Live executions make us no different than the terrorists we hate
The Hill · C · trust 39/100
Comments: by Joslin Joseph, opinion contributor - 10/12/26 12:00 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Joslin Joseph, opinion contributor - 10/12/26 12:00 PM ET Comments: Link copied FILE – This undated photo provided by the Bell County Sheriff’s Department shows former Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan. (Bell County Sheriff’s Department via AP, File) In 2004, when I was a Marine recruit in Parris Island, our drill instructors bought out a laptop and made us sit in a school circle around it on the quarterdeck. They showed us a video of a man in an orange jumpsuit who was kneeling in front of hooded men wearing black.
One of them read out a statement and then proceeded to cut the head off of the prisoner . The prisoner’s name was Nick Berg, and his executioner was terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi. It was horrific to watch.
I wondered why in God’s name would they show us this. Our senior drill instructor told us it was revenge for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and that we should expect more such videos. He also said that this is what separates us from them. We are in the business of killing, but we would never be so barbaric.
Those words stuck with me, because he was wrong. Since 9/11 and because of 9/11 we have regressed our society because of a fear of terrorism — a fear that our politicians really want us to feel at all times.
We convinced ourselves we needed to torture prisoners, even when U.S. veterans like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told us it was against our values. He said, “... the torture of prisoners, hurt us a great deal and did provide a propaganda tool for our enemy, including al Qaeda.”
We ignored him and kept doing it. We decided to have secret prisons around the world , away from our legal system, because we worried our legal system would work the way it was supposed to.
We convinced ourselves to accept mass surveillance and data collection, only to realize too late that we are now tracked by our own government for anything we do or say.
We used terrorism to convince ourselves it was OK to drone-strike weddings in countries like Iraq , Iran , Afghanistan and Yemen . Collateral damage was the price others had to pay for us to feel “safe.” And probably the worst of all, we used terrorism as an excuse to invade a country we had no business invading, costing the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
The end result? We have seen terrorism flourish around the world. The Taliban rules Afghanistan, Iran has proxies surrounding Israel, Syria and Iraq had to deal with (and still deal with the Islamic State organization), and terror cells exist in North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Here in the U.S., we see disaffected youths embrace extremism, which leads to acts of terror.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration mention that livestreaming the execution of the Fort Hood shooter will send a message. Now, I have no problem with this man being executed and fully support calling him a terrorist. What he did was abhorrent and his justification of using his religion as an excuse doesn’t hold water to many, Muslim or otherwise.
But livestreaming an execution is yet another way we have caved in and given up our values because of our fears. This is exactly what war veterans like McCain warned against. We have “othered” Muslims so badly and vilified them to the point that we are now acting the way we accuse them of acting. Our fear of terrorism has caused us to create more terrorists in the world and now we are resorting to their code of misconduct and replacing our own moral compass.
We abhor terror groups like the Islamic State organization when they release high production snuff films showing prisoners beheaded, shot, run over by tanks, blown up with grenades, or butchered like livestock. We were shocked when they used kids to carry out executions. We sympathize for Iranians who are executed by the ayatollahs for protesting for freedom. We criticize the Saudis for public executions and call them barbaric.
The thing is, so do Muslims. After Nick Berg was executed, Muslims spoke out against it. “What religion or sect condones such a barbaric act? This is abominable, God curse Zarqawi,” was one of many statements spoken by Muslims condemning such acts. Muslims condemned the Islamic State organization, calling it “Daesh” because they didn’t want to associate the group with Islam. People flee autocratic Muslim countries because of public executions and come here because we don’t (yet) act that way. Trump proclaimed that “help was on the way” when Iranians were massacred earlier this year.
Hegseth’s fantasy of public revenge is no different than Abu Musab Zarqawi’s heinous acts and the Islamic State’ organization ‘s executions that followed. Just this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a tremendous speech about Western Civilization . How insane that the administration he works for thinks public executions go hand in hand with what Western Civilization or Christianity represent.
Joslin Joseph , a Marine veteran who served in Iraq , is a recipient of the Military Reporters and Editors award for Best Commentary-Opinion. A graduate of Harvard and Ohio State, he currently lives in Anaheim, Calif.
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