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Pete Hegseth’s High-Tech Barbarism

In livestreaming Nidal Hasan’s execution, the secretary of war is marking his territory in the snuff movie business—and radicalizing people along the way.

“Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing on the temporary ceasefire with Iran at the Pentagon on April 8, 2026, in Arlington, Virginia.

Last Thursday, days after signing off on the death-by-firing-squad of Nidal Hasan, an Arab American army psychiatrist convicted of a mass shooting at Ford Hood in 2009, self-styled “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth announced that the execution would be livestreamed to the general public.

This is a full-frontal assault on the foundational principles of the Enlightenment, and, as many political figures even within the GOP understand, a deliberate wrecking ball aimed at the integrity of the US legal system. It is also a decision bound to propagate anti-Muslim animus, and radicalize more young men. This barbaric order is, in short, catastrophically shortsighted.

If the livestreaming does, indeed, take place, it will place the American government firmly on the wrong side of international opinion—and, in many cases, laws against the distribution of violent material online. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Online Safety Act is designed to protect children, in particular, from encountering extreme acts of violence online. The biggest social-media companies have internal policy guidelines barring users from posting video footage of executions, though since they are not always good about enforcing them, plenty of people are bound to repost footage of Hasan’s execution. The federal bureau of prisons bars the distribution of execution footage. States, too, have laws preventing the filming and distribution of executions: Legislators all over the country have long recognized the damage that publicly broadcasting executions would have. Now, however, if Hegseth—who purports to be so “pro-life” that he has made it extra difficult for women in the services to secure abortions—has his way, the US military will be marking its territory in the snuff movie business.

Hegseth’s bloodthirsty move is placing the........

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