anyone’s death public in a sort of snuff film. If you look at the list of countries engaging in public executions these days, it includes Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia (although the latter is changing). Is that a group to emulate?
Some history here:
States started to change the policy as an increasing number of people witnessed botched hangings and as broader concerns grew over the events, Radelet said.
“Instead of promoting the sanctity of life and how solemn the circumstance was, with people applauding and having a carnival-like atmosphere, that really turned people off,” he said.
I fully expect many of you to disagree with me.
No disagreement from me. It was stupid of Hegseth to propose it. How does the administration win from having a news cycle about whether Hegseth is going to live stream an execution?
This is an example of how Trump’s administration sometimes reminds me of Obama’s “stray voltage” theory. Obama would do something outrageous to provoke a response, but was then able to jujitsu Republicans so that he, Obama, looked like the cool and sober one and his opposition looked like hysterical freaks.
Like I said, though, I just don’t see how this helps the administration or the GOP’s prospects in November. Trump and his administration have never been able to work the Obama jujitsu. They can goad their opponents into looking crazy, but not without looking crazy themselves. This is an example of that. A live-streamed execution? Really? Which 13-year-old decided to actually try to do that?
If you can drive your opponents to hysterics over something mundane, like actually enforcing immigration law, that’s a win. When you have go to this level of extreme to get the same reaction, you just look crazy yourself. (And truly, wouldn’t they have gotten the same political benefit from just doing the execution? Why add the crazy? The phrase “jump the shark” comes to mind.
Planned Perphood. Piercing the privacy shield will have a chilling deterrent effect on PP. Baby steps.
This is Obama’s theory of a burden is a “burden” is a burden, but with cause and after due process. Progress.
That said, will it be broadcast on the evening news and published in papers of record?
Abort. LOL
This was an interesting discussion of the pros & cons of live-streaming:
https://newsletter.amuseonx.com/p/secrecy-is-the-wrong-answer-to-spectacle
I’m sure there will be a tiny number of sadists who want to watch executions because they enjoy them, but people like that can satisfy their fetishes from any number of places…this isn’t going to make a difference to them.
I think the intent is for this to act as a deterrent. Making it visible and visceral brings it home or something.
I doubt that it will work but I have no issue with the attempt. I think the intent is sound even if the execution (sorry) isn’t effective.
In order for public executions to be an effective deterrent, I think the punishment would have to be much swifter following conviction. I get that they need to be afforded the opportunity for appeals, but the glacial pace of our judicial system that stretches the process out for ten or twenty years is ridiculous.
To be clear: I’m not a wholehearted supporter of the death penalty in the current environment. I do believe that death is a valid sentence for certain crimes, but in our current judicial system, where DAs are rewarded for convictions rather than justice, I don’t trust that the system is actually executing the correct person in all cases.
In this particular case, there is absolutely no doubt about guilt or innocence…he was stopped in the act. The fact that his appeals have taken this long is flatly stupid, and I think the death penalty is more than appropriate here. Doing it publicly isn’t an issue for me, as long as it’s done.
“How does the administration win from having a news cycle about whether Hegseth is going to live stream an execution?”
I think the mistake you make is in assuming that Hegseth (and Trump for that matter) is a typical politician and everything he does is colored by that consideration.
Perhaps he should have, but I seriously doubt that any consideration was given by him regarding political gain or loss as a result of his statement.
I think he made this decision because he felt it was right, not because he felt it was politically expedient.
For me, that’s a plus, not a minus.
Sailorcurt – A politician who is willing to burn political capital over live streaming an execution is a sickening ghoul.
The more civilized we become as a society the less civilized the many we allow to live among us and the many who oppose us become. Assuming Maj Hasan’s planned execution survives a flurry of yet-to-be-filed legal challenges it is worth considering the point Alexander Muse makes in the article @ColoComment linked.
“A citizen who opposes capital punishment should want the country to see what it authorizes, on the theory that the sight will change minds. A citizen who supports it should be willing to look at what he supports. Either way, the republic is better served by people who know what is being done in their name than by people who have arranged not to know. On December 3, the Army will fire, the country will watch, and for the first time in 90 years the last act of an American criminal judgment will be as public as the first. That is not a return to the county fair. It is a return to the courthouse.”
