With Honor issued the following statement on the planned public execution of Nidal Hasan:
Sixteen years ago, Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people and wounded dozens more at Fort Hood, betraying the oath he swore and the soldiers who trusted him. His act was terrorism. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced by a military court.
But how a nation punishes the worst among us says as much about the nation as it does about the criminal. Choosing a firing squad, a method the Army set aside after World War II, and calling it “judgment day” trades the sober dignity of the law for the theater of retribution. Secretary Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution, staged at Fort Hood at the very hour of the attack, makes that theater literal.
No soldier should be ordered to carry out an execution as content for an online audience. Broadcasting a death does not deter terrorists; it hands them the kind of spectacle they seek.
The strength of our military and our country has always rested on discipline, the rule of law, and the conviction that we are different from those who attack us. Those values are not a weakness to set aside when the crime is monstrous; they are what we are defending. We can hold Hasan fully accountable without abandoning them.