A Missed Chance to Look Terrible

Trump's decision to back out of his planned public execution of the Fort Hood mass shooter is sad for America. Not because it wouldn't have been a gruesome spectacle that eroded whatever is left of the country's international standing -- it would have. Not because Nidal Hasan won't still be killed on Dec. 3 -- he will.

"Many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming or through any other visual device," Trump wrote on Truth Social, a medium befitting the gravity of the subject. He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed."

Does Trump really believe watching the livestream is mandatory? If so, someone should tell him. He could use a break.

He should have stayed the course. Conducting this state murder-by-firing-squad in the most public of all forums would have been a glorious victory for transparency and honesty. When might the dark stars align again to give us a defense secretary, president, Congress and news media so depraved and indifferent to common decency that they were willing to post a snuff film online where every child can watch it, and force them to confront exactly what America is and learn all about its state religion: ultraviolence?

As citizens, courts have repeatedly ruled, we have no right to health care. More importantly, we're consumers. What about our right to truth in advertising?

Trump's decision to cancel the broadcast of the execution (but not the execution itself) appears to have been influenced by an open letter signed by retired admirals, generals and other officers. "Livestreaming this execution would clearly violate the basic human dignity of the condemned prisoner," the military men wrote. "It turns what should be the solemn and grave punishment of a member of our society for committing the most serious crimes into a carnival for the enjoyment of voyeurs and spectators."

Dudes! Dudettes! That's the point!

A carnival for the enjoyment of voyeurs and spectators is exactly what we need. Who knows -- it might even jolt us into the realization that our country is truly awful ... that we desperately need to get straight with basic human values.

The firing squad execution, remember, is still going ahead as planned. As we know from recent experience, capital punishment by gunfire is hardly guaranteed to be "solemn."

Consider the botched firing-squad execution of Mikal Deen Mahdi in South Carolina on April 11, 2025. Mahdi, convicted of killing an off-duty police officer in 2004, faced a three-person firing squad aiming at a small target placed over his heart. It was not quick.

Mahdi screamed when the shots were fired, groaned again roughly 45 seconds later, continued moaning in agony for about 80 seconds, and finally succumbed. He was pronounced dead in four minutes.

Only two entry wounds were found in his body rather than the expected three. One missed entirely. The other two missed the heart, instead damaging the liver, pancreas and other organs. This allowed Mahdi's heart to continue beating. An autopsy report concluded that Mahdi suffered "excruciating conscious pain and suffering for about 30 to 60 seconds." (Courts had ruled that pain should not last more than 15 seconds to pass constitutional muster.)

Death with dignity is not on the menu. If Christa Pike is any indication, death itself isn't guaranteed.

What is assured on Dec. 3 is a cruel, anachronistic exercise of optional vengeance by a vicious military that started vicious wars of choice against nations that never harmed us, drove the soldiers it sent to fight and kill completely crazy, assigned them a psychologist so undersupervised that his vicarious trauma turned into psychosis, ignored the ample evidence that he was about to snap, and after he freaked out and killed 13 people, tossed him into the brig after they shot him and paralyzed him from the waist down.

Maybe the Army will do a better job killing Hasan than it did with Eddie Slovik, the most recent high-profile target of a military firing squad. Determined to set an example to discourage army desertions during the closing days of World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower ordered Slovik shot to death in eastern France on Jan. 31, 1945, for the crime of succumbing to PTSD -- they called it "battle fatigue" at the time -- and deserting his post. Eleven armed members of the firing squad fired simultaneously. Slovik was struck by multiple bullets, but none of them killed him immediately. Medical officers examined the victim and discovered that his heart was still beating and he was breathing. While the soldiers were reloading, Slovik finally succumbed to his wounds. The psychological distress of the firing squad -- who were ordinary enlisted soldiers -- is widely believed to have caused them to miss Slovik's vital organs.

Slovik is the only American executed for desertion since the Civil War.

One of the conundrums Army brass will have to contend with -- this is true -- is whether to hoist Hasan to a post and strap him into place like a scarecrow, or shoot him in his wheelchair. This, apparently, was the detail that made Trump back out of the livecast. (Why Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth neglected to tell him, and why Trump didn't know that from watching the news, is unknown.)

The execution is happening. The only difference now is that, as has been the case since the Jim Crow-era "legal lynching" public hanging of a Black man in Kentucky for the rape of a white woman 90 years ago, it will take place behind closed doors.

Such a pity. Americans deserve the right to see their government in action; the executioners are government workers paid by our taxes. And Americans (and people in other countries) need to see what the American government is: hateful, spiteful, cruel.

People should watch Hasan die. They should hear him scream. They should marvel at high-resolution closeups of the blood oozing out of his body. They should be revolted.

They should revolt.

Or not -- in which case, they should be pleased with themselves and their government.

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Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of the brand-new "What's Left: Radical Solutions for Radical Problems." He co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.

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