If we ever manage to proceed with KSM’s Military Tribunal we are likely to debate this again.
crasey:
A person doesn’t need to watch an execution to be well aware of what it involves.
Under the Old Mosaic Law , Two or three witnesses were required for a conviction. In a death penalty case , the witnesses were required to throw the first stone and the public was to join in the execution. It was society dealing with the crime. Deuteronomy 17.
This played into the story of the woman brought before Jesus for the supposed sin of adultery ( where was the man ??? ) . They were trying to trap Jesus between Roman Law and Jewish Law / public opinion. All the “witnesses ” dropped their stones in shame and left the scene . Hence no execution….
“A politician who is willing to burn political capital over live streaming an execution is a sickening ghoul.”
Personally, I’d say the opposite: politicians who equivocate or betray their convictions to preserve political capital are…well, to be fair, I’d say “sickening ghouls” is too strong a term. I’d reserve that characterization for the traitorous, terrorist murderer slated for execution…let’s say “cowardly, immoral simps”.
Either way I certainly don’t want them running our military.
I’m OK with the death penalty, but not live public executions.
I think it adds to the coarsening of society. We’re coarse enough.
I was wondering what would bring CC™-R, aka, Bauxite, back to display his malignant obsession with The Great Orange Whale.
The Little Ahab just can’t get over him.
Sailorcurt – I’m not against conviction politicians. Not at all. It’s just that we finally seem to have conviction politicians on the right and their conviction is . . . wait for it . . . live streaming executions over the Internet.
Whomp whomp. The joke is on long-suffering conservatives.
Would CC™-R know any conservative? Certainly not by sight or in the mirror.
I may be way off-base (pun intended?) in my thinking, but I see this event (the shooting, and the Soldier shooter, on an Army base) as quite different from a similar action taking place in a civilian environment.
It may have been de-emphasized during the recent Biden/DEI years, but the military, every branch and unit of it, relies on fostering a mutual trust and reliance environment among its members. “One for all, and all for one,” and “esprit de corps” may be anachronistic phrasing to us civilians now, but the concept still exists, and must continue to exist, in the military conscience.
It is military culture and code that a Soldier, Sailor, Marine, or Coastie MUST believe and trust that he can 100% rely on those with whom he lives, works, trains, and fights, wherever, whenever, and at all costs.
Nidal Malik Hasan violated that code and culture in the most personally traitorous manner and method, judged worse even than cowardice in the face of the enemy, by deliberately and with malice, turning on and murdering his brothers, his fellow Soldiers.
In that environment and culture, and under that code of conduct, imprisonment does not suffice.
Am I wrong? Please feel free to let me know….
huxley:
Exactly and precisely my opinion as well.
When you import the third world you sometimes have to show the third world the consequences of third world criminality in a way they can understand.
That which is rewarded is repeated.
Neo
I don’t have to watch it to support it either but the question for SECWAR was what to make public and when/how. I suspect he chose the live stream to stop the inevitable conspiracy theories about what really happened during the execution before they could be formed by choosing total transparency. I fully expect the media that is too squeamish to show the reality of Oct 7 to have no such reservations about showing this. Of course all of this assumes the courts don’t jump in and try to assert control over it as I expect them to.
So executing a man without live-streaming the event is “rewarding” his behavior? [shakes head]
And in addition to neo and Huxley’s concern about the coarsening of modern society, which I share, has anyone considered that live-streaming the Hasan execution may well have the opposite effect of what Trump and Hegseth intend?
It would create a permanent, public record of the exact moment when Hasan becomes martyr, with all of the “eternal reward” implications of jihadi ideology. Are we really so sure that won’t be recruiting material?
There’s nothing objectionable about public executions. If you don’t announce the time and place beforehand, you won’t have large crowds. The method of execution – a firing squad – avoids the confusion between criminal justice and veterinary medicine.
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The objectionable aspect of this is that our system of courts-martial now resembles that of our most dysfunctional state courts. An appeal to a three-judge panel of the court of military appeals, an appeal to the court en banc, and an appeal to the President should have sufficed. This man should have been executed in 2012.
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As for Gen. Casey, he should have been retired immediately.
CC™-R:
Yep, nothing shows glorious martyrdom than being wheeled out, chocks set, hooded, having a target put over your heart, and then summarily shot dead.
