Fort Hood: Terrorism?

Was the attack on Fort Hood terrorism?

Senior politicians like Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) and Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich) are being careful not to call terrorism outright, but are beginning to raise the issue.  Addressing the issue of Hassan’s relationship with a former Virgina-based imam Anwar al Aulaqi, Hoekstra said:

For me, the number of times that this guy tried to reach out to the imam was significant,” Hoekstra said. “Al-Qaeda and radical jihadists use the Internet to spread radical jihadism. . . . So how much of [Hasan's] lashing out is a result of . . . his access to radical messages on the Internet and the ability to interact?

“I believe that the responses from Aulaqi were maybe pretty innocent,” Hoekstra continued. “But the very fact that he’s sent e-mail . . . to this guy and got responses would be quite a concern to me.”

While I was tempted to make fun of Hoekstra (”He sent an email?!?!?! You’re right, Congressman, it must be a plot!”), after reading Aulaqi’s post-incident praising Hassan’s actions, it’s clear that there is enough confusion to warrant a discussion.  After all, Aulaqi’s words are pretty derisive and chilling:

The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. Army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

However, based on what we know now, the totality of presently-available evidence compellingly suggests that the Fort Hood tragedy was a case of a very sick man who reacted violently to his impending deployment to Afghanistan.  In other words, it was not terrorism.

If you ask the State Departement, EU, or United Nations, definitions of  the term will slightly vary.  However, all definitions agree that terrorism’s aim is to “to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.” (from 2004’s UN Security Council Resolution 1566).

On balance, Hassan’s case does not meet this standard.

While you could argue that Hassan’s attack was motivated by a 2007 speech where he recommended Muslims should be released from military service as conscientious objectors, that “policy” recommendation was masked as cover for his growing objections and mental confusion and uncomfortableness as a Muslim in the American military.  It was personal, not political.

Consider his life story that lead up to this tragedy:  A second-generation Muslim-American, he joined the military probably more for what it offered (an eduction), than because of his conviction to serve.  His faith grew, and he became more aware of objections to the military’s deployments, eventually hiring a lawyer and offering to repay tuition fees in return for a discharge.

As a psychiatrist, he was exposed to an endless parade of mentally and physically tramatized servicemembers whose experiences no doubt reinforced Hassan’s objections to military service and deployment to a war zone, and placed him in a more fragile mental state.  As a result of this incident, hopefully improving “care for the caregiver” will be improved.

All the while, he mainted communication with the former imam, Aulaqi (now based in Yemen), whose own (and possibly very different) motivations for hating the United States may have indeed influence Hassan to “do something” about his upcoming deployment.  While Congress will also surely question the FBI about what it knew about their communications, hindsight is 20/20, and that the Bureau’s assessment at the time was appropriate given its finite resources.

But at the end of the day, Hassan acted alone, and because of a tragic combination of being a Muslim-American in the military who was exposed to a series of encounters that degraded his emotional health.  Closer to the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech, Hassan’s killing spree was the result of deep mental instability that reflected personal anxieties and tragically manifest themselves in the most horrific way possible.