Time is up for the Fort Hood killer

 
                          BY FLORIDA BILL 
                               
                                      The Attorney General has announced that the federal government has decided to resume executions of individuals who have been sentenced to death in a court of law. 
                        Certainly at the top or near the top of those on death row is Major Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist who killed 13 persons, including 12 fellow soldiers, and wounded 32 others in an explosion of Islamic rage on November 6, 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas. 
                        As the massacre was being carried out, Major Hasan, a medical doctor, screamed "Allahu Akbar (Allah is the greatest) as he fired his gun and watched the soldiers and civilians fall like dominoes. After he had fired scores of rounds, he was taken down by gunfire from an American soldier. 
                        Now 49, Hasan, a paraplegic as a result of a bullet which hit his spine, has been incarcerated and cared for in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, since the shooting and his  trial and conviction in a military tribunal four years later. 
                       The former army major and doctor who had been trained at government expense, has admitted the killings which he has said in interviews gave him a "good" feeling, and he looks forward to martyrdom as a SoA, (Soldier of Allah).                       .  
                          Confined to a wheelchair, Hasan has written countless letters. Among his missives was  a letter to ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi informing him that it would be "his honor" to join the Islamic caliphate; and another missive to Pope Francis in which he praised Islamic Jihad.  He always signed his letters using his SoA acronym.
                           In an interview with the NYT, he said he did not regret the massacre and that his actions would help atone for the sins of his mother who once operated a small store and sold alcohol in contradiction to the command of Allah. 
                            The government has now lifted the prohibition to the death penalty which had been in effect for several years. The ban on implementing the penalty had been ordered because of the fear that an innocent defendant might be executed in error. With Hasan, there is no doubt that he is a murderer.                         
                         The U.S. military has executed 135 persons since 1916.  The last was the execution of army Pvt. John Bennett in 1961 for rape and attempted murder.
                         In Hasan's case, he acknowledges his violence and his Islamic rage; and the screams of "Allahu Akbar" were witnessed and heard by scores of fellow soldiers and civilians. Hasan has earned the penalty of death and there will be no misgivings when it is carried out.  The hope of Americans and of the relatives of victims of his rage is that execution of this madman will take place without further delays.

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