Okay…so in other words, a mass shooting resulting in 12 dead, you “don’t know” if it’s terrorism, but a priest being beaten up, you know for sure it’s terrorism.
That’s one fucked up definition of terrorism you have. Really fucked up.
That’s pretty broad. By these standards, any criminal at all is an “enemy.”
Al Qaeda is not a serious “adversary” or threat to the US, and we aren’t at war with them. Calling them national “enemies” would seem to stretch the definition quite a bit.
But if al Qaeda is an “enemy,” and hasan was acting in concert with them, then the attack on Ft. Hood was a legal act of war on a military target, and Hasan should be afforded the rights of a POW.
I would guess it was used to mean an enemy of the United States government and whom we recognize as an enemy too.
I think Hassan was a “nutjob” acting alone. But for kicks, if he was in acting in concert with a recognized enemy, then he definitely committed perfidy. If perfidy doesn’t negate POW status, then even if a military base would be a legit target, he would still in no way qualify as a POW.
eta: He shot people in his workplace. If he’d been an office worker, he might have gone and shot up his office. If he had been a person who was denied workers comp, he might have gone and shot up the worker’s comp building. Or he might have just snapped and shot up a shopping mall.
Is the word “nutjob” being used colloquially here, as in, anyone who kills 12 people must be a nutjob? In reality, we don’t know what Hasan’s mental state was at the time of the crime. It’s possible that he was sane at the time of the shootings.
Of course they are. Faux News is less of an news agency and more of a propanganda machine.
Depends on the way you define terrorist. The line is getting too thin, I think. The guy was a nutjob but I don’t think he was a terrorist. But calling him such allows the fruitcakes to claim that islam is to blame, the world has become too PC and that hey, anyone who doesn’t submit to christianity must be a threat.
Its a political football. I expect the morons to run with it.
It seems to me most of these office worker shootouts resulted from a loss of a job. In Hassan’s case, the very opposite is true. He wasn’t allowed to quit his job.
He is a religious fanatic who thought he could make a pact with the devil ( US military) in exchange for a higher education. Only as fate would have it, after 9-11 he found out the price would be fighting Muslims…fighting Allah. Its one thing when you take advantage of the devil, its another thing when you fight against Allah.
It is pretty obvious the poor guy was in a quandry. For quite a few years.
With his imminent posting to the front, it was time to pay up to Allah.
You could call him a nut, if you want to call all religious fanatics nuts. Very few religious fanatics however would have inadvertantly found that they are the author of their own transgression against their God.
I feel confident that if the military had let him go, all would be well. He would have been just a religious fanatic and not a terrorist or traitor or what have you.
I’ll never understand workers who go postal, but I can understand this guy.
I would say he was an Islamic nutjob who was driven by his twisted religious beliefs. He claimed that Islamic US soldiers should be released as conscientious objectors “to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events”. He went around haranguing his fellow doctors to that effect, that the Army should change its policy or there would be consequences. Then he went postal and created an “adverse event” … coincidence?
Was this an attempt to show the Army how serious he was, and to show the Army the dangers that they faced if they didn’t start letting Islamic soldiers be COs? Dunno … but it definitely makes Islamic sense, if no other kind. It makes enough Islamic sense that his actions were lauded by Anwar al-Awlaki, who was spiritual advisor to a couple of the 9/11 hijackers. al-Awlaki said on his website:
Unlike you and I, al-Awlaki knows Hasan. Hasan attended al-Awlaki’s mosque and exchanged a number of emails with him. al-Awlaki doesn’t buy the bullshit about how Hasan was just a poor tormented psychiatrist driven over the edge by listening to soldiers unburden their souls and describe their pain. al-Aklawi sees Hasan’s action, of killing 13 people and wounding 38 others, as a “virtuous” and “heroic” act … and Hasan believed what al-Awlaki said:
So I’d say yes, Hasan is assuredly a terrorist under the definition given above, someone who attempts:
I agree (I cannot abide the sophistry of the Bush government and its “enemy combatant” crap in order to avoid the Geneva Convention), but I think Hasan runs into trouble with POW status and Geneva Convention protections because he was wearing an American uniform at the time.
No. Just a criminal. I think of an “enemy” as someone who is actually an existential threat. Does anyone think al Qaeda is going to be able to overthrow the Untited States?
You may define an “enemy” like that, but the rest of the world has a more reasonable definition. After all, you’d hardly call someone who caused the death of thousands of your citizens a “friend” … and “neutral party” is clearly wrong … “acquaintance” doesn’t quite cover it … “someone who disagrees with us” is sophistry … yes, I think I’d go with “enemy”. Particularly since he wrote and signed a “Declaration of War” against the “Jews and Crusaders”, which includes the US. This hardly seems like the action of anyone but an enemy, even if he can’t threaten the existence of the US.
You are correct that he would not be a POW because he did not wear a uniform. There was no military hierarchy, ect. (reasons why the Taliban is not treated as POW’s).
But another, easier reason, is this is not a “war” between two States. al qaeda can never be POW’s because they are not a State. That’s just a plain reading of the Geneva Conventions.
He’s just a murderer who, may or may not, have motives that makes great news.