A prominent Republican senator is speaking out against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s plan to stage a public military execution of Nidal Hasan, the infamous Army psychiatrist who murdered 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.
Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) took to X to compare the move to the dark impulses of Ancient Rome.
“Seneca warned that Rome’s bloody spectacles corrupted the people who watched them,” he wrote. “A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment. Secretary Hegseth’s plan to livestream the Fort Hood execution risks feeding that appetite.”
“The victims deserve justice administered with solemnity. Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent,” Curtis continued. “I urge him to reconsider.”
The United States has not carried out a public execution since the hanging of Rainey Bethea in 1936, an incident so controversial in the public eye that it led to changes in the law. Military executions in general, likewise, have not been conducted since 1961, although they remain on the books as a punishment for the worst offenses within the armed forces.
Even the administration itself appears to have some discomfort with Hegseth’s plan; Vice President JD Vance told reporters he doesn’t plan to watch the livestream of the execution.
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