JustASC

Predictably enough, a certain kind of Jewish activist is eager to have the Fort Hood shootings labeled “terrorism.”

The soft, and sensible version of this impulse was expressed by Joe Lieberman:

LIEBERMAN: It’s — first, this was a terrible tragedy. Second, it’s too early — it’s premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan. But it’s clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we’re receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism.

And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.

But I want to say very quickly we don’t know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act.

It’s not premature for Daniel Pipes, who identifies himself as a charter member of the “jihadi school,” who, “still in the minority, perceives Hasan’s attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law.” Any attempt to identify Hasan’s motives — or those of the Brooklyn Bridge shooter, or Meir Kahane’s killer, or the Beltway snipers (!) — as anything less than “Muslim-on-unbeliever violence,” Pipes rejects as ”weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic.

But we need more useful distinctions than the binary choice between “lone wolf” and “terrorist.” The label “terrorist” is only useful if it helps law enforcement identify, investigate, or prevent the clear path from an individual to a cell, network, or distinct movement of planners and funders. 

So let’s agree for argument’s sake that Hasan was on a mission to kill infidels. That’s a hate crime. But if he wasn’t directed or trained or being “run” by a larger operation (and let’s not rule out the possibility that he was), how is the terrorist tag useful? 

I’d like to hear Pipes explain why the distinction is important — it would help deflect the frequent criticism of him and his fans that they are just looking to demonize Islam.  Pipes gives a hint in his last sentence: “And thus will the army blind itself and not prepare for its next jihadi attack.” Just remind me how declaring the Ft. Hood attacks “the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11″ might prevent the next one, and the next one.