Fort Hood Killer To Be Shot: Military Justice, Eventually
Seventeen years after Nidal Hasan murdered 13 at Fort Hood, the Army finally schedules his execution by firing squad, the first since WWII.
Alright, buckle up, buttercups. After seventeen glorious years of legal wrangling, appeals, and probably a few too many latte breaks for the bureaucrats, the U.S. Army has finally decided that maybe, just maybe, killing 13 people on an active military base warrants the ultimate consequence. They're going with a firing squad, which, let's be honest, sounds far more efficient than the modern-day lethal injection circus, where states practically have to beg for drugs because apparently "humane" now means "nobody feels vaguely uncomfortable."
It only took a decade and a half for the military-industrial complex to process paperwork for a man who literally screamed "Allahu Akbar" while gunning down his fellow soldiers. One has to wonder if the Army's procurement department is handling this, given the astonishing lack of efficiency. Did they have to issue an RFP for bullets? Were the firing squad members required to complete sensitivity training beforehand? Imagine the cost of housing this absolute gem for nearly two decades, all while his victims’ families waited, and waited, and waited.
The fact that this is the first military firing squad since 1945 speaks volumes. We've gone from swift, if brutal, justice during wartime to a system where we treat mass murderers with more procedural deference than we treat our own veterans trying to get medical appointments. This isn't justice delivered; it's justice eventually tripping over itself at the finish line, long after anyone sane expected it.
"The wheels of justice turn slowly," they say. And sometimes, they get stuck in bureaucratic quicksand for seventeen years while taxpayers foot the bill for a confessed murderer's room and board. Apparently, ensuring due process for a man who shouted his intentions wasn't quite as urgent as ensuring our soldiers got their diversity workshops.
This is a testament to how utterly bogged down our systems have become, even for the most heinous and undeniable acts. Perhaps the military was hoping he'd just die of old age, saving them the trouble. The entire process is a farce.
