Seventy-two retired US military leaders, including 45 generals and 12 admirals, called on the Pentagon on Wednesday to cancel plans to livestream the December 3 execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad, calling the broadcast "barbaric" and a violation of constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The retired officers, in an open letter, said they did not oppose capital punishment itself but argued a public execution would transform a "solemn and grave punishment" into "a carnival for the enjoyment of voyeurs and spectators" and debase human dignity. They warned the livestream would make Hasan a "martyr" and provide ammunition for enemies of the United States.
"This type of exploitative broadcasting will taint the honor of the military that employs it, and a nation that allows it," the letter states. "It will be used by our nation's enemies to stoke hatred, harm American soldiers and citizens in the future."
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, the deadliest non-combat attack on an American military base. He told the court he carried out the shooting to protect Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan from US military operations.
The signatories included retired Maj. Gen. Tony Taguba, who led the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses in Iraq; retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis, a prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who characterized waterboarding as torture; Charles Bolden, a former NASA administrator; and retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, the first woman to achieve three-star general rank in the Army.
The execution plan, announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week, has drawn opposition from lawmakers of both parties and religious leaders. President Donald Trump said he "absolutely" approved the livestream, but CBS News reported that some administration officials are now opposing it and that Trump had not made a final decision as of Tuesday.
The broadcast would mark the first public execution in the United States in nearly a century.