USA– In a blatant display of American state terrorism, the US Pentagon has announced it will livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former US Army psychiatrist who carried out a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009.
According to an announcement made by US War Secretary Pete Hegseth on October 9, the execution will be carried out by a firing squad on December 3, 2026. This unprecedented and macabre move will mark the first execution conducted by the US military since World War II.
Hegseth defended the savage spectacle, stating, “We haven’t done this since WWII… He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be. And we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.”
Hasan, who was paralysed from the waist down by police gunfire during the 2009 incident, shot and killed 13 people and injured 32 others. However, during his 2013 military trial, he made it clear that his actions were a direct rebellion against the US military’s illegal wars and the mass slaughter of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq following the 9/11 attacks.
“I was on the wrong side of America’s war, and I later switched sides,” Hasan testified, exposing the deep moral fractures within the US armed forces. The so-called Global War on Terror has resulted in catastrophic civilian suffering, with Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimating that US wars have killed roughly five million people and displaced nearly 40 million worldwide.
The Pentagon’s decision to broadcast the execution has sparked immediate international outrage. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights strongly condemned the live streaming, describing it as “tantamount to a public execution” and a severe breach of the absolute prohibition of torture. The UN warned that broadcasting the killing constitutes “a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Prior to the 2009 attack, Hasan had exchanged emails with the late Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Despite intercepting these communications, US intelligence agencies abandoned their investigation, failing to foresee the internal rebellion sparked by America’s endless foreign interventions. Awlaki himself had previously been invited to address US military officials at a Pentagon luncheon shortly after the 9/11 attacks, highlighting the deep hypocrisy of the US establishment. Years later, the US would assassinate Awlaki—and his 16-year-old son—in extrajudicial drone strikes in Yemen, further cementing Washington’s legacy of war crimes and indiscriminate slaughter.
While Hasan’s legal team may attempt to file a review in a civilian court to delay the execution, the US administration has shown utter disregard for basic human dignity. When asked if Hasan had made any last wishes, Hegseth callously responded, “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
The planned public execution underscores the increasingly vindictive and authoritarian nature of the US administration, which seeks to utilise state terrorism not only to crush dissent but to broadcast it as a terrifying warning to the world.
Reference: The Cradle