There is not a perfect or even agreed upon definition of “Terrorism,” but I think this definition by Yohan Alexander in his 2002 book Combating Terrorism: Strategies of 10 Countries is about the best I’ve read. Consider his definition as you debate whether or not the mass murder by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was terrorism or a case of the crazies (or both):

[On the basis of the act, perpetrator, objective, motivation, target and method] Terrorism is defined as the calculated employment or the threat of violence by individuals, subnational groups, and state actors to attain political, social, and economic objectives in violation of the law. These acts are intended to create an overwhelming fear in a target area larger than the victims attacked or threatened.

It’s important to try and define terrorism, especially after the Ft. Hood shootings. What’s sad is that we still seem to have to do so even after 9-11. And what’s disconcerting is how so many persons hastily refuse to even consider that Hasan was a terrorist even while they condemn others for for doing so without thought or with haste, or both.

Maj. Hasan clearly had a political/social agenda  — he wished to not only avoid deployment to a Muslim country, but championed the idea that any Muslim in the military have the right to refuse deployment to Muslim countries — and illegally pursued the means to achieve it, committing mass murder.

Hasan “exchanged 10 to 20 e-mails” with Anwar al-Awlaki, still wanted by federal authorities, who was imam of a Falls Church, Va., mosque where three 9-11 hijackers attended. Hasan reportedly proselytized Islam to patients, was considered by soldiers who knew him to be seriously disloyal to both the military and his country, and worried fellow doctors by giving a 50-slide Powerpoint presentation promoting conscientious objection for Muslims and filled with disconcerting messages like “We love death more then [sic] you love life!” and “Fighting to establish an Islamic State to please God, even by force, is condoned by the Islam.”

U.S. Intelligence agencies reportedly were investigating Hasan for attempting to contact persons (i.e., plural) with known al Qaeda connections. He “spent time surfing radical Islamic Web sites,” and shouted “Allahu Akbar” — God is great — during his murder spree, thus mimicking Islamic terrorists who have done the same.

Hasan may have even been practicing the terrorist strategy of takfir, where the terrorist attempts to better blend into their role by conducting themselves in a manner of the kefir (unbeliever): Hasan reportedly went to strip clubs similar to how the 9-11 hijackers did (or then again, maybe he’s just a typical sexually-repressed, misogynist, Islamic fanatic who’s also a hypocrite).

Hasan sure sounds like a terrorist. He may not have been a card-carrying member of al Qaeda (there is no such thing), rather just a wannabe, and perhaps even crazy too. It’s not an either-or paradox. He could have both “gone nuts” and been a blatant Islamic militant.

But ask yourself this: If Hasan had been a Tim McVeighesque Bible-thumper who proselytized to patients about an angry Jehovah; who championed conscientious objection for Christians serving against other Christians (say against any further enforcement of Balkan issues); who was a frequent visitor and hate-posting member of neo-Nazi websites; who delivered 50-slide Powerpoints on the evils of gay marriage or abortion; who was known to be in contact with persons connected to white militias or domestic terrorist groups; and then chanted “Onward Christian Soldiers” as he gunned down persons in a Planned Parenthood facility…

… would Hasan still have been in the military or kicked out long before? Would the FBI be calling his pre-shooting behavior “benign” now? Would we be fearing that the same politically correct atmosphere that at least in part exacerbated the chances of success for 9-11 is back with us? Would Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey Jr. be on television defensively arguing the importance of “diversity” and not wishing to offend religious liberties? Would not the media be screaming “[right-wing] terrorist” at the top of their lungs?

The answers to those questions should be obvious to all of us.

Michelle Malkin asks the reasonable question of why the heck do we have to find this out from the UK Telegraph? (Perhaps because that same PC mentality forbids our media from asking the obvious questions).

[UK Telegraph] [Major Nidal Malik] Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen”.

Here’s Mark Steyn:

After my comparative body count in my “fear for Muslims” post last night – non-Muslims 13, Muslims 0 – a snotty liberal wrote to wonder sneeringly how I knew the dead at Fort Hood were all non-Muslims. He thinks he’s refuting my point but in fact he’s making it for me: The soi-disant ”moderate Muslim” has far more to fear from a coreligionist boarding the subway train yelling “Allahu akbar!” than he does from the allegedly “Islamophobic” Americans forever on the brink of “backlash”. That our media cannot see what the commenter above sees is, even in a relativist age, a very advanced stage of decadence.

This is a great commentary on the evils of political correctness by author and former Lt. Col. Ralph Peters:

[NY Post] On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting “Allahu Akbar!” committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.

When the terrorist posts anti-American hate-speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as “Palestinian” in a Muslim spouse-matching program, and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit — well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an “Islamist terrorist.”

But the president won’t. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there’s no such thing as “Islamist terrorism” in ObamaWorld.

And the Army won’t. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America-haters is safer than calling terrorism “terrorism.”

And the media won’t. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops — despite their crocodile tears.

Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn’t killed on the spot.

Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming “harassment” drove him temporarily insane. There’ll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn’t dare pursue or carry out the death penalty.

Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.

But Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Ft. Hood.

Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.

Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoon. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.

Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. 31 soldiers were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don’t roll in this maggot’s chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.

There’s another important issue, too. How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? An Islamist whacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who’ve been assigned to his care? And he’s not removed from duty? What planet does the Army live on?

For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I’m ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.

Get ready for the apologias. We’ve already heard from the terrorist’s family that “he’s a good American.” In their world, maybe he is.

But when do we, the American public, knock off the PC nonsense?

