attending a radical mosque is stressfull, so he waited eight years to let loose? anyway I was just correcting you, not defending this guy or even giving a reason for his actions. I've been hearing several pyschs saying its a stressfull job listening to soilders talk about their experiences.
This seems right to me. The guy was a officer and a doctor in the US army. This does not appear to have been a coordinated act of terrorism in the sense that 9/11 was, or in the sense that we normally use the word. It is just one screwed up guy who went nuts. To call this an act of terrorism is a misuse of the term, in my view. This act by Hasan should be classified in the same category as the Charles Whitman sniping incident. Whitman killed 14 people and wounded 32 others from the top of the University of Texas Tower on August 1, 1966. If this act by Hasan is "terrorism," then so was the act by Charles Whitman. It is my sense that neither of them were. The MSM is reaching on this story. It is knowingly and intentionally playing on people's emotions in a destructive and divisive way. They are trying to use this incident to jack up their ratings by upsetting people and fanning the flames of our worst fears. This is despicable. If we as a people would be more discerning and more skeptical about these kinds of reports, that would force the MSM to raise their standards and to be more careful about this kind of thing.
Attending a mosque is alike attending a church. Thousands of people attend. Everybody in that mosque is not going to abandon it because 2 terrorists attended it at some point. Common sense is not very common these days apparantly.
I totally agree with you that once you sign the contract you are pretty much locked in and that is no justification for a shooting rampage but at the sametime shouldn't the Army be more aware of the possibility of a soldier snapping like this? The more I hear about this case there seem to be a lot of warning signs that were missed and perhaps the Army could've reassigned him to another position that was less stressful, limited his access or gotten him counselling. I don't know if something like this could've been prevented but it does seem like there were a lot of warning signs.
I agree. There is nothing yet here to indicate that this isn't anything more than the act of a lone madman.
Wow, this is fascinating... we know 9/11 was Al Qaeda...and this article says that 9/11 is linked to this guy at fort hood. So that means this dude is linked to Al Qaeda!!!! Al Qaeda is in the U.S.!!! But here's the thing. I've been watching a lot of Glenn Beck and reading Basso threads so....following the logic, and stay with me here a second... We know the Bush's are very close to Fort Hood, and that they were the first one there to comfort the families. So the Bushes clearly are linked to Fort Hood.... Wow....Al Qaeda linked to Fort Hood...Bushes linked to Fort Hood....Bushes linked to Al Qaeda???!?!?!?!? The conspirators were right! Basso. post a thread immediately about the Bushed being linked to Al Qaeda - that's definitely newsworthy!
wow! How spurious a link is that? He was a "member" of a mosque? first of all, unlike churches, mosques do not have standing memberships, you walk into the nearest mosque and just do your prayer and leave. Sure, some people stand around and talk after the prayer and meet and greet, but for the most part people stop by for the prayer service and then take off. Him praying at a mosque with a radical imam does not lead to a conclusion that he was involved with the planning of or in the same group as 9/11 terrorists. come on that is very spurious logic and nothing more than circumstantial evidence at best. the only aim here seems to tie the attack to a larger terrorist conspiracy against the US, iam not buying it one bit. this guy was nothing more than a deranged lone gunman with radical personal views. I am not really sure he merits more consideration than that guy in Cleveland who went on a killing rampage. They are both criminals and isolated actors, not part of some larger conspiracy.
Before this is all said and done, the question is going to come down to what the exact definition of a terrorist is. If a terrorist is simply someone who perpetrates an act of terror on innocent people, then this was an act of terrorism and Hasan is a terrorist. If to that you add the requirement that two or more people have worked together to plan and implement an act of terrorism, it is not clear at all that Hasan or his actions would qualify, at least based on the very limited information I have seen. Being influenced by hateful and murderous ideas does not clearly qualify someone as a terrorist. It might provide a motive, but at least theoretically, someone could be a terrorist and perpetrate terrorist acts without having a motive. Also, someone could believe and disseminate these hateful and murderous ideas without participating in a terrorist act. So the ideological reasoning behind a terrorist act, if any, really does not appear to be a determining factor in categorizing someone as a terrorist.
Don't forget the Bush family's grabass sessions with the bin Laden family. Do I smell another Michael Moore documentary??
