Nidal Hasan is a savage Islamic terrorist who killed 13 innocent US service members at Fort Hood in 2009. He deserves the death penalty, nothing less.
But the idea of broadcasting his execution publicly — livestreaming it! — is beyond grotesque.
America is supposed to be a model nation, with the highest values, a shining light that leads the world into a civilized future.
The spectacle of a publicized, glamorized execution sends us in the opposite direction.
It signals a type of gloating and bravado unbecoming a proud, moral country.
America is not a medieval caliphate. Our leaders aren’t supposed to act like jihadists.
Will Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who proposed the hideous extravaganza, next suggest filming captured, blindfolded Islamists on their knees, while US soldiers behead them?
Hasan’s death is meant to achieve justice for the horrific evil he perpetrated, not serve as a source of entertainment or pleasure for masses.
Imagine young children tuning in.
Such practices define the monstrous beliefs Hasan adhered to: Islamist jihadis like him worship violence and cruelty, a world filled with hatred, utterly lacking mercy or grace.
That’s not what America represents.
Nor will a public execution deter terror; it’ll only make a martyr out of Hasan.
It’s precisely what monsters like Hasan long for: martyrdom that brings them fame and glory.
Jihadis will surely use footage of the execution as a recruiting tool.
Rather than tame terrorism, it’ll only inflame it.
Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), among numerous public leaders from both parties, urged Team Trump not to go through with this vulgar plan.
“A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment,” he posted. “Secretary Hegseth’s plan to livestream the Fort Hood execution risks feeding that appetite.”
Again, Hasan surely deserves the death penalty. A US Army “psychiatrist,” he betrayed the country that gave him everything after having taken an oath to defend and protect it.
Besides killing 13, he wounded 32 others.
That it has taken so long to deliver justice is to America’s shame, as is the perverted way the Army and top US officials regarded him, in deference to woke concerns about “Islamophobia.”
As a lawyer for his victims, Reed Rubinstein, wrote, “the government knew Hasan was an incompetent doctor and a terror threat, but chose not to act.”
His business card labeled him a “Soldier of Allah.” He corresponded repeatedly with al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Numerous reports warned that he was a threat.
Yet no one lifted a finger to contain him.
After the slaughterfest, President Barak Obama couldn’t even bring himself to call him a terrorist.
Gen. George W. Casey Jr. worried more about harm done to the cause of “diversity.”
But in their in-your-face hubris, Hegseth & Co. are going too far in the opposite direction.
Indeed, too many of the president’s top staffers seem to have lost touch with reality and normal people.
Trump should not be taking advice from the crazies around him.
On Saturday, the president said he has yet to make a final decision about livestreaming the event, and Vice President JD Vance has expressed doubt.
But the decision should be clear: None of the top Nazi leaders convicted in the Nuremberg trials were publicly executed. Nor was Adolf Eichmann’s execution in 1962 televised.
For the sake of upholding America’s moral stature — and decency itself — Trump must put an end to this abominable idea.
The post Don’t make Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hasan’s execution a public spectacle — and him a martyr appeared first on New York Post.
