Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein -- Fri. Oct. 16, 2026

Swift and Certain.

I'm Jeff Stein with today's Iowa Politics Report.

On November 5th, 2009, Major Nidal Hassan opened fire on fellow service members at Fort Hood, Texas, leaving 13 dead and 32 others injured.

Hassan was an Army Medical Corps psychiatrist and said he wanted to stop deployment of Americans to Afghanistan to kill Muslims.

He shouted, Allahu Akbar, Arabic for God is good, and began shooting.

He himself was shot several times, ending the attack.

A military jury convicted him four years later and sentenced him to death.

He was then dismissed from the army.

He had been collecting pay from the time of the shooting until that point.

Now that was in 2013.

And for 13 years now, Hassan has been convicted, sentenced and remains in military custody.

He apparently was also paralyzed in the shooting and uses a wheelchair.

Earlier this year, the administration indicated that the death penalty by firing squad would be carried out.

The plan was to have the execution be live streamed, in part as a deterrent to others who may think about committing such crimes.

But yesterday, the president said there would be no open to the public viewing.

Family members of the victims, though, could still watch in person.

It's been long known that for punishment to be a deterrent to individuals to keep them from committing crimes, that punishment must be swift and certain.

Certain, meaning certainty of being caught with a specific universally applied punishment, and swift, meaning there is a connection between the punishment and the criminal act in terms of time.

The act was in 2009.

The sentence was in 2013.

It's now late 2026.

An entire generation of Americans

was not born when this act, the worst shooting against armed forces on a U.S.

military base in history, occurred.

There was also no doubt about who committed the act.

Instead of a debate about whether or not the execution should be live streamed, how about a discussion of why the sentence was not carried out much sooner?

There is no general deterrence because folks had long ago forgotten about the crime.

And there is no specific deterrence because Hassan has lived 17 years longer than those he slaughtered.

One of those he killed was pregnant.

That baby would be in his or her senior year of high school right now.

Swift and certain punishment is a hallmark of our judicial system and the military courts as well.

That hardly seems to be the case here.

Side issues not withstanding.

And that's the Iowa Politics Report for Friday, October 16 on Twitter, Instagram, Gitter, Threads and Truth Social at Iowa Politics.

I'm Jeff Stein on News Talk 1540, KXEL.