Here’s a piece from Slate, onlline magazine. The writer discusses the various definitions of ‘terrorism’ that are used in different contexts and wonders were Maj. Hasan, the alleged shooter at Ft. Hood last week, falls. The article exactly lines up with my view. Do read the entire piece.
Is Nidal Malik Hasan a “Terrorist”?
Figuring out what to call the accused Fort Hood shooter
Juliet LapidosA Rasmussen poll released on Wednesday found that 60 percent of respondents want the Fort Hood shooting “investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act,” while 27 percent “want the incident investigated by civilian authorities as a criminal act.” Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Sen. Joe Lieberman are on the 60 percent side—they’ve both referred to the massacre as “terrorism”; but President Obama has so far avoided using the term. Was the Fort Hood shooting spree technically a terrorist act, or a criminal one?
It’s semantic. There’s no precise, internationally accepted definition of terrorism or who qualifies as a terrorist. One 1988 study identified 109 definitions for terrorism, and it’s a safe bet there are now many more. The U.S. Code contains several classifications of varying scope. Perhaps the most wide-ranging is the one the government uses to exclude possible immigrants, wherein a terrorist is anyone who uses an “explosive, firearm, or other weapon or dangerous device (other than for mere personal monetary gain), with intent to endanger … the safety or one or more individuals or to cause substantial damage to property.” That is, anyone who’s committed an armed crime for a reason other than money. In a criminal context, the definitions are narrower. To garner a domestic-terrorism charge, the assailant must intend “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.” As for international terrorism, the actions must furthermore either occur outside the United States or “transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished.”
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November:14:2009 - 03:46
why is there a distinction in the first place?! when you kill someone on purpose in a civilian setting..it’s called murder. why is the motive a factor?!
November:14:2009 - 09:11
Because many legal systems believe there are degrees of purpose or intent. If you kill someone in anger, it’s generally charged as a lesser crime than if you killed one with premeditation, for instance. Also, you can intend to kill someone in self-defense, which is a very different category and holds no legal punishment.
Another category is killing someone to frighten society, or change a government’s practices/policy: Terrorism.
November:14:2009 - 14:57
Its a sad day when one of your own turns their gun on there own. I do not understand how someone could do that to so many of his own people and not have it be labeled as terrorism. He should be but in solitary confinement for the rest of his life for what he did and pray they do not give him death as that is an easy way out.
I spent 8 years in the army and 2 years in combat and never had one of my own turn a gun on me. Sure there were crazy people in the army but you don’t hear of people going out and killing that many people.
November:14:2009 - 21:49
How about a case of employee on employer rage? Criminal in this case unless he is found to have been not responsible by reason of insanity at the time of the shooting. Excellent case for a forensic, not a military, psychiatrist, or a forensic psychiatrist with a military background.
DDC PCS–unfortunately “crazy people” and people having a brief psychotic episode can be quite different. The former are usually more dangerous than the latter, although there are exceptions of course. Indeed this seems rather more like the stories of someone going to the local MacDonald’s and “going postal” rather than a fragging, or a blue on blue/friendly fire, or even taking the law into one’s own hands.
Not all military stresses are equal as I am sure you know. Rather like the false analogy of the twin soldiers who served in Iraq and one came home with PTSD and the other didn’t. Much was made of genetics and studying what made one vulnerable and the other not, when they were genetically identical. Obvious research design flaw: they had quite different duties while in Iraq. The one without PTSD had rather standard duties; while the other was assigned to clean out vehicles, ie pick little bits of flesh of his comrades out of the inside creases and crevices of military vehicles. Rather different stressors.
Now for true military insanity: Omar Khadr, 15 when captured too wounded to throw the grenade the doctored combat report said he did (and with evidence to prove it),will be tried in a military kangaroo court at Guantanamo, while Khalid Sheik Mohamed benefits from the full benefits of a standard US criminal trial, New York State version (ie death penalty, but at least a semblance of a fair trial):
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/725779–walkom-omar-khadr-heading-for-a-kangaroo-court
Must give the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who is defying the Supreme Court of Canada by not repatriating Khadr, the only Western citizen still in Guantanamo, at least part marks for this one, if not full credit, now that Obama is so eager to send all the Guantanamo prisoners back to their safe home countries. We don’t torture people, at least not on home soil, so I’m sure Obama would be happy to send Omar back to us, if only Harper would let him.