Yep, those were glorious power moves.
Dead, CC™-R.
Better than he has long deserved.
But keep up your ranting CC™-R. You can’t help it
but I find that unconvincing and I’m not in favor of making anyone’s death public in a sort of snuff film.
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So, filming military operations counts as a ‘snuff film’.
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If you look at the list of countries engaging in public executions these days, it includes Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia (although the latter is changing). Is that a group to emulate?
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So what?
I won’t watch.
I have some grave doubts about any “deterrent” effect, but I think, as noted above, that this helps tamp down the conspiracy wing of the internet.
“A person doesn’t need to watch an execution to be well aware of what it involves.”
Being aware of and personally witnessing are two completely different things and often evoke completely different reactions.
The most poignant personal example I can think of is Daniel Pearl. I had been told what happened to him and was outraged by it, but I didn’t really grok the absolute horror of it until I tried (and failed) to watch the video.
I’m not a squeamish person. I grew up on a farm where we slaughtered and butchered our own animals and I hunted when I was young. I literally was nauseous trying to watch that video and had to turn it off.
I’m glad I tried to watch it, because I didn’t really understand until I did, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience.
I was the embassy reporting officer for the trial of plotters accused of planning to kill Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire in 1978. For a few days I sat in the courtroom and listened all day to the case against the military officers accused of the attempt. On the last day the court found three officers guilty and sentenced them to death. Not a surprise as the leader admitted in public court that he had plotted against Mobutu.
I reported all that to the embassy along with the personal opinion (based on my experience growing up in America) that appeals could follow.
The radio reported the next morning that the hree plotters had been shot in the basement of the military headquarters a few hours earlier.
Justice was seen to have been done, done quickly, and the sentence was carried out without delay. It was done without fanfare.
I would like to know that Major Nidal has been executed, but I would hope it could be done as discreetly as Mobutu did it to his coup plotters.
Part of the reason for reaching this conclusion is that a public execution on Hassan Nidal will not dissuade others who might like to emulate his shooting. And if he is given the opportunity to make a statement, that will be a propaganda coup for him and his fellow travelers.
We can do as well as Mobutu: shoot Nidal in private and tell us afterwards.
That is what gags are for. It ain’t rocket surgery.
Part of the reason for reaching this conclusion is that a public execution on Hassan Nidal will not dissuade others who might like to emulate his shooting.
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Personally, I don’t know what motivates someone who might consider putting a bullet in 46 people at one go.
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And if he is given the opportunity to make a statement, that will be a propaganda coup for him and his fellow travelers
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Don’t give him the opportunity. He’s had plenty of opportunity through counsel.
I would watch it. Can’t see a reason for a public execution does anything. The Leftists will work it up for against it.
If it isn’t, its a mark against Hegseth.
So far do like what Pete has done and don’t want him gone
It seems to me that live-streaming the execution would be rewarding Nidal Hasan. “Rewarding”?? In a manner . . .
In the frame of reference in which he and his ilk dwell, would not public martyrdom be somewhat more of an honor than a quiet, private private carrying out of the deed? Like, those seventy-some-odd virgins will sing Hasan’s praises still more passionately.
(I personally wouldn’t know, as that’s not my frame of reference. In my frame of reference, live-streaming an execution betrays us as being just a little bit more like one of those sh!thole countries that we’re absolutely, emphatically UNlike (aren’t we??))
huxley said what I think.
I won’t watch.
I think the live-streaming may be aimed primarily at active members of the military, who feel the treachery and betrayal of Hasan’s murders most directly.
https://babylonbee.com/news/pentagon-confirms-hasan-execution-to-be-hosted-by-ryan-seacrest
Anyone else remember the party atmosphere at the public hangings depicted in 1968 Hang ‘Em High? Supposedly depicted the late 19th Century in the territories. Think it was close in concept.
As a kid in Cali around 1960, local radio used to broadcast executions on radio with the play by play not unlike a sporting event. I remember one of those earlier than I remember broadcast of a sporting event on radio.
This isn’t a problem. Rather, it is a message to our good friends in the Religion of Infinite Outrage to learn the basics of FAFO. Only thing missing is feral hogs eating the carcasses so nobody gets to their 72 raisins.
