Oklahoma jihadist will be given death sentence

The Federalist reports that the ISIS sympathizer who violently decapitated a mother working at a food processing factory in Moore, Oklahoma, will finally be put to death for his crime:

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court essentially cemented the execution of America’s least known Islamic terrorist. Jihadist convert Alton Nolen is now set to be put to death in Oklahoma, likely by nitrogen gas inhalation.

The Supreme Court’s October 1, 2018 rejection of Nolen’s final death penalty appeal went unremarked upon by news media so, partly as a result, I missed it. But the Nolen case is very much worth remembering, along with all terror attacks that occur on U.S. soil, if not just for the victims and their survivors but for lessons that can and must be learned.

The September 24, 2014 attack in Oklahoma is somewhat notable in the annals of many officially uncalled terrorist strikes in that Nolen emulated a favorite ISIS death tactic no doubt learned online: he fully beheaded a co-worker—the beloved wife, mother, and grandmother Colleen Hufford—inside the Moore, Oklahoma food processing plant where they both worked. Shouting “Alluah Akbar” throughout the attack, Nolen used the same oversized butcher knife on the neck of a second co-worker, Tracy Johnson, when the company’s chief operations officer, a reserve law enforcement officer named Mark Vaughn, burst in with an AR-15 rifle. He shot and wounded Nolen as Nolen disengaged from his second victim and charged at him with the bloody knife.

Such an attack must generate a particular horror in its witnesses and, when Nolen is finally put to death, one should keep in mind what Hufford must have experienced in her last moments.

Nolen fully deserves to be executed for what he did to that poor woman. And it's shameful that the Obama administration refused to call the tragedy what it was - a terrorist attack. Similarly, it's shameful the press all but ignored the latest developments, in their effort to avoid serious issues. The Trump administration would do well to hold a memorial for the victim, to show that these innocents will not be forgotten after the terrible incidents that took place.