Religion vs. country, defining a "terrorist", and more

Though I realize I'm a little late in doing so, I wanted to make a brief comment on some of the rhetoric that came out of the rampage by Army major Dr. Hasan in Ft. Hood some time back. Some conservative commentators complained that there was too much psychoanalysis of Hasan's motives going on, as they felt this amounted to excusing what he did. Of course there is no excusing what he did, and if anyone was really doing so, they were wrong. However, this does not mean there was anything wrong with examining the factors which motivated him, including stress and perceived discrimination. When something like this happens, it is obviously necessary to understand it as thoroughly as possible, as only by doing so can we reduce the chance of similar incidents occurring in the future, even if only by a slight amount.

I have to say I didn't bother to read every article published on this story, or indeed more than a few, as I find the media's tendency to obsessively dwell on this sort of thing to be annoying. But I did note that several articles quoted Hasan as telling others that he was a Muslim first and an American second. This was cited as evidence that he was "unpatriotic", even as something that that should have tipped authorities to the fact that he might do something like what he did. Right-wingers apparently focused on it, judging from one of the subtitles at the bottom of the screen from the Sean Hannity show featured in this hilarious Daily Show clip (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-12-2009/sean-hannity-apologizes-to-jon), which claim Hasan "taunted" classmates by saying he was a Muslim first. Now, first of all, I'm not big on the whole "patriotism" concept (a topic which deserves a separate essay), but even for many of those who think of themselves as very patriotic, what Hasan supposedly said should not really be such a big deal. Most conservatives in the US, for instance, consider themselves devout Christians. Are they going to say that they put a higher priority on being patriotic toward the US than on God and Jesus? Are they Americans first and Christians second? If they are being as true to their faith as most of them claim to be, then they should be Christians first and Americans second. So this supposed statement by Hasan should hardly be regarded as shocking coming from a truly religious person.

Then there is the efforts to label this a "terrorist" attack. Joe Lieberman is one who used the term, and as can be seen from the above clip, convicted felon Oliver North is another, with some prompting from Hannity, who obviously concurs. But as this blog (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24894) so accurately points out, these people seem confused about the definition of terrorism. Terrorism involves attacking civilian populations in order to terrorize them with a political goal in mind, usually getting the population to in turn pressure their government to change or abandon certain policies or efforts. Until it is shown that Hasan went on a rampage with some specific political goal in mind, such as getting the US to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, then his actions, while still murderous and reprehensible, can't be called terrorism. Even if he personally wanted the US to pull out of those countries, his attack can't be said to have made specifically with that goal in mind unless he made a statement to that effect before or during the assault (you can't terrorize people into doing something if you don't tell them what you want them to do).

It seems that in fact these people who call Hasan a "terrorist" are in fact equating "terrorism" with "violent, radical Islam". In other words, a radical Islamist is a terrorist, and terrorists are all radical Islamists. This is of course absurd, as there have been and are many non-Muslim terrorists, including the IRA and their Unionist enemies in northern Ireland, the Zionists who bombed that Jerusalem hotel to force the British out of Palestine in the post WWII period, the fundamentalist Christians that murder doctors who perform abortions, and arguably the Allied leaders who approved the firebombing of Dresden in WWII, just to name a few. So while there is no excuse whatever for Hasan's actions, the rhetoric of the right wing regarding them shows once again how completely irrational they can be.