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On November 5, 2009, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, and opened fire on troops preparing to deploy. He was a psychiatrist assigned to the post, a U.S.-born citizen of Palestinian descent, and he carried a semiautomatic handgun into a room full of unarmed soldiers.

Witnesses said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he shot. Thirteen people were killed and 32 others wounded before civilian police stopped him. Hasan later said he was targeting soldiers bound for Afghanistan and described the attack as retaliation for American wars in the Muslim world.

A military jury convicted him in 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and unanimously sentenced him to death.

He represented himself, admitted he was the shooter, and made little effort to avoid that sentence. He has remained on military death row at Fort Leavenworth ever since.

This week President Trump approved Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recommendation that Hasan be executed by a U.S. Army firing squad, the first military execution since 1961 and the first by firing squad since World War II. The Army secretary will set the time and place.

Should the execution be televised?

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