When I first heard this story this morning, my jaw dropped.

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Not because I was particularly shocked that Nidal Hasan, the former US Army major who murdered 13 unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, was facing execution. But because the US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, had confirmed that the execution would be live-streamed online.

That is the bit I cannot get past.

Hasan was an Army psychiatrist who admitted to fatally shooting his fellow soldiers in a medical building at the Texas military base. There is no disguising the horror of what he did, or the devastation caused to the people who survived the attack and the families of those who did not. I can understand why they would want justice, and why some would support the death penalty as a punishment for such a terrible crime.

Donald Trump announced that Hasan would be executed by firing squad at a rally in San Antonio, describing him as an “evil killer”. Then Hegseth explained how it would happen. It would be at Fort Hood, on a Thursday at 1pm, the same time Hasan carried out the attack. Soldiers would execute him by firing squad, Hegseth said, and the public would be able to watch because people needed to understand that there were serious consequences for crimes like this.

I listened to that and thought: what on earth are we doing here?

I am not going to pretend that violent imagery is difficult to find online. It isn't. Years ago, during the Syrian war, I was scrolling through my phone when footage appeared of a man being beheaded. I had not gone looking for it. I threw my phone across the........

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