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James O'Brien reacts as the Pentagon orders for the execution of the Fort Hood shooter to be live streamed.
President Donald Trump has ordered the use of a firing squad to execute the former US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree the gunman later described as retaliation for US wars in the Muslim world.
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0:00
I, like you, find myself responding to one story in the news with a mysterious combination of dread and confusion
0:09
Dread because I don't quite know exactly what it signifies. And confusion because I cannot for the life of me work out why they would or indeed why anybody would do it
0:19
Do you remember Ken Bigley? Do you remember when ISIS executed him on a live stream
0:25
And we were united in our conclusion that this was barbarism of an absolutely medieval dimension
0:36
Of course, Cam was an entirely innocent man. And the man that Donald Trump is about to see executed on a live broadcast is a profoundly guilty man
0:46
But humanity is a universal concept. Thou shalt not kill. probably the most confused and maligned of all the commandments
0:56
that underpin the Christian faith, because we kill all the time, whether in war or elsewhere
1:03
Thou shalt not kill. These people claim to be Christians, and yet here they are essentially offering up a tribute act to ISIS
1:10
to Islamist fundamentalism, to the worst kind of terrorist barbarism. I mean, there's going to be a phone in this, by the way
1:20
0345 6060973 is the number that you're going to need. And I have got questions for you
1:29
But before I ask you to tell me how this story is hitting you
1:33
I'll tell you how it's hitting me. I sometimes, in fact, I probably wonder now more in my 50s
1:40
than at any other point in my life, I wonder whether we have evolved morally at all as a species
1:46
When you see the guardrails coming down on a society, when you see the norms being removed, people sort of cheering and celebrating the dehumanizing of others, of their neighbors, whether it's under a parasol of immigration concerns or whether it is the way in which sections of your society treat calls for refugees to be burnt alive in their beds
2:12
You see these guardrails coming down. If you're like me, and you might not be, if you're anything like me, you marvel at your fellow man, right, and woman
2:23
You sit here going, how can you countenance this? How can you do this
2:30
It's absolutely barbaric. And, of course, the words and the actions are different, but they are related, aren't they
2:38
I mean, you don't really get the actions unless you begin with the words
2:43
The process of dehumanizing begins with cheapening of other human lives. Let them drown and burn them in their beds
2:51
It just begins with that. And they're entirely innocent people. So then when you have a guilty person against a backdrop of humanity diluted
3:02
you think it would be a good idea to to broadcast a live execution by firing squad
3:11
and then and this is why i say it's confusing because it shouldn't be but it is
3:18
then you start if your brain is anything like mine then you start wondering why you're so
3:23
disgusted by this why you're so perturbed by it because death penalties are commonplace in america
3:30
many American states have executions, not anywhere near as much as they used to do
3:35
And normally they take place decades after the crime and it's a convoluted and horrible process
3:39
And we still have in the forefront of our recent memories the botched attempt to execute a woman in America last week So why does the live streaming element the broadcasting element of it feel so awful when we don spend our lives or most of us don
3:59
Forgive me if you do. We don't spend our lives railing against the death penalty
4:10
We don't spend our lives railing against allies that kill criminals. So the thing that makes this story this story is the broadcast element, right
4:24
It's the broadcast element. And the reason why I say I wonder, it sounds a bit pompous perhaps, but I wonder whether we do evolve at all
4:33
Because it used to be a spectator sport in this country. relatively recently hangings would take place in public during the french revolution the guillotine
4:41
was a um was it was a i mean an attraction we have to famously have women knitting in the front
4:47
row wouldn't you but hangings here in tyburn and elsewhere were were public events people would
4:53
crowd into um into squares in in cities like edinburgh to witness hangings and i do you ever
5:00
read about that and think to yourself, what is it? What would I have been there? I read a lot of
5:06
historical fiction, as you know, and the heroes and heroines of these books, if they attend these
5:11
public executions, are always deeply discombobulated by them. She looked away at the final moment
5:16
and gasped at the barbarism of the crowd, hoping for a collective intake of breath as just briefly
5:24
momentarily the assembled throngs recognized the the cruelty that they were complicit in
5:32
that sort of line you know that is so it is good people don't do this but I think that's a bit
5:38
simplistic you have an execution a thousand people turn up for it there's no way they're
5:43
all horrible they're all fascists they're all psychopaths they're all uh evil is that it's just
5:49
just not possible well is it i don't know maybe i sound naive to you now but it will um
5:56
it will happen again in the united states of america when this man is executed by firing
6:03
squad there will be people lapping it up there will be people loving it there will be people
6:08
doing the knitting cheering the moment and i don't know why it's the first military execution
6:15
in more than 60 years. I don't know why the public nature of the execution
6:26
is such a troubling element to it. So, I mean, I've got two or three questions
6:33
for you this morning. The first is, pretty simply, how you respond to this story
6:40
I do think it's a moment. America is our closest ally in so many ways
6:44
not in every way, But in so many ways, Donald Trump's depravity has been non-negotiable now for years, hasn't it
6:50
Even though some people still cling to the notion that Richard Littlejohn, he wants him to be the governor of this country, wants him to govern this country
6:57
A sort of a Daily Mail columnist just hanging on by his fingertips after having one of his columns taken away from him
7:04
But he's still there and presumably still cheering on this sort of stuff
7:09
And people will and people do. people in I don't know what room you're in now
7:14
what room are you in now are you at work are you in company are you on a bus
7:18
it's not just who would watch it because there is a a grim
