On October 9, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced — during a podcast appearance rather that from a Pentagon podium — that the killing of mass shooter Nidal Hasan by military firing squad, scheduled for December 3, will be livestreamed. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public — because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
By “these types of things,” Hegseth presumably means Hasan’s murder of 13 people (including a pregnant woman) and wounding of 32 in 2009.
I’m on record as opposing capital punishment because it’s evil, cowardly, stupid, not an effective deterrent to criminal behavior, and the opposite of “limited government” (a government empowered to kill disarmed and helpless prisoners is a government beyond anything plausibly defined as limited).
In Hasan’s case, my “unlimited government” objection doesn’t apply.
As a US Army officer, Hasan “freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion” agreed to make himself subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Article 118 of the UCMJ mandates the death penalty (or imprisonment for life) for premeditated murder. Therefore, the US regime will be acting within the limits of its contract with Hasan.
I still oppose killing Hasan on the other grounds I mention, but I consider livestreaming that killing — which will happen whether I like it or not — potentially useful as a demonstration of character.
With a public execution, the US regime will join an exclusive club currently comprised of Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and the Islamic State’s notional “caliphate.”
Those aren’t the only regimes with unlimited government. They’re just the only regimes that publicly flaunt their unlimited nature by killing disarmed, helpless prisoners in full view of the serfs they rule.
I’m big on government transparency. Not on “good government” grounds, but because transparency makes it easier for people to figure out that there’s no such thing as “good” political government.
Note the modifier “political.”
Political government is the opposite of self-government. It’s a claimed monopoly on the use of force by an organization that, absent public acceptance of a bunch of weasel wording, would otherwise be seen as (and actually is) an organized crime syndicate.
The US government killing Hasan is no different in principle than the Gambino crime family’s killing of Thomas DeSimone, sentenced to death for killing “made man” William Bentvena (both killings are portrayed, using other names, in the film Goodfellas).
Like DeSimone, Hasan’s offense wasn’t that he gunned down a bunch of people. It was that he gunned down the “wrong” people. If he’d killed a bunch of Iraqis or Afghans, he’d more likely have received a medal than a death sentence.
If the US regime is going to kill Hasan (and it almost certainly will), I favor making a public spectacle of it. “The people” who supposedly consent to be governed, and who buy the bullets and pay the salaries of the firing squad, should be shown what they’re getting for their money and what club “their” government belongs to.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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