U.S. Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth has stepped into it again — and by “it” I mean the mud of overzealousness — when he announced that a former Army officer will be executed by firing squad, and televised!
This announcement follows by only a week or so the botched execution of Christa Pike, a convicted murderer in Tennessee, whose ordeal became front-page news.
In Hegseth’s case, the person to be executed — and firing squads don’t fail — is Nidal Malik Hasan, who admitted to killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. Justice will be served for all the world to see, right, Pete?
The secretary may be cleaning house at the Pentagon, and that may be long overdue, but this is way out of bounds, if you ask me. There’s no way I think the public should be able to witness an execution, which brings up another question: Which media outlet would actually livestream it? Would YouTube even allow it? That leaves us with some far-right (a term I hate) organization with the ability to air something over the internet.
I say, again as I did last week, let’s stop all executions until the public can weigh in, even if it means putting the death penalty on the ballot in every state. It’s become too grisly.
I’m a long-time proponent of “an eye for an eye,” but I think we’ve grown past that in terms of justice being served. Let them rot in prison, even if — dare I say it? — it costs more to keep someone locked up than it does to get rid of them.
PS And here’s another outrageous event: President Trump claiming he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize after he started a war in Iran!
