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Seventy-two retired US generals, admirals and other high-ranking military officers released an open letter on Wednesday calling on the Pentagon to cancel plans for a livestream of Nidal Hasan’s execution by firing squad, which is scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood in Texas. The signatories, including 45 generals, 12 admirals and several former judge advocates general, said they do not oppose carrying out the death penalty but argued that broadcasting the event would violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. According to the San Antonio Express-News, the letter described the proposal as “barbaric” and warned it would turn Hasan into a “martyr” while tainting the honor of the military. The former officers, among them decorated combat veterans, a former NASA administrator and the Army’s first female three-star general, stated that the livestream would debase human dignity and transform a grave punishment into entertainment for spectators.
Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist, was convicted in a military trial of fatally shooting 13 unarmed soldiers and wounding more than 30 others at the Fort Hood base in 2009, an attack that authorities linked to his radicalization. A court sentenced him to death in 2015, and he remains the only service member on the military’s death row. The execution method, by firing squad, would mark the first such military procedure since 1945, according to multiple news outlets reporting on the case. Hasan, now 56 and wheelchair-bound after being shot by police during his arrest, has been held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the livestream plan earlier this month during an interview, stating that the public should witness the consequences for such attacks, a position the Pentagon initially confirmed before internal discussions emerged. President Donald Trump approved the execution itself but indicated as recently as last week that he had not yet made a final determination on whether to proceed with the broadcast, Reuters reported. CNN sources familiar with the matter said Hegseth’s directive caught senior Army officials off guard, as existing regulations limit witnesses at military executions to victims’ families, media representatives and a chaplain.
The proposal has drawn bipartisan condemnation from lawmakers, with Republicans such as Senator Thom Tillis and Representative Austin Scott arguing that livestreaming executions mimics tactics used by jihadists and oppressive regimes. Democratic Senator Jack Reed, the top minority member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the idea a “gift to anti-American terrorist recruiters” and urged the administration to reconsider, according to an Al Jazeera report. Senator Chris Murphy described the plan as “disgusting” and reminiscent of medieval or Islamic State practices during a CNN interview, highlighting the unusual cross-aisle pushback.
Religious leaders have joined the criticism, with Archbishop Paul Coakley of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops labeling the livestream a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death” that must be reconsidered, as cited by Reuters. The president of the National Association of Evangelicals echoed concerns that it risks turning a solemn state duty into a public spectacle, while the United Nations human rights office stated that livestreaming an execution equates to a public one and would breach the absolute prohibition on torture. International observers and human rights groups have similarly warned that the move could stir anti-American sentiment abroad.
No government execution in the United States has been broadcast or livestreamed in modern times, and experts cited across reports from the BBC and the Los Angeles Times described the proposal as unprecedented with uncertain legal grounding. Death penalty lawyer John Mills told the BBC that it stands on “uncertain legal terrain.” The last public execution in the US occurred nearly a century ago, adding historical weight to the current debate over the Pentagon’s approach to the Hasan case.
