The Dark Truth Behind the Fort Hood Killer’s Firing Squad

The death of the mass murderer Nidal Hasan by firing squad is planned to be live telecasted for the world to see, although I don’t know if the White House is officially reporting it. Anyone who’s even remotely thinking of hurting American, especially those in uniform, will get to see what fate awaits them. Right?

After all, he’s the Fort Hood killer who walked into a room full of service men and women in 2009 and shot at them indiscriminately killing 13 and wounding more than 30. So yeah, barbaric people deserve barbaric punishments. No doubt.

But the idea might have been great if we were living in an age without digital media, when people couldn’t watch his death online and share it with the entire world. Actually, I have two problems with the idea.

First, what if this rage baits the likes of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda? Could turning an execution into a public spectacle give extremist groups another excuse to incite violence or encourage retaliation? I don’t know. After all, this was a radical Islamist attack.

And as far as I know, they’re not capable of listening to me go on telling them, “an eye for an eye, will make the whole world blind” type of stuff.

I won’t be able to tell them how precious the lives of service men around the world are. Imagine those men deployed high up in the Himalayas close to enemy territories braving frostbite, hypothermia and the massive unforgiving mountains.

Trust me, I have written to sociopaths like Bashar al-Assad asking him about the genocide of his own people at his hands. And asked Osama Bin Laden, to ponder on this question. “Did you ask yourself once, why you never heard a kind word, why no one knocked on your door for a cup of sugar, or why you almost haven’t heard the giggles and the playful laughter of children around you?”

I cried for days thinking about James Foley’s parents after his public beheading by the ISIS.

Second, what will televising this gore accomplish, especially if we’re intentionally showing it to millions of young kids who already have access to the same platforms we do? As if there wasn’t already enough horror to stumble upon involuntarily on our own.

More importantly, what about the mental rehabilitation of the people and their families who will be chosen to be a part of the firing squad itself. How will they recover and resume normal life’s duties?

Finally, can we as a society, condemn barbarity without turning punishment into a public spectacle?

James Foley | Copyright jamesfoleyfoundation.org

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“We can choose to be hopeful, try and possibly fail or not be hopeful, give up and definitely fail.”
~ David Hogg, cofounder and board member at March For Our Lives