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1 Political Atheist  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 1:16:57pm

Some people insisted this would not happen. Wow I’m shocked at this.

2 Mattand  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 2:02:33pm

Not sorry to see this guy go, but killing him doesn’t bring anyone back. If anything, it’s giving him the martyrdom he craves.

Also, if calling Hasan a terrorist makes you feel better, have at it. However, the explanation for your headline edit has a Fox News kind of ring to it.

3 sliv_the_eli  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 2:40:21pm

I call Hassan a terrorist based upon decades of study of the subject. Hassan fits the classic definition of a terrorist, in that he is someone who visits violence upon non-combatants — and, despite most (albeit most certainly not all) of the targets of his attack being soldiers, they were not combatants — for the purpose of attempting to sow fear and thereby advancing a political or other agenda. Hassan, by his own admission, attacked his victims for the purpose of influencing U.S. conduct and policy in Afghanistan. Clearly, his actions had no reasonable possibility of actually achieving influencing U.S. policy, much less causing the U.S. to walk away from the war in Afghanistan, but there is no real question that the goal of his violent acts was, in fact, to achieve his desired policy. As for whether Hassan’s death will cause other fanatics to view him as a “martyr”, and whether, therefore, one might wish to have him rot at Leavenworth instead for the rest of his life, my personal view is that providing justice to his victims takes precedence over the fear that fanatic Islamists will hold him up as a martyr, particularly since they will hold him up as a martyr and hero regardless of what sentence he is given.

With that said, I am perfectly willing to consider opposing viewpoints, and will afford those who disagree with me — for example, your post suggests that we have different views about the death penalty, in general — the respect that they are due. Simply playing the “Fox News” card, while it has become a fashionable way in this forum in recent years to denigrate the views of those with whom one might disagree, doesn’t really do anything to promote debate or the general knowledge of the LGF community and, as I hope my response above indicates, is not an accurate description of why I describe Hassan as a terrorist.

4 Mattand  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 4:56:18pm

Well, let me make another observation/”play a card”: no one would be calling Hasan a terrorist if he was a blond white Christian.

5 CriticalDragon1177  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 5:24:30pm

re: #2 Mattand

Not sorry to see this guy go, but killing him doesn’t bring anyone back. If anything, it’s giving him the martyrdom he craves.

Also, if calling Hasan a terrorist makes you feel better, have at it. However, the explanation for your headline edit has a Fox News kind of ring to it.

True, but at least he’ll never be able to do it again.

6 CriticalDragon1177  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 5:49:43pm

re: #2 Mattand

Also one more thing, I think its fair to call Hassan a terrorist, after he murdered a bunch of his fellow soldiers like that.

7 Decatur Deb  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 5:54:08pm

re: #6 CriticalDragon1177

Also one more thing, I think its fair to call Hassan a terrorist, after he murdered a bunch of his fellow soldiers like that.

What’s the diff? He’s a dead jihadist walking.

(The BS meme about calling this ‘workplace violence’ has nothing to do with the legal approach to his crime. It’s a quirk of the incident reporting and analysis forms. Shooting a cab driver or store clerk is the usual feed to that entry.)

8 Dark_Falcon  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 7:07:45pm

re: #4 Mattand

Well, let me make another observation/”play a card”: no one would be calling Hasan a terrorist if he was a blond white Christian.

If he’d shouted “Heil Hitler!”, then they might well have done so. Hasan’s actions were indeed terrorism and it is those actions that STE, CD, and I are speaking about.

I respect you, Mattand, but please drop this canard. Hasan’s actions fit the standard and reasonable definition of terrorism, so it is reasonable to call him a terrorist.

9 sliv_the_eli  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 8:26:34pm

re: #4 Mattand

Well, let me make another observation/”play a card”: no one would be calling Hasan a terrorist if he was a blond white Christian.

Sorry, but I have to call Bull on that one.

Exhibit 1, a photo of a person with blond hair and blue eyes.

Link

Exhibit 2: The words of LGF’s very own Charles Johnson:

Link

A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. As with J.K. Rowling’s fictional Lord Voldemort, unless one is willing to properly name and acknowledge the evil, one cannot face up to and defeat the evil, regardless of whether it is borne of the right, the left, religion or racism.

10 sliv_the_eli  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 8:40:10pm

re: #7 Decatur Deb

The sad reality is that this home-grown terrorist could and should have been stopped long before he committed the act. As I recall, there have been a number of reports of comments and actions by Dr. Hassan prior to the incident which should have raised all sorts of alarms, but were ignored by his superiors in the military. They are referred to in passing in a NY Times article about the ongoing trial, which appeared last week:

In 2007, when Major Hasan was a resident in the psychiatric program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, the academic presentation he made that was required for graduation — known as his grand rounds presentation — stated that a risk of having American Muslims in the military was the possibility that they would murder their fellow troops.

