In a move underscoring the hardening penal rhetoric within Washington, the US regime's head, Donald Trump, has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, a former army psychiatrist convicted over the 2009 mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The measure, should it proceed unhindered, will revive military capital punishment in the United States after a hiatus lasting more than six decades, with no military executions having taken place since 1961.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell publicly confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had submitted the execution order for approval, which Trump subsequently endorsed. According to Parnell, the date and operational details of the execution are ostensibly to be established by acting Army Secretary Adam Telle. While the US regime attempts to portray the long-delayed decision as an inevitable pursuit of justice, observers point to the deep-seated procedural dysfunction and ethical dilemmas that continue to plague capital punishment policies across the country.
The incident dates back to November 5, 2009, when Hasan opened fire on unarmed personnel inside an army processing facility, killing 13 individuals—including an expectant mother—and injuring 32 others within a span of ten minutes. Hasan, who was paralyzed during the intervention by military police, openly maintained during his trial that his actions were an effort to halt US military deployments to Afghanistan and oppose aggressive foreign warfare against Muslim populations. He was convicted in 2013 on multiple counts of premeditated murder, yet protracted appellate procedures stalled any final resolution for over a decade.
Even with the presidential decree, systemic roadblocks could still stall the firing squad directive for years if Hasan’s legal representatives pursue appeals within the civilian federal court system. Hasan is currently confined at the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, alongside three other inmates languishing on the military’s death row under stagnant legal limbo. The US armed forces last executed a service member in 1961, when former private John Bennett was put to death by hanging.
Source: www.aljazeera.com