A terror attack is an attack against civilian targets for political purposes. What we seem to know is that Fort Hood was an attack against military targets for political purposes.
Anybody calling Fort Hood a "terror attack" and blaming Obama in the same breath is doing it for political purposes, that for sure.
I kind of doubt if it was for political purposes.
I would guess (I admit it is a guess) that it was an act in consort with his religious beliefs.
I tend to believe (at this point) that he acted in good conscience to save other Muslim believers from American military that he felt would be deployed overseas, and that he believed it was wrong.
I base that on what I have heard so far.
If he really wanted to target the military for political purposes he could have planned out something quite a bit more strategic with a bomb or something. He being a psychiatrist has to be of a reasonably high IQ as well as being a Major, would have given him potential access to be a lot more covert. In fact the notion that he was so verbal about his beliefs and problems with the US would kind of make it a lot harder for him to carry out a more politically and potentially deadly assault in my view.
I do not think that this particularly reflects on Obama as much as it just brings to question if political correctness exerted pressure or influence to such a degree that an unnecessary event occurred that could have been avoided. It seems like their were numerous warning signs that could have and very possibly should have sparked some intervention.
Blaming Obama on this one is pretty skewed given the fact that Major Hasan had made a speech in 2007 that should have raised eyebrows and elicited some form of attention back then.
People can raise the issue of whether Obama's policies are those that may increase political correctness and pressure in some way to cause a hands off approach to those that express the types of things that Maj. Hasan had. But blaming Obama on this one I think is reaching, and not really logical. You may as well blame Bush too because he was in office when a lot of this was brewing and nothing was done
For Islam, there is no separation between the civil and religious. Thus if he did it for political purposes, my wording is correct and if he did it for religious purposes, I just used a synonym.
As for Obama's role in this, he had none. Individuals usually act on their own for their own purposes.
If Obama was responsible, then we will see a wave of these kinds of actions and the individuals will have a consistent reasoning for their action that hearken back to something Obama did or said. That is an argument that it's adherents will be responsible for making.
How would you define these? Political or religious or were were they just nuts?
A gunman walked into an immigration services center in downtown Binghamton, N.Y. on Friday, killing an unknown number of people, wounding at least six, and taking as many as 41 hostage. Here is a glance at some of the worst U.S. mass shootings in recent years:
• March 29, 2009: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, N.C. before a police officer shot him and ended the rampage.
• March 29, 2009: Devan Kalathat, 42, shot and killed his two children and three other relatives, then killed himself in an upscale neighborhood of Santa Clara, Calif. Kalathat's wife was critically injured.
• March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people • including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy • across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.
• Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.
• Dec. 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opened fire with a rifle at a Von Maur store in an Omaha, Neb., mall, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.
• April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
• Oct. 2, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, shot to death five girls at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, then killed himself.
• March 21, 2005: Student Jeffrey Weise, 16, killed nine people, including his grandfather and his grandfather's companion at home. Also included were five fellow students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minn. He then killed himself. Seven students were wounded.
• March 12, 2005: Terry Ratzmann, 44, gunned down members of his congregation as they worshipped at the Brookfield Sheraton in Brookfield, Wisconsin, slaying seven and wounding four before killing himself.
• March 5, 2001: Charles "Andy" Williams, 15, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif.
• Nov. 2, 1999: Copier repairman Byran Uyesugi, 40, fatally shoots seven people at Xerox Corp. in Honolulu. He is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
• July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people in shootings at two Atlanta brokerage offices, then killed himself.
• April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school's library.
• May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when Kip Kinkel, 17, opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents.
• March 24, 1998: Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, killed four girls and a teacher at a Jonesboro, Ark., middle school. Ten others were wounded in the shooting.
• Oct. 16, 1991: A deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby's Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life. 20 others were wounded in the attack.
• June 18, 1990: James Edward Pough shoots people at random in a General Motors Acceptance Corp. office in Jacksonville, Fla., killing 10 and wounding four, before killing himself.
• July 12, 1976: Edward Charles Allaway, a custodian in the library of California State University, Fullerton, fatally shot seven fellow employees and wounded two others.
• Aug. 20, 1986: Pat Sherrill, 44, a postal worker who was about to be fired, shoots 14 people at a post office in Edmond, Okla. He then kills himself.
