571
If the Nidal Hasan Execution Is Livestreamed, We Are a Barbaric Nation
(newrepublic.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2026
571 points (98.0% liked)
politics
31382 readers
3135 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
A few thoughts on this.
I'm strongly against capital punishment. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty who deserve to die and the world is better off without. But our criminal justice system, while good, has made too many mistakes. Plus, given all the appeals and whatnot, it's actually cheaper to keep someone in jail for life than to execute them.
The problem with our society is when it comes to violence, we live in a state of almost childlike innocence. The vast majority of Americans have NO exposure to real violence and death. The vast majority of Americans have never seen another human die, in real life or on video. The vast majority of Americans have never even seen a real dead body. We censor any death or gore on news, and call ourselves civilized.
Even our 'violent' movies and TV are nonsense- the bad guy gets shot, a squib goes off under his shirt, and he falls down. Meanwhile the hero is taking blow after blow that (in reality) would each cause life-altering injuries. It's almost cartoonish.
So with this innocent ignorance, we then debate things like war, gang violence, and capital punishment as abstract academic concepts, as we have no frame of reference to ground them in reality.
Personally I think more Americans should acquaint themselves with the reality of the world we inhabit. The reality is that human bodies are fragile as hell, it doesn't take a lot to seriously wreck one in all kinds of ways, and when that happens it's NOT funny or pretty.
So for that reason, I would like to see at least the recordings of executions be made public. If the American people are going to discuss a policy, they should see what they are actually discussing. I suspect one video of an electric chair execution would be enough to end capital punishment in the USA for good. But even still with firing squad, I think people should see the reality of turning a living human into a dead human.
With that all said- this is NOT the place to do that.
This is not about domestic policy. This is about international peacekeeping. To the Islamic extremists, this guy is a hero. Shoot him live on TV and you turn him into a martyr. The extremist people WANT to die in service of their cause. Death is not a feared consequence, it's the expected end of martyring themselves. You think someone who goes to shoot up a mall expects to live through to retirement? No, they understand that's the end, they just want to take out others at the same time.
This video would not 'strike fear in their hearts', it would be a recruitment tool! This is something anyone with even the most basic understanding of Islamic extremism understands. I don't understand why the so-called experts are ignoring it.
Exactly. Even going past the fucking barbarity of it, it reveals the sheer stupidity of Hegseth and the administration far more.
Did you know Trump in the last months of his first term executed more people than any president of the 20th century except for FDR? and for FDR 6 of them were Nazi saboteurs. And FDR had 3 full terms. In total FDR executed 16 people. Trump had 13 in barely 6 months.
After the Gregg decision (post-1963) the only federal executions were by George Bush junior and he only executed 3.
Basically this guy is the most murderous president we have ever had in the worst possible way ever. Even Hitler had some real beliefs beyond genocide and murder. Trump has none.
The thing that bugs me about Trump and the administration is how little planning and forethought seems to go into things of worldwide significance. Ready-Fire-Aim is a joke it should not be how the nation (formerly) leading the free world operates. And worse is the mindset it represents.
Our government employs a great many experts on Islamic extremism, and I can promise you that not one of them is too busy to meet with the Secretary of Defense.
And yet either these experts weren't consulted, or their advice was ignored. The announcement went out anyway. And now there's probably room fulls of experts all screaming that this will cause far more problems than it'll solve, so there's backpedaling.
So I ask, if I was Hegseth what would create this situation? And the most likely answer I come up with, like an awful lot of Trump decisions, is that I just assume everyone is either like me or like a stereotype and act accordingly. I don't need to study or consult because It's My Job To Make The Decision and I Made The Decision.
The result of that is decisions are made off the cuff, without consideration or forethought, which leads to problems that are both easily predicted and easily prevented.
Iran is another perfect example. We want to get rid of Iran, so we go in, fire a fuckton of guided missiles (which cost $1.5 million each, and apparently we have no way to replace them), blow up the leader and some buildings, then step back and do nothing to manage the resulting aftermath. The religious council naturally appoints the leader's son as new supreme leader, and whoops seems they still have a functional military and by deploying it to a tiny patch of water can grind worldwide trade to a fucking halt. Now they're organized again and they're pissed, and we're almost out of missiles so we don't want to start another war. So we're negotiating with the guy whose dad we just killed begging him to stop killing the global economy.
Did nobody consider this possibility ahead of time?
I'm NOT an expert on Iran. But from what little I learned on Wikipedia, I can tell you with near certainty that if you want to 'stop' Iran you have to kill or capture not just the supreme leader but the religious council who appoints him, and many high ranking members of the IRGC also. Do that and install a temporary puppet government with a promise of free elections in a year, or find whoever's the current 'heir to the throne and install them as Shah under the old governmental structure. Then leave enough forces behind to keep the remainder of IRGC loyalists from causing trouble. This requires more than missiles, it requires a bunch of 'wet work' (think spy movies / assassinations). It requires boots on the ground. It requires putting Americans in harm's way. Overall it will take years and cost $billions. But the result, if done correctly, could be the secularization of Iran- undoing our evils when we helped depose the Shah.
Shooting off a bunch of missiles and expecting the problem to go away doesn't make the problem go away.