Ft. Hood shootings a "terrorist attack"?

Great Debates
#1

Now that the hearings have started the usual suspects are ramping up the rhetoric.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/us/politics/20hood.html?exprod=myyahoo

The scare labels are being thrown out there and roll off the tongue very easily.

The Ft. Hood shootings were tragic. Without more evidence of a planned conspiracy I have a hard time with the label “terrorist attack”.

If that evidence isn’t forthcoming then the killing of the abortion doctor was a terrorist attack. Oklahoma city was a terrorist attack but that label wasn’t readily used to describe the tragedy. Just because some nutjob with a religious agenda snaps I’m not ready to label it a terrorist attack.

I suppose if somehow Ft. Hood can be labeled a terrorist attack the anti-Obamas can accuse him of being negligent and can claim an attack occurred on his watch. That’s very convenient for their agenda.

#2

Why would the Oklahoma bombing be a terrorist attack but this not be? Just curious as to the logic behind this statement.

I don’t see how labeling this thing a terrorist attack or whatever effects Obama at all, to be honest. It was clearly the work of a lone nut ball, so there really was nothing Obama et al could have done about it, regardless of how you label it.

-XT

#3

I think the Army had enough info to do something; still don’t see how this lands on Pres. O’s doorstep, though. Face it; the U.S.A., in all it’s myriad Departments, Agencies, Bureaus, etc., is simply too massive for any President to be directly responsible for every single individual in them.

A President can set very broad policies (and catch hell/obstinate passive resistance from carreerist bureaucrats for it), and sign Executive Orders, but laying personal responsibility on a sitting President for the act of a lone individual is a little too much of playing “Gotcha!”

The blame for the Ft. Hood shooters starts waaaaay below the POTUS’s paygrade.

#4

Agreed on all counts.

-XT

#5

Depends. If Hasan’s correspondence with an Al Queda recruiter are part of the same group that was caught plotting to shoot up military bases then there is a conspiracy link.

The revelation that Hasan saw his earning power as his greatest asset suggests that he was funneling money to the cause. It also explains his austere apartment.

#6

Hasan was troubled and crazy. I doubt any group would have enlisted him. He was in trouble with the army and they transferred him to Ft. Hood because it was the biggest mental health facility in the army and they were short handed.He was in danger of being ousted by the army . Some brass just wanted him gone. This was his last chance.
That is according to his army bosses interviewed on TV today.

#7

Timothy McVeigh was troubled and crazy too, and yet I don’t think many people see what he did as anything but a terrorist attack. Certainly Hasan had issues…I’d have to say that ObL is troubled and crazy as well. MOST terrorists have issues…I mean, it’s not really normal behavior to strap explosives to one’s self and take a stroll through a mall, ehe?

-XT

#8

What’s the evidence that Hasan was “crazy” or a “nutjob”? It looks like he knew perfectly well what he was doing and why he was doing it, and had at least tacit encouragement (and possibly quite a bit more) from a recognized community of like-minded people. Looks to me like he was perfectly rational.

Why not? Seems to me that from the enemy’s perspective he would be a perfect jewel of a recruit. Terrorist groups don’t discourage people with troubled lives, they encourage and exploit them.

#9

duplicate post

#10

From ABC news: Major Hasan’s E-Mail: ‘I Can’t Wait to Join You’ in Afterlife:

Come on, if this isn’t terrorism, and specifically terrorism inspired (if not directed) by the enemy we’re fighting, then what is?

#11

Because in the OkC bombing there was more than one person, they went around buying and devising a huge explosive device with a planned, timed intent.

In Ft. Hood, this guy had religious convictions, found out the HE was being deployed to the war zone and went off with hand held arms. There is a huge difference.

Before it is labeled a “terrorist attack” I want to see some evidence that this was a planned attack with planning that involved other people. If his attack coordinated with another similarly violent act I then I’m all for the terrorist label.

I well remember 9/11. We were all looking for an “accident” until the second plane hit. Then we all knew that it involved a conspiracy and was an attack.

Again, the guy that murdered the abortion doctor planned his attack, had contact with others that supported his views, was motivated for religious reasons, yet he wasn’t labeled as a terrorist in the halls of Congress.

#12

:smack::smack::smack:

Sorry, XT, I actually meant to quote Spartydog when he said this:

Which doesn’t entirely invalidate his point; I’m sure there’s people who would happily blame Pres. O for the sinking of the Maine, as well as the Kennedy assasination.

#13

Why this arbitrary definition? And is this definition appropriate to the challenge we face?

I’d like to know whether a similar event in Israel would have been considered a terrorist attack. If a Palestinian had charged into an army base there and started shooting soldiers, would Israelis sit down and have a thoughtful discussion to the tume of “now hold on, this fellow was troubled, maybe he had strictly personal motivations we can’t fathom, his correspondence with terrorist leaders and his own espoused beliefs notwithstanding.”

#14

Responding to an inconvenient question in the Bush years: “Why do you hate America?”

Responding to an inconvenient question in the Obama years: “Why do you hate Obama?”

#15


Terrorist attack is defined as an attack against civilians to obtain political or religious aims. A nut who shot soldiers does not qualify. What political or religious aims was he likely to sway with that attack?

#16

That seems a rather tortured definition. It’s interesting how, like the war thread, a lot of this stuff hinges on convoluted and narrowly defined definitions, ehe?

-XT

#17

Again, does it correspond to other similar systematic events? The Ft. Hood shooting appears to be an isolated attack of one individual. A series of attacks by suicide bombers is something different. It seems to me that a pattern has to be established to label an event a “terrorist attack”. Such things have to be coordinated by an organization. Was the guy in Pennsylvania that shot up a bunch of people in a heath club a terrorist? He was about on the same level and just as crazy and misguided as the Ft. Hood shooter. Nobody got up in Congress and tried to make headlines by going into histrionics about rejected, middle aged white guy losers.

#18

The Ft. Hood shooter at least did shoot at other soldiers. I’d call it an attack with a terroristic bent, but not a full-blown Terrorist Attack. I’m with gonzo on this one; a true terrorist attack targets civilians in a somewhat (typically) indiscriminate method (suicide bombs, hijacking planes and flying them into buildings, etc.)

#19

Would you say that the attack on the Cole was not a terrorist attack then? What about the attack against the Pentagon? How about the suicide bombing of the Marines?

-XT

#20

Since they picked military targets, I’d again say they were attacks with a somewhat terroristic bent, but no, not full-blown, official Terrorist Attacks.