• July 18, 1984: James Oliver Huberty, an out-of-work security guard, kills 21 people in a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif. A police sharpshooter kills Huberty.
• May 4, 1970: Four Kent State University students were killed by Ohio National Guard troops during a campus protest of the invasion of Cambodia. Nine people were wounded.
• Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman opened fire from the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31.
I'd call them sick crazy SOB's! Ooops, I can't say that here can I?
We are a violent species. It's not just the violence, it's the pointlessness of much of violence. Violence that serves a purpose can be discussed to determine if the end justifies the means. But violence that is just lashing out doesn't lend itself to "improvement".
SchoolBoy, I did not know that the civil and religious were the same for Islam, as you have stated.
I do not have much knowledge of Islam beyond the surface.
My comments were pretty much impressions based on the peripheral information (as I said, that I presently have).
I agree that the comments about Obama would be for political reasons.
SB said:
"What we seem to know is that Fort Hood was an attack against military targets for political
purposes."
Assuming that you are correct on your comment that the religious is synonymous with political, then it follows that this last statement is accurate also.
The question of the thread seems to be about whether this was a terrorist act.
It seems that technically and probably legally that it is not terrorism, or determined to be so at this point.
On a non technical level, what is important to me is that we learn what happened, and see if we can take actions that are reasonably appropriate to help avoid the possibility of something like this from occurring in the future.
I have to accept that their are things that we don't yet know that may have contributed to the complexity to the matter.
It seems that Major Hasan objected to fighting against other Muslims and wanted to conscientiously object to being deployed. He raises the issue of this objection for other Muslims.
It does not make a lot of sense to me to send somebody to fight in a war that they are opposed to.
People's lives are dependent on working together and protecting each other.
So I think long term he has raised that issue and in that sense he has probably been politically successful.
It sounds like he gave numerous warning signs of having extremists views that included agreement with the use of violence towards non believers.
The question is, if people knew of this, why was nothing done to take note and use reasonable precaution to insure the safety of others?
I have to agree that we don't yet know all of the answers to this. But that is something that I think needs to come out and be addressed in a fair and just way to see what events transpired and how this was seemingly overlooked.
The obvious question comes up as to whether people did not report things due to pressure of not stereotyping, or trying to be politically correct. I think that that is a reasonable question and should be addressed. However to be fair their may be other wrinkles here that we have not learned that could have contributed.
I do not see how most would not agree that their was a failure somewhere that contributed to this tragedy, and that it needs to be looked into.
I just think that their are arguments on both sides that really need to be addressed concerning the particulars here. It seemed Maj. Hasan possibly premeditated this, and although their seems to be a personal component (to be sure) their also is an ideology held by numerous people that is part and parcel here.
I think as a nation (even in my example of admitted ignorance) we need to be more educated about what the heck that we are dealing with. We need to spread info on the difference between those that are Muslims and do not believe that killing others is justifiable, in cases other than self defense, from those that do.
If more hatred and ignorance is to be avoided we do need to make efforts to keep people from stereo typing all together as an enemy. Human nature is what it is. the moderate Muslims, in my opinion have the greatest capability to help Americans to understand that they do not agree with these violent methods.
But we also can not allow ourselves to be bullied into not acting on information that should raise enough of a red flag to warrant appropriate investigation.
My overall thought is that our country does need to become more informed as a whole on what we are being drawn to contend with here. I think that the average American does not really have a very clear understanding of what we are dealing with (including myself).
Ignorance probably does not breed understanding.
People are going to be emotional because many are now dead and wounded.
I agree that we should have a wait and see attitude but I think that these things need to start to be addressed in an informative way by our leaders.
I hope that we can all learn from this.
And LLL, I need a sugar Daddy or Mama to help support my family while I study all of your examples in order to get back to you on that.
Got any suggestions?
LOL Starbucks, my treat, next time you are out this way Ben lol...
I disagree with SB because all the facts so far demonstrate this guy was the typical loner with serious mental problems. The only different scenario from many of the others is that he wasn’t going to school and he didn’t work for the post office. OK, bad joke. But further investigation may prove SB right which is why they are still investigating, but we all know the conspiracy theorist are just getting started with this one.
After all, he was Muslim and we all know how evil that is :0))
