Is there a sound rationale, legal or otherwise, for the Obama administration / DoD’s decision to treat Major Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood as “workplace violence” instead of terrorism?
Online commentary on the subject seems to largely come from right-wing websites ascribing it to “political correctness” on Obama’s part, or the administration’s desire to preserve the narrative that terrorism has been eradicated. Both of these explanations strike me as self-evidently absurd, but what do I know? Anyone have a more charitable explanation…?
Workplace violence is a real thing. OSHA In this day and age of breaking news, it often presents initially as terrorism.
Just like domestic spree shootings and murder suicides can present as terrorism.
Really, it’s only a matter of classification and diagnosis, which goes to future prevention. It’s not really an either/or in terms of charges.
Stress and mental illness presenting like this cause workplace shootings. He was not in a sleeper cell. He’s not a typical American who would do this (McVeigh), and he’s not a typical Muslim who would do this (Tasnarev brothers, who targeted randomly). Fitting him into the correct category is difficult, so they chose the one that fit the best, perhaps, though not perfectly.
I’m okay with handling it in accordance to workplace violence, domestic violence, murders, etc., and not as an active combat zone. I can see why some people would demand more.
My understanding is that labeling it workplace violence means that the victims don’t get Purple Hearts and that the families of the victims are deprived of certain benefits they would receive had it been labeled terrorism. So it seems to make a practical difference. Also, according to the Pentagon, labeling it terrorism would have “[compromised] Major Hasan’s ability to receive a fair trial,” for reasons that aren’t clear to me.
I guess that’s really the issue here. To some people, his ties to Anwar al-Awlaki, his shouting “Allahu Akbar,” and his claim to being motivated by the war in Afghanistan make it self-evident that this was terrorism as opposed to just some nut going postal; and to the extent there are practical ramifications to what we label it, well, we should be labeling it accordingly. My question is, why are these people wrong? Or alternatively, what would have motivated the administration to characterize it otherwise?
The people ascribing sinister motivations to the government’s classification are ascribing sinister motivations. I don’t think the government is trying to trick anyone or cheat anyone out of anything. Smaller incidents like this happen all the time. Parts of this are horrific, parts of this are routine.
People react emotionally to the horrific stuff. But bureaucracy just rolls along doing its thing.
What are the motivations of the right-wing blogs? I would say workplace shooting=us, terrorism=other, and any emotional reaction (omg they’re not getting benefits!) is just a tool to further an agenda of “other.” Whereas you could argue making Hasan an “us” makes him not as scary as he’s supposed to be.
OSHA and other groups have been doing workplace violence studies for like, 40 years. BAU and other groups have been doing terrorism mindset studies just as long. Everyone knows their stuff, and made a determination.
No boogeyman came down and created a cover-up. If they’re hiding terrorism, they’re doing a bad job: List of incidents in 2009.
Notice Fort Hood isn’t on there, but another Islamic military shooting is. Little Rock incident. The victim didn’t get “combat” military benefits either, even though it the assailant was charged with terroristic acts.
Maybe the policy needs change or review, but I’m sure there are people who don’t want US soil to be classified as a combat zone.
This issue seems to be getting more attention as the trial heats up, both from various (right wing) outlets as well as some of the victimsspeaking up about it.
I’m still trying to understand what is the charitable reading for why the Pentagon and Army are classifying this attack as workplace violence. Is it, as the author of the above linked article suggests, that the Army is covering its ass for having failed to act on Hasan’s visible jihadist proclivities? Or is there some legal rationale, in the sense that it’s somehow easier to convict someone of workplace violence than terrorism…?
The handling of the classification of this issue is perplexing to me also, particularly in light of Joe Lieberman going on record as saying it was “the worst terror attack on American soil since 9/11”.
I don’t know how you call it terrorism but then you don’t.