He had also asked a supervisor at Walter Reed whether he qualified for conscientious objector status, told classmates during a fellowship that his religion took precedence over the Constitution, and in an academic paper defended Osama bin Laden.

Major Hasan’s radical beliefs and his correspondence with his Army superiors have played a limited role in his military trial, now in its third week at Fort Hood.

Prosecutors did want to use evidence that showed his ideology, including his grand rounds presentation and the e-mails he exchanged with Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant American-born cleric in Yemen who encouraged a number of terrorist plots. But on Monday the judge prohibited them from presenting that evidence to the jury, which is made up of 13 senior Army officers.

* * *

Major Hasan made another presentation in 2007 in which he argued that the United States’ war on terrorism was a war on Islam, and the class was so offended that the instructor stopped him before he finished.

He was promoted from captain to major in May 2009 and assigned to Fort Hood that July, and his officer evaluation reports referred to him as a star officer.

But the officer who assigned Major Hasan to Fort Hood told an Army official there that “you’re getting our worst,” according to a 2011 report prepared by the offices of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. The report found that Army officers who knew of Major Hasan’s problematic behavior gave him evaluations that misstated his performance and ignored complaints about his radical Islamic views.

One of the allegations in a lawsuit filed against federal and Pentagon officials by victims and survivors of the attack has been that the shooting, which left 13 people dead and more than 30 wounded, was preventable.

A Pentagon review of the shooting released in 2010 recommended several Army officers be referred for possible punishment for not properly supervising Major Hasan and found that the Defense Department was focused on fighting external threats rather than radicalization within its ranks.

The complete article here

11 Flavia  Wed, Aug 28, 2013 10:19:34pm

re: #4 Mattand

Well, let me make another observation/”play a card”: no one would be calling Hasan a terrorist if he was a blond white Christian.

Which doesn’t mean he’s not one. Just means we need to call more people terrorists who are terrorists.

Sorry this was necessary, glad justice is being done.

12 mr.JA  Thu, Aug 29, 2013 1:30:11am

So by your own logic, is Robert Bales also a terrorist? After all, he killed innocent woman and children. Don’t use Fox-like headlines, he is/was an American serviceman, and ‘terrorist’ is something very subjective, depending on your political viewpoint, nationality, etc.

This article sums up my concerns with this pretty much:
newyorker.com
Key quote:

*One dark-skinned Muslim with an Arab name kills two American soldiers. He is put to death.
*A second dark-skinned Muslim with an Arab name kills thirteen American soldiers. He, too, is put to death.
*A white Christian-American soldier kills sixteen Muslim civilians—three men, four women, nine children. His life is spared.

I realize that it has to do with the American system of ‘justice’ where what you plea is apparently more important than whether you’re actually guilty of something. However, this is not really the kind of ‘justice’ you expect from a country taking the moral highground. Whether someone pleads guilty or not, should not matter - you either killed someone, or you did not. There should be a judicial system in place that is blind, and punishes people based on the deeds they have committed, and not on some plea deal.
I’m in principle opposed to the death penalty, so very much disagree with this, and think it causes an even further erosion of trust in the US and its military on foreign soil.

13 mr.JA  Thu, Aug 29, 2013 2:07:59am

In addition, it seemed that Hasan was not allowed to plead guilty:

He is not allowed to plead guilty because the charges carry death as the maximum punishment and the government is pursuing the death penalty in Hasan’s case.

From:
armytimes.com

If this is true, and Bales was allowed to plea guilty and avoid the death penalty, but Hasan wasn’t, then something is really wrong. Someone has more info or background on this?

14 sliv_the_eli  Thu, Aug 29, 2013 8:59:01am

re: #12 mr.JA

As a general matter, I have not followed the Bales case, and do not have sufficient knowledge of the facts and circumstances of that case to render an opinion, much less opine, based solely on the color of the defendant’s skin, what the jury should have done or what I would prefer done. As my posts indicated, I have no qualms about sentencing a defendant to death based upon the nature of the act or crime. My view has nothing whatsoever to do with the skin color, race or religion of the defendant. I simply view the death penalty as an appropriate means of punishment in certain cases.

Moreover, since I do not know what circumstances led Bales to commit the atrocity of which he was convicted, I cannot opine as to whether he fits the definition of a terrorist, which I laid out in my post above. In Dr. Hasan’s case, there was no question as to his motivation. In fact, he openly acknowledged what his motivation was and, indeed, he sought to be put to death in order to become a martyr to his cause. From the news reports I have read about the Bales case, I am not aware of his having made any admissions similar to those made by Dr. Hasan. For example, was his goal to kill simply because he was angry? A bigot? Because he snapped mentally? If the answer to any of these is questions is “yes,” then his actions might constitute murder, but would not constitute an act of terrorism. If, on the other hand, he attacked civilians for the purpose of attempting to sow fear and thereby advancing a political or other agenda, his acts would constitute an act of terrorism and he would be a terrorist, regardless of the color of his skin, as in Anders Breivik’s case.


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