re: #908 Bagua

Define violence, if it involves an obviously well planned attack targeting US Soldiers in a terrorist attack by an apparently devout Muslim man obsessed with Islam then jihad is the most likely answer.

Jihad is also a word whose definition and meaning the terrorist would have know culturally. To us he is a lunatic and an aberrant monster, in his apparent culture he is a shaheed, a martyr.

His culture is American! He was born and raised here, and we hardly have a culture that supports glorifying mass murderers.

And I have to say I don’t think you can call all islamic violence “jihad”. Would muslim bank robbers be on jihad, or would they just be criminals who were muslims? Did Hasan shave all his body hair? And how do you know this was well planned? Do you really think he was trying to spread islam, or was he trying to get out of going to Afghanistan?