7:24
sort of slowing down for a car crash element to this isn there it not just who would watch it it who would enjoy it who would relish it And listen I can think of a criminal
7:37
I don't think it would be helpful to name them, but there's no prizes for guessing the kind of crimes that we're thinking about
7:43
I can think of a criminal whose execution would not trouble me too deeply
7:49
But intellectually, that's an emotional response. intellectually I recognise that it is a
7:53
it's a zero sum game. You either do it or you don't
7:58
And once you do it, you don't get to control who else it can happen to. So today it's an evil terrorist or a paedophile or a hideous rapist
8:05
Tomorrow it's whoever a government decides it's going to be. How confident would you be that if Donald Trump had free reign to decide who gets executed
8:13
in public that the process would end with the very worst criminals
8:18
I mean, spoiler alert, that was supposed to be the deportations. When he got elected for a second time, it was supposed to be confined to the very worst criminals
8:25
But guess what? It ain't. Because he was lying about the scale of that particular issue
8:31
So the phone lines are open. I do very occasionally find myself contemplating a story about which I am just interested in what you think
8:41
And today is one of those days. So tell me. 03456060973. and then I wonder
8:49
and this is a very kind of it's a very us kind of question this and I hope it's not inappropriately
8:56
I hope it's not a luxurious question the luxury of being able
9:01
to pontificate about these things but I think it matters first instance is why
9:07
well actually two questions underpinning the central invitation to you to just talk to me about
9:14
what this story is what it does to you. The first is, why do you think they're doing it? I asked a couple of colleagues this
9:21
morning and the best I got was, well, they're psychopaths. But that doesn't quite go the
9:27
distance for me. Why do you think they're doing it? Why on earth would you decide to
9:34
break this particular taboo? I mean, Hegseth is a hideous human being. Trump is morally
9:39
depraved. We know all of this, but why are they doing this
9:45
We'll talk to Simon Marks later this hour about some of the broader issues facing American politics
9:50
but this moment, this action at this moment, why are we doing this
9:57
0-3-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3. And then the two slightly more nuanced questions. That's one of them
10:06
And the other one is, are we being a bit hypocritical? Not in the context of the terrible things that happen all over the world all the time and the fact that we, as a country, as a people, possibly even as individuals, don't do enough to stop them or do enough to object to them
10:22
That's a slightly obvious position to adopt. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's not relevant to the conversation that we're having today
10:32
I just wonder whether we are being a bit hypocritical. If the only time that we feel the full horror of humans killing other humans in this way is when it is live streamed, when it's broadcast
10:53
Is it? I think it is. But I mean, you could disagree or I could be wrong
11:00
the turning it into a public spectacle somehow makes it immeasurably worse than doing it in private And you see I feel that in my bones right But I don know that I can justify it in my brain Why does turning it into a public spectacle make it worse
11:23
So question number one, how are you dealing with this? How are you responding to it? 03456060973
11:31
Question number two, why do you think they're doing it? Why do you think they're doing it
11:37
and question number three is it actually morally consistent
11:47
to be more disgusted by the public spectacle element of it than you would be if it were happening
11:56
in private I think it is but as you can tell I'm thinking out loud this morning
12:00
responding as you are to a story I never thought we'd be talking about you know the Iranians execute people
12:07
in public and we're pretty clear about the barbarism of that regime. ISIS executes people
12:13
in public. Does Putin? I presume Putin. I don't even know whether Putin executes people in public
12:18
but all right you know this is the United States of America. This is the land of Ronald McDonald
12:24
and Waffle House and now they're executing people in public essentially on live stream
12:32
I mean, this is Coriolanus snow, isn't it? This is the Hunger Games
12:36
This is extraordinary. But I think now, the more I think about it
12:41
the more I think this is what I want your help with most. Is it worse by dint of doing it in front of a camera
12:48
It is, isn't it? But why? Why is it worse? Why is it worse? I think it's only worse because it makes us frightened of ourselves
12:56
and it makes us frightened of each other. Doing it in front of a camera makes us frightened of how people are going to react
13:05
It maybe makes you frightened of how you're going to react. You're going to tune in. You're going to watch it
13:11
Why? Why does the broadcast element of this, why does the live stream element of this make it so very, very different from all the other executions that unfold in all
13:23
Because I'm, yeah, that's it. I don't need to say anymore. That's the question. So number one, what do you make of it
13:32
Number two, why are they doing it? And number three, what is it about the live stream element of this hideous story that justifies a sense of moral outrage that is different from the moral outrage we feel at other executions
13:53
state murder, you can call it whatever you will but why does the camera
13:57
make it all so different? Is this the same question? So there's three different ways
14:01
of asking you the same question. How do you feel? Why are they doing
14:05
it? You answer why they're doing it and maybe we get the answer to the question of
14:09
why the camera feels so crucial to the story, to the question
14:15
Anyway, that's enough from me. 0345 6060973 is the number you need. I
14:21
want to talk about this Not because I'm weird, but because we map on this program the decline in public morality on both sides of the Atlantic
14:30
And we have to do it because it's always incremental. It always follows a process
14:37
If he'd come in on his first day of his first term and announced this, the reaction would have been nuclear
14:43
But now, halfway through his second term, there will be people going, yep, that's on message, that's on brand
14:50
and there will of course also be people and these are the ones that continue to shock the rest of us the most
14:55
there'll be people who are going hell yeah bring it on pass me the popcorn
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