Here is the def of terrorism: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. IT is not possible to be a terrorist without a motive of intimidation or coercion.
I think this is bigger. With the Bushes being linked first to Bin Laden and now to Fort Hood - this might be the first time an American president has had a hand in terrorism. Basso - do you think we should arrest Bush on charges of terrorism, it seems this is the point of this thread and I am intrigued by what you are proposing through your "linking" logic.
Example: The actions of a person or group of people who just liked to kill, maim and destroy would be acts of terrorism. Maybe they just like to hurt people, and blow stuff up. Perhaps it is amusing to them, or possibly they regard it as an act of art or creativity. They have no other underlying agenda, and no desire to manipulate or control. The definition you provided does not account for it. But this example would still be regarded as terrorism nevertheless. I am not aware of this actually happening, but it certainly could.
So a biker gang is a terrorist group? The KKK? A mob? What about abortion protesters who get out of control and destroy an abortion clinic? That's "destroying" - is it an act of terrorism then? Are kids throwing rocks at soldiers terrorists? They hate the soldiers and are trying to maim them...are they terrorists? Maybe all of these things are...it's an interesting question. I mean, under your definition, a lot of stuff can be applied as being a terrorist act. If 6 boys get together and murder someone, is that terrorism? Conventional definitions usually require some form of violent intimidation or coercion of a group coupled with an ideology to justify the moral high ground and it's usually targeted at non-combatants. Still, it's not universally defined.
An academically accepted distinction between terrorism and a random act of violence is that the former involves sending a message through the act. It could include symbols or an overt declaration. So the act may seem random at first glance, but it's deliberate and with clues by the group or person committing it. Going bat**** crazy doesn't qualify for a message.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573052,00.html nothing says "devout muslim" more than drinking it up at the local titty bar and getting lap dances from blonds a week before shooting innocent American soldiers in the name of religion.. Shows you how ridiculous the media are.
The characteristics of terrorism that I discussed above, which I am certainly open to changing my mind about, are just the product of thinking through the situations with Hasan at Fort Hood, Charles Whitman at the University of Texas, and the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11; and focusing on what the minimal elements are that characterize a terrorist or a terrorist act. Without a doubt, one of the primary required distinguishing factors of terrorism is the intention to generate terror. So six boys getting together and murdering someone would presumably not be terror, it would just be murder. But all of the other examples you mentioned, including the KKK, a biker group, a mob, or a bunch of abortion protesters could certainly be terrorists depending on what their actions were. Did they set out to generate an act of "terror?" It certainly appears that Hasan did. If any one of these groups committed an act that was extremely similar to Hasan's, then why would it not be regarded as an act of terrorism? Does someone have to be involved with Islamic extremism to be regarded as a terrorist? If a terrorist act can be motivated by ideological motivation other than radial Islam, then probably the violent acts by the KKK and the group of abortion protesters would qualify, and possibly the biker gang would as well. Hasan apparently had close associations with radical Islamic ideas. Charles Whitman seems to have just snapped from stress largely due to career and family problems. Both of them were apparently frustrated and under great stress. Hasan had an ideological motivation, and it appears that Whitman did not. Both of their actions terrorized the surrounding area for hours and left many people dead and wounded, and neither of them appear to have directly collaborated with anyone else on their efforts. These two examples seem remarkably similar to me. But according to your definition, if I am understanding you correctly, Hasan's was an act of terrorism and Whitman's was not, because Hasan was the only one with a ideological motivation. Is that right?
PTSD is the wrong term but he was a counselor for troops coming home and if you've ever dealt or read about the condition of military mental health care, its ****ing garbage. Therapists are completely overworked, seeing 15-20 patients a day at times. I'm not trying to rationalize this, but seeing that many people a day is never acceptable work practice as defined by the American Psychiatric Association and your patients do create an emotional toll on you. It is absolutely unhealthy to counsel that many patients both in terms of your health and your patient's. Either way, point being there has been zero evidence that he was part of some terrorist plot. We shouldnt be so quick to throw out accusations.
I have no idea whether he had PTSD or not. I'm not saying he had, but people who've never seen combat can still suffer from PTSD. You just need something very traumatic possibly for a prolonged period of time to happen to you. It doesn't have to be combat. It could even be a bad childhood. Neither of us know what traumas this guy did or didn't have.