A disgruntled Muslim soldier murdered his officers way back in 2003, in Kuwait, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Recently? An American mullah shoots it out with the feds in Detroit. A Muslim fanatic attacks an Arkansas recruiting station. A Muslim media owner, after playing the peace card, beheads his wife. A Muslim father runs over his daughter because she’s becoming too Westernized.

Muslim terrorist wannabes are busted again and again. And we’re assured that “Islam’s a religion of peace.”

I guarantee you that the Obama administration’s non-response to the Ft. Hood attack will mock the memory of our dead.

TEHRAN – Iran’s supreme leader, spurning what he described as several personal overtures from President Obama, warned Tuesday that negotiating with the United States would be “naive and perverted” and that Iranian politicians should not be “deceived” into starting such talks.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 70, said Obama has approached him several times through oral and written messages. It was the second time that Khamenei, who wields ultimate political and religious authority in Iran, has referred to the president’s outreach.

The White House has not confirmed sending letters to the Iranian supreme leader but has acknowledged a willingness to talk to Tehran and said it has sought to communicate with Iranian leaders in a variety of ways.

I guess the Ayatollah doesn’t believe in “reset buttons.” And so once again we find the liberal’s notion of engagement lacking once it hits the hard shell of reality.

This week also marked the 30th anniversary of the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran, in which another equally inept American President displayed a lack of courage in the face of harsh adversity. Then again, at least Jimmy Carter tried once to stand up to the mullahs (before giving up after one bad day in the desert). Obama, on the other hand, simply responds with meaningless jargon, which no Iranian hardliner will ever respect, much less fear.

And just how impotent does Obama look in their eyes? The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reportedly asked Iran to “explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design.” That’s pure contempt for every olive branch Obama has offered.

Indeed, anti-Ayatollah protesters in Iran are likewise fed up with the Obama administration’s refusal to promote democracy and angered by what they see as his betrayal of their Summer uprising. Here’s ABC News’ Jake Tapper:

“Obama, Obama, you are either with them or with us,” anti-government protestors chanted in Farsi in an amateur video.

Such an appeal, directed specifically at President Obama, is new among Iran’s anti-government protestors.

The Associated Press called the appeal startling.

Perhaps it’s startling for your average pro-Obama media lapdog, but for anyone who paid attention to the headlines in Iran over the past few months, it’s not.

Michael Goldfarb worded it best, “It’s like Battered Wives Syndrome, except President Obama is the bride with the black eye and Ayatollah Khameini is the abusive husband.”

Tammy Wynette, anyone?

Over at TownHall.com, Arizona Rep. John Shadegg has a creative op-ed that seeks to personalize how the Democrat’s 1,900-page Obamacare bill would affect a middle-class family, notably through one fictitious Mary Smith.

Just about every adverse effect is covered by Shadegg, but the one that stands out the most to me, the one that exposes how damning this bill is, is the provision that would end Healthcare Savings Accounts. In a word, it’s un-American. I see no worthy aspect whatsoever in creating any disincentive of savings, whether for healthcare or something else. It really shows how power-hungry the Democrats are — any threat at all to their goal of centralized control and statism, even with something like an HSA, which until now had been universally applauded, will simply not be tolerated by the Democrats.

Mary gets her insurance through her employer. She has a plan that suits her needs, and has a great relationship with her doctors. She’d like more personal say in her plan, but like 83% of Americans, she’s basically happy with her care. Why don’t the politicians just fix what’s broken—cover those without care and people with pre-existing conditions? Instead, they are forcing her to change her plan. H.R. 3200, the House bill, changes every plan in America. Some are outlawed sooner, but virtually all are disqualified in five years.

Mary’s parents also lose the coverage they know, understand, and like. They have Medicare Advantage, which provides benefits they like over and above regular Medicare. Under Nancy Pelosi’s proposal and the Senate bill, that program will disappear.

What’s worse: when Mary goes shopping for a new plan, it will have been designed by a government bureaucracy, even if the so-called “public plan” isn’t adopted. These new, “government-approved” plans will make her pay for services she doesn’t need, and can’t afford, like alcohol and drug counseling, even if these aren’t health care concerns for Mary or her family. She’ll be forced to buy services she doesn’t want because it will be illegal to buy just what she needs. It’s like being forced to buy a multipack of cereal boxes when you know you’re only going to eat the corn flakes.

The government will dictate coverage requirements, reimbursement rates, prices—even “approved” marketing practices and “free” wellness coverage. “Free” wellness coverage? Who’s kidding who? She knows nothing is free. Of course costs will go up. Like it or not, Mary’s family will lose the plan they have and maybe the doctors they like and trust. And, the government is serious about making that happen. If Mary doesn’t comply and purchase a “government-approved” plan, she’ll be fined. If her conduct is willful, she’ll be guilty of a misdemeanor. When did health care “reform” become about punishing people instead of controlling costs and helping the uninsured?

With thousands of pages creating 53 new boards and bureaucracies, Mary will lose the freedom to make her own health care decisions. Washington politicians are seizing the power to control health care for their political gain.

Instead they should be giving Mary and millions of American families the ability to make their own choices, imposing discipline on health insurers and providers to control cost.

Mary won’t even be able to keep her Health Savings Account (HSA). For years, she has been putting money away tax-free to help cover future medical expenses. Why is Congress outlawing HSAs through the fine print of a 1,502 page bill?

Even her 22-year-old daughter, who is looking for her first job after college, will be hurt. She’ll be compelled to buy insurance at rates that subsidize the elderly. That’s right: the “government-approved” plans set the rates for the youngest and oldest, and Mary’s daughter’s policy will cost far more than the actual cost to insure a 22-year-old. Because the bills also compel all employers to provide coverage, the cost of hiring employees will go up and hurt her daughter’s chance of finding a job.