Why You Shouldn't Call the Ft. Hood Shooter a Terrorist

[HotRocks]

Interesting article about why everything went down the way it did at Ft. Hood: http://www.tremblethedevil.com/my_weblog/2009/11/and-here-we-go.html">And Here We... Go

"Terrorism isn't about creating chaos simply for chaos's sake. Terrorists don't kill for the pure joy of killing, they aren't evil embodiments of some dark sinister incomprehensible force. That's where the Joker fails as a metaphor for terrorism. The Joker is terrorism only as we see it, he perfectly embodies terrorism only as we perceive it.

But that perception is never the entire story."

[ZombieHorde]

1. Unrec for putting down the Joker. nt

[MrModerate]

3. He's not putting down the Joker per se, just saying that he's not . . .

an especially apt archetype for terrorism.

[MrModerate]

2. Makes sense to me, but bottom line, we don't know what the shooter . . .

hoped to accomplish. I do agree that a mass murderer and a terrorist are two different things.

And it's not clear even when you have a pretty good idea what a given killer wanted to do -- as in the Freeway Sniper of several years ago. He wanted to terrorize people because he was profoundly hateful of people, with no particular political agenda to fulfill.

[pscot]

4. Let's see....he is a Muslim with a grudge

He shouted Allahu akbar as he pulled his pistol. He killed 13 American troopers and wounded 30 more. It seems to me that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck we need to face up to the idea that it might just be a motherfucking duck.

[RC]

5. It the shooter was a good church going Christian,

he'd be just another soldier who flipped out from the stress. But he was a Muslim, so therefore he has to be a terrorist who hates us for our freedoms. Never mind he was born and raised in this country, A major in the US Army and a doctor.