Harsh times require harsh responses aimed at the Bad Guys. Bring it on, girls. Love and kisses from your friendly, neighborhood Infidel. Cheers –
agimarc:
Would-be terrorists would consider a public execution a great honor, a consummation devoutly to be wished. Neither a warning nor a deterrence, not at all.
Anyone else remember the party atmosphere at the public hangings depicted in 1968 Hang ‘Em High? Supposedly depicted the late 19th Century in the territories. Think it was close in concept.
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I suspect mundane life had a different feel in the west of 1880.
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One thing to recall is that the population is less capable of engaging in rapid self-organization toward a discrete goal. Hence, for example, the disappearance of lynching after 1946. Mob violence today is the work of lumpenproletarians and sorosphere hires. The closest you get to it among ordinary people might be stampedes at music concerts.
Unfortunately in this age of AI and SFX, a public execution gives some modicum of reality.
I also don’t believe public executions of any kind deter anyone anywhere. Killers kill.
A first world worry about third world Islamists murderers.
What would Moham…. do or say in response to Hassan’s execution?
Taqiyya.
Refusing to hold an execution in public says, among other things, that the entity doing the executing is ashamed of it. Thus, if the government is too fastidious to execute a mass murderer in public it shouldn’t be executing anyone. Keep in mind that “public” should by no means be taken to include or imply some kind of grotesque electronic media spectacle.
Chin-stroking over the “coarsening” effect public execution of a mass murderer might have on a society governed by daily (or more frequent) episodes of the Donald Trump reality TV show, in a recent episode of which the star mused before the United Nations General Assembly about “annihilating” another country of some 90 million souls, bespeaks at the least a certain underdeveloped sense of irony.
Schlichter: This is How the Execution of Nidal Hasan Should Be Carried Out
JDinPA:
No, it simply means that executions are not spectator sports.
They were to the Romans.
But that was a long time ago, in the old timey days, before the innerwebs. Public executions were not uncommon immediately after WWII, even though Islam wasn’t the cause.
But times change.
Mass murder as a live-streamed spectator “sport” (immersive experience) is a thing with ISIS, Hamas (10/7/2023), and other Islamists.
But has the distinction between a judicial execution of a mass murderer (Hasan) and mass murder been lost?
Oh I forget, destroying buildings and infrastructure is genocide now. So are videos taken by modern munitions that flatten or obliterate buildings, runways, bunkers “snuff films?” Coarsening.
I wonder if a future corrupt Democrat (pardon the redundancy) administration might fake an execution. Of course this would presuppose that said administration permitted an execution. It seems that they would permit one, if the convict was Trump.
I haven’t delved into the particulars, but I recall that we were told of Bin Laden’s execution after the fact; I’m not sure why.
I don’t have an opinion re whether Hasan’s execution “should” be livestreamed. I just need to be sure he *was* executed.
= = = = = = = =
ColoComment at 3:01 pm: You make good points, but the question is not whether Hasan should be executed, but whether the execution should be livestreamed.
If anyone deserves a death sentence, it is he (and Christa Pike and Lindsey Clancey)!
= = = = = = = =
I was in a tavern watching live TV coverage of mass murderer John Gacy’s execution. (The actual execution was not televised.) These days I probably wouldn’t hoist a celebratory glass, as I did then, but I was/am glad the bastard was killed.
Correction: I should have written Bin Laden’s *burial* not execution.
Public execution ,,,yawn ,,,much ado about nothing
Bin Laden, aka, fish food.
We call our city trash can
“Wheelie bin Laden”
in memoriam.
Public executions?
ewww, NO!
Sorry, there isn’t much more I could say.
ewww, NO!
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Trials are public. They’ve been broadcast here, there, and the next place for nearly 50 years.
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It’s not difficult at all to find videos of fatal mishaps and even dastardly crimes. You all want to draw the line at executions. Why is that?
I will not watch the execution, but I have no objection to it being streamed.
It’s society taking out the garbage. Livestreaming is what we do in the 21st century (some people are more upset about the streaming than they are about the murdering. I am not one of them).
I don’t follow garbage trucks around to observe them as they complete their rounds, but if someone wanted to do that (without interfering with the crew’s duties), it’s not a problem.
Luigi Mangione and Tyler Robinson should receive the same treatment, within one year of conviction, as should every random thug who kills any other human being without justification.
