America is now at the stage where it's live-streaming a firing squad as if it were some sort of national entertainment. When Pete Hegseth was on Fox he said, "People need to see the consequences." He then added, "It should be public because it sends a message." He also stated that "a firing squad is appropriate" and referred to it as "justice". He made all of these comments with a smile, sadistically proud.
Trump supported him. He stated that “this will deter others”, that “a firing squad is the right choice”, and also said that “the American people deserve to see justice carried out”.
That sort of behaviour was the kind of thing people engaged in at the beginning of the 1900s when public executions were regarded as events for the community. It's barbaric, it's sick, and it shows a nation retreating into something dark while being proud of it. Instead of gathering in the town squares to watch the bodies being dropped, they now come together online. It's the same instinct, just using new technology.
There's also Nidal Hasan, the man who is about to be executed. People mention his name as if he were just a news item or a villain they can cite in order to feel morally justified. They never speak of the person behind the incident. They never refer to the Palestinian child whose family had to escape violent oppression in 1961. They never talk about the quiet, hard-working person from Arlington who spent his lifetime trying to understand the world and serve in it. They never consider how he broke under the strain of America's constant wars and how that breakdown resulted in an act of violence that caused people's deaths and had a permanent effect on countless lives.
To be honest, having seen three years of livestreamed genocide through our phonescreens, I can now see where he was coming from. After seeing the U.S. bomb Minab and kill 165 children, I can understand how someone could break down under the constant pressure of witnessing such horror every day. It doesn't justify what he did, but it does account for the emotional and moral collapse that occurs when you are forced to watch human beings being wiped out in real time and at the same time have to act as if it's normal.
In court he stated, “The evidence will prove that I was on the wrong side of America’s war and that I later changed my side.” He added, “As mujahedeen we are imperfect Muslims who are attempting to establish the perfect religion... I am sorry for any errors I may have committed in this undertaking.” He gave his reason as being the “defense of others”, pointing out that the soldiers he had killed were going to be sent to harm the Afghan civilians and the Afghan government.
This is too add context to what happened. Most of you who are reading this are anti-imperialism…are sick of what the US did. Knowing what we know now, personally I find it hard to blame him. It does not wipe out the violence or the trauma or reverse the harm done, but it does reveal the reality of who he was, the pressures he was facing, the history that influenced him, and the way a person can break down under systems that wear them down until finally something snaps.
The man was chosen for this because of his ethnicity, I dare anyone disagree with this. He’s made to be a symbol and a prop; but he is a real person with a complicated background that America refuses to acknowledge since to do so would mean admitting that people don't suddenly go mad—rather, they go mad as a result of war, pressure, history, and all the other things this country is willing to deny exist.
The government now wants to carry out his execution in a public manner by firing squad and to broadcast it to the world. Trump has supported the death sentence and has instructed that it should be carried out by firing squad and that it should be a public event. They want the public to watch it, they want people to cheer, and they want them to feel as though justice is being done. But that is not justice; it is a spectacle. It is cruelty disguised as patriotism. It is a country that boasts of having moral leadership yet treats death as if it were a warning video. It is sadistic.
Hegseth speaks as if he's proud of it, Trump as if it's essential, and together they seem to be presenting this as a moral lesson for the rest of us. But what exactly is the lesson they're drawing? Is it that America is so desperate to appear strong that it will turn killing into content? That it will turn a human being's last moments into a political statement? That it will disregard all the surrounding circumstances, all the historical background, all the human elements, just to make a point?
This is not an example of strength but rather of insecurity, fear, a nation which lacks the means to cope with its own violence except by presenting it as punishment, a government that wishes people to think that brutality amounts to order, a media environment that encourages cruelty since cruelty brings in more clicks, and a political elite that believes the public has to be shown death in order to remain compliant.
People ought to be horrified; they ought to be questioning why a country that boasts moral authority is carrying out a firing squad. They ought to be questioning why the leaders are speaking in the manner of executioners. They ought to be questioning why a man’s difficult and painful history is being reduced to a prop for political showbusiness. They ought to be questioning why America continues to prefer spectacle to humanity.
That is not justice, nor is it deterrence or moral clarity.
This is a nation demonstrating to the rest of the world precisely where it has ended up. Vile and repugnant.
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📽️ Credit: Carina Cedrechi/tt
