Execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad, but don't make it must-see-TV
- After 16 years of appeals, Army psychiatrist/terrorist Nidal Hasan finally gets his date with a firing squad on Dec. 3, 2009's Fort Hood massacre of 13.
- This will be the first government-sanctioned public execution in the U.S. since a Kentucky hanging in 1936 — but with better lighting and tighter security.
- The Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is scrambling to balance constitutional due process with the Pentagon's eternal desire to look squeaky clean.
- Hasan's lawyers are reportedly arguing the execution violates military code, which is rich coming from a man who violated every code of human decency.
- Critics are already whining that a public firing squad makes us as barbaric as ISIS — ignoring that ISIS would've livestreamed it with a GoPro.
- Trump, naturally, is demanding a 'big, beautiful execution' — perhaps at a MAGA rally with a jumbotron, because nothing says 'law and order' like a barbecue pit.
- The military's biggest headache? Not the logistics of killing Hasan, but ensuring the event doesn't get leaked to Twitter before the official press release.
- A new Pentagon review, ordered by Hegseth, may delay the execution if it finds 'procedural flaws' — i.e., a legal loophole for a man who deserves a one-way ticket to hell.
- Meanwhile, Fort Hood is already bracing for a media circus, with reporters, protestors, and the inevitable 'Hasan 2025' bumper stickers from the YouTube conspiracy crowd.
- The last public execution drew 20,000 gawkers to Kentucky; expect Fort Hood to draw a smaller, angrier crowd of veterans who think the firing squad is too genteel.
Brief Summary
After 16 years of dental-grinding appeals, Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who turned Fort Hood into a shooting gallery in 2009, is finally scheduled to meet a firing squad on Dec. 3. It's the first government-ordered public execution since 1936, when a Kentucky rapist-killer drew a crowd of 20,000 rubberneckers. But this isn't a fairground carnival; it's a military tribunal finally pushing the button on a man who murdered 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others while shouting 'Allahu Akbar.' The Pentagon, however, is treating this like a hot potato, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a fresh review that could delay the inevitable — because nothing says 'swift justice' like a 16-year appeals process followed by another bureaucratic circle jerk. The fallout is as predictable as gravity: death penalty abolitionists will wail about barbarism, while hawkish vets will complain that a firing squad is too quick and painless for a traitor who deserved a slow drip in a dark hole.
Why This Matters
For the average reader — especially veterans, active-duty personnel, and their families — this is not just a morbid news item; it's a long-overdue measure of accountability. The Fort Hood attack was a domestic terror execution in the heart of a military installation, and the federal government's handling of it has been a masterclass in bureaucratic foot-dragging. Watching Hasan finally face the firing squad provides a sense of closure that a life sentence in a cushy military prison never could. His death isn't just about punishment; it's about restoring faith in a system that spent 16 years debating whether a mass murderer deserves a fair trial. But the real sting is this: the Pentagon's new review, initiated by Hegseth, threatens to turn this into another D.C. legal quagmire, proving that even when the state finally decides to kill a monster, it can't help but tie its own shoelaces together first.