Victor Davis Hanson: Should the Fort Hood Terrorist Be Publicly Executed?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Welcome to the Daily Signal Podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take.

Victor Davis Hanson (0:08)

I'm not going to weigh in whether it's wise or not wise to have a public execution, but the military again feels that it's justified, and they feel it will offer deterrence. So people will see, if you shoot your own soldiers, if you are a traitor to the United States, you will be publicly executed. That's their point.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson. The last few days, there's been a major controversy over the fate. Of one murder Major Nidal Hasan.

It's over whether he should be executed.

A, B, whether he should be executed by a firing squad You will see. a firing squad conducted by the military, and see whether this firing squad should be a public event. In other words, people would have access at supposedly by video. It sounds ostensibly backward or medieval, but there's more to the story. First of all, remember who he was. He was a second generation Palestinian. He went into Fort Hood in 2009 as a major in the US Army and a psychiatric worker. And he murdered 13 of his fellow unarmed soldiers. And he wounded 32 of them, many seriously and are still crippled by his wounds that he inflicted. And most disturbing, he had a long social media history of radical Islamist posting, anti-American posting, pro-jihadist posting, fierce criticism of our soldiers at that time fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. And this was known to the US Army. And number two, he was a total mediocrity. He could barely finish the medical training that the US Army and its diversity program allowed him to be subsidized. That's not my interpretation. I'll show you in a minute where General Casey shows you that he is a diversity recipient. That is special preference based on his race or ethnicity or his religion.

So what happened? Well, there was a trial by a military court martial tribunal.

The problem was that took place in 2013

Four years happened, transpired, before this murder was even convicted of murder. Was he charged with terrorism? Why not? He had a history of being a radical Islamist promoting terrorism. As he shot and executed his fellow soldiers, he yelled out, Allah Akbar, what was the reaction of the Obama administration?

Their first impulse was to say, let's not prejudge this. It might be workplace violence. Think of that. You have an Islamist who has a long trail on social media that was known to the army itself, who murdered 13 soldiers and wounded 32, and yelled out as he was shooting them, Allah Akbar, and the military takes four years to find out whether he's a terrorist and then concludes he's not and never charges them with terrorism, and the administration says that it could have been workplace violence and not to prejudge. Unfortunately, it gets worse. The secretary of the army, George Casey, weighed in. You're not going to believe, maybe you remember what he said.

Now, think about it. He's the head army officer of the US Army. Thirteen of his soldiers have been murdered by a crazed Islamist major, and 32 have been crippled. What is his first reaction? I want to quote it.

Our diversity, not only in our army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse. When he says, quote, our diversity, he's talking about our, meaning the US Army and the US government, using a deliberate effort to prejudice some people and reward others on the basis of things other than merit. There's a superficial appearance, their religion, their gender, their sexual orientation. In this case, an American who was a Palestinian descent and was a Muslim. But what he's really saying is, I am more worried. I shouldn't say he's really saying that. He said it. Let me quote it again. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse, worse. In other words, it's worse if you get angry at Major Hasan and say that he's an Islamic terrorist and you better clamp down at people like him. That's worse than the death of 13 soldiers who were innocent and unarmed.

Now, there's been a lot of reaction to the final verdict. He's been convicted in 2013 of murder.

13 years later, he's appealed and he's appealed the appeals and he's taken every civilian and military avenue at government expense with legal counsel to get out of this. And now, it's run out and this sentence will be carried out.

We should remember two or three contemporary events that are affecting this. Number one, we've had a death sentence where a woman was given a lethal injection and did not die but was suffering. She's now alive, and we've had hangings in the past that didn't go well. We've had electrocutions that didn't go well. One thing that goes well, as we know, is a firing squad. You get ten or so people and they shoot a high-powered rifle at close range, all at the heart, and the person dies instantly. But we haven't had a firing squad in the United States in about 90 years, and we haven't had a public execution in about 80 years. And I don't think the military has executed anybody by firing squad since 1937 And I'm not even sure they have executed anybody since about 2011 So this is a very rare idea. It's a very rare idea. Both the idea of shooting somebody by a firing squad, which I think is entirely deserved and is probably the most humane way of executing someone given the travesties we've seen with lethal injections, with hangings, with electrocution.