Justice deferred is justice denied
Hegseth could have done better to announce a closed-circuit video stream for families and comrades of the deceased, if they wanted to see the sentence carried out. No cameras allowed would be a better policy, especially given the possible incentive to martyrdom that video or even still images might promote.
I don’t disagree. I know what Hegseth has in mind is *not* like the mobs in Paris after the French Revolution. But if he is / we are not careful there is a real risk that it could turn into that.
I recently rewatched The Thin Red Line directed by Terrence Malick. It is a remarkable film that in 1998 was overshadowed by Saving Private Ryan. What strikes me is how it captures *reverence* what philosopher Paul Woodruff calls the “forgotten virtue”.
Yes we have to fight. Yes the Japanese forces are the enemy. But they are human beings. And there is a way to fight that does not exclude reverence. There is a way to treat a defeated enemy with respect.
I think that might apply to the executions. There is a way to carry it out. Hasan might deserve the death penalty. But he is still a human being.
Agree with Bauxite. It’s gross. The man deserves the death penalty. No question.
Also agree with Neo that the time passed since the crime – which is common in this country after criminals are sentenced to death – is extremely disturbing. I believe in death penalty for the most egregious, inhuman crimes but it should be applied discretely. We have a real problem in death penalty cases. For example, I’m not arguing with Christa Pike’s sentence though the execution thereof (pun not intended) is disturbing. However prosecuting her case by giving the other two murderers lesser sentences for testifying against her is equally disturbing. Live streaming an execution is gross. With today’s technology, it’s easy, but I thing appeals to those motivated by bloodlust and I think those who are inured from years of violent computer gameplay and very well don’t distinguish between a real execution of a person for an absolutely violent crime. What happened to Christa Pike is awful, but I think it should not result in a commutation.She should be executed as soon as possible. She’s had over two decades to live that her victim didn’t. In a way, the hospital care to save her is ironic, as are her lawyer’s current attempts to say the attempted execution was punishment enough. I’m no expert on execution. These are just my feelings in the immediate aftermath of this screw-up.
“I suspect mundane life had a different feel in the west of 1880.”
I think there was more to it than that. Much of the West was in a state of virtual anarchy before the turn of the century. Many of the men who’d gotten a taste for violence during the Civil War moved west to apply their newfound skills in mayhem to their daily lives.
It was a lot of law by strength. If you were stronger, more capable with arms and more willing to commit violence that would give pause to more civilized people, you could be the “king of the hill” in many areas and many criminals and criminal gangs ruled by terror.
Seeing someone who had been terrorizing your town, murdering your friends and relatives and stealing you blind meet justice was likely a very satisfying event, hence the festive attitude. There likely was an element of excitement and spectacle to it, but I’d bet there was more than a little excitement driven simply by the reality of a bad person meeting what they considered a just end.
I believe that this is exactly what Hegseth has in mind with this decision. Hasan is a traitor who took an oath and broke it in an especially vile and heinous manner. If there’s anyone for whom military issue capital punishment is a fitting end, it is he. Making it public, in my opinion, makes a strong statement that is commonly summed up with the colloquialism FAFO.
Agree with Bauxite. It’s gross.
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It is the conclusion of a lengthy judicial process. Why is that gross?
Line ’em up, squeeze ’em off.
Martial justice for a military murderer.
Past due. That is the “gross” injustice.
I agree. The US shouldn’t be putting on faux Roman spectacles. Only the allies of the faux ‘victim’ will be encouraged.
The US shouldn’t be putting on faux Roman spectacles.
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Huh? If I’m not mistaken, public executions were unremarkable in this country as recently as 1890. How are they ‘faux Roman’?
— neo
There is a difference between knowing intellectually, and seeing and hearing it with one’s own senses. Maybe there shouldn’t be a difference, but emotionally it matters a lot.
I oppose the death penalty in general, but I’m of divided mind on the subject of broadcasting the execution of Hasan. One part of me agrees with neo, one part of me agrees that seeing the execution sends a message to others who might see Hasan as a role model, another part of me thinks it might actually feed Hasan’s cause, another part thinks people are too insulated from reality and that isn’t healthy.
Plus, of course a few fetishists (sexual and otherwise) will get off on watching it, too.