A few thoughts on this.
I'm strongly against capital punishment. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty who deserve to die and the world is better off without. But our criminal justice system, while good, has made too many mistakes. Plus, given all the appeals and whatnot, it's actually cheaper to keep someone in jail for life than to execute them.
The problem with our society is when it comes to violence, we live in a state of almost childlike innocence. The vast majority of Americans have NO exposure to real violence and death. The vast majority of Americans have never seen another human die, in real life or on video. The vast majority of Americans have never even seen a real dead body. We censor any death or gore on news, and call ourselves civilized.
Even our 'violent' movies and TV are nonsense- the bad guy gets shot, a squib goes off under his shirt, and he falls down. Meanwhile the hero is taking blow after blow that (in reality) would each cause life-altering injuries. It's almost cartoonish.
So with this innocent ignorance, we then debate things like war, gang violence, and capital punishment as abstract academic concepts, as we have no frame of reference to ground them in reality.
Personally I think more Americans should acquaint themselves with the reality of the world we inhabit. The reality is that human bodies are fragile as hell, it doesn't take a lot to seriously wreck one in all kinds of ways, and when that happens it's NOT funny or pretty.
So for that reason, I would like to see at least the recordings of executions be made public. If the American people are going to discuss a policy, they should see what they are actually discussing. I suspect one video of an electric chair execution would be enough to end capital punishment in the USA for good. But even still with firing squad, I think people should see the reality of turning a living human into a dead human.
With that all said- this is NOT the place to do that.
This is not about domestic policy. This is about international peacekeeping. To the Islamic extremists, this guy is a hero. Shoot him live on TV and you turn him into a martyr. The extremist people WANT to die in service of their cause. Death is not a feared consequence, it's the expected end of martyring themselves. You think someone who goes to shoot up a mall expects to live through to retirement? No, they understand that's the end, they just want to take out others at the same time.
This video would not 'strike fear in their hearts', it would be a recruitment tool! This is something anyone with even the most basic understanding of Islamic extremism understands. I don't understand why the so-called experts are ignoring it.