It’s dicey territory. Hasan’s actions sure pass the smell test for terrorism, but it also looks a lot like the VT shooting, too. At least one section of federal law, 22 U.S.C. § 2656f(d)(2), defines “terrorism” as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” Hasan’s actions are difficult (but not impossible) to fit into that definition; he deliberately chose not to shoot civilians and despite some emails to Anwar Awlaki and cries of “Allahu Akbar” its not clear if he can really be labeled a “clandestine agent.” His emails to Awlaki ask some retrospectively disturbing questions about the morality of suicide bombings and the killing of U.S. soldiers, but everything is very general and there’s no planning or exhortation to take action. It’s hard to say definitively that he is or isn’t a terrorist under that definition.
As far as criminally charging him with acts of terrorism, I don’t know if there are charges for terrorism under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, if there are a cursory inspection doesn’t turn any up. If not, he’d have to be charged with terrorism in a U.S. District Court, and that opens up a whole new can of worms. 18 USC § 2331 says this:
To prosecute Hasan he has to meet this definition and his actions have to fit a specific criminal charge. Charging Dzhokhar Tsarnaev under U.S. Code Title 18 is arguably justified; he used what fits the definition of a weapon of mass destruction against civilians, but Hasan used pistols against soldiers. Charging him with premeditated murder and murder under the UCMJ is probably the simplest and the safest way of prosecuting him.
Long story short, I think not labeling him a “terrorist” comes down to not wanting to give Hasan any argument on appeal that his death sentence was unfair because (1) he was labeled a “terrorist” by the government before ever going on trial even though he doesn’t fit statutory definitions and was never charged with any charge of terrorism and (2) the Army awarded the Purple Heart to his victims, including living victims testifying against him, before he was ever even found guilty of shooting them. The official statement from the Pentagon says that awarding Purple Hearts in advance of a verdict would interfere with victims closure, which to me says that they don’t want to see him get a second trial. Maybe once Hasan’s verdict is final and his appeals are exhausted they’ll change their minds.
My understand of workplace violence is the typical “going postal” scenario. A person with a grudge against their employer or coworkers commits violent acts against them.
The Fort Hood Shooter seems like terrorism to me. He’s openly said just this week in his opening statement that he changed sides.
We have the same problem here in Little Rock. The guy that shot up the Army Recruiter station (killing 1 and wounding another) isn’t labeled a terrorist. He isn’t even facing Federal charges. He’s charged in state court. Our Congressman are still trying to get a bill through to get these soldiers Purple Hearts. http://www.armytimes.com/article/20110728/NEWS/107280331/Bill-would-allow-medals-2-Ark-soldiers
Are court martials this Kafka-esque? The guy is representing himself, but he is NOT allowed to plead guilty. He wants to be executed for the crime HE DID COMMIT.
Now the judge has stopped the trial, because he is sabotaging his own defense.
I mean the guy killed people because he wanted to kill them-what possibly is his defense? Is the army judge saying that you cannot tell the truth? Yeah, I know that a trial is a “search for the truth”-but the truth is not disputed by him. So find him guilty and sentence him. This farce has gone on long enough.
Hasan isn’t allowed to plead guilty because military law doesn’t allow a guilty plea when the death penalty is sought; the Uniform Code of Military Justice states that “[a] plea of guilty by the accused may not be received to any charge or specification alleging an offense for which the death penalty may be adjudged.” If the judge allowed Hasan to plead guilty, his conviction and sentence could be overturned on appeal and we’d be right back where we started. He has to be found guilty by a finder of fact, and to do that there has to be a trial, witnesses, and evidence.
ETA: Just to be clear, the judge didn’t stop the trial completely, he halted it temporarily to consider his standby defense counsel’s request to be let off of the case because Hasan was sabotaging his own defense and they wanted no part of it. He denied that request and witnesses resumed testifying today.
When you see the words “Department of Defense of Defense,” read “Obama/Holder Federal
Government.” I was in the Army as a DAC (Dept. of Army Civilian). Major Hasan was in the
Army with a Commission. He was not in the Army as a terrorist. He was not in the Army as a
Muslim. He was in the Army under the UCMJ.
Now I see why this trial has taken so long to convene. The Federal government wanted to
turn it into a political football.