Originally Posted by The_Dunedan

I can't because, as usual, you've misread and overshot my point by filtering it through your own stereotypes and prejudices. My point was precisely that which you have just made: SHE DID NOT DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS. SHE IS NOT A TERRORIST, SHE IS A MURDEROUS WHACK-JOB, AS I SAID BEFORE. JUST LIKE THIS SCREWHEAD WITH HIS AIRPLANE. YET DESPITE THE FACT THAT NEITHER OF THESE PEOPLE BEHAVES AS A TERRORIST, ONE IS BEING ACCUSED OF SUCH AND THE OTHER IS NOT. THE REASON FOR THIS IS VERY SIMPLE: ONE WAS A LEFTIST, ONE IS A RIGHTIST, AND THE POPULAR MEDIA AND ACADEMIC DISCOURSE IN THIS COUNTRY EXAGGERATES THE TERRORISTIC POTENTIAL OF THE ONE WHILE DENYING OUTRIGHT THE SIMILAR POTENTIAL OF THE OTHER. THAT WAS MY ENTIRE POINT. TRY READING IT THIS TIME.




Based upon my personal experience of academia, a great many (though by no means all) of them are, and (again in my experience) the loudest and most strident of these were also those most likely to demand deference "due to rank," to become emotionally overwrought and irrational, at times to the point of hysteria and bullying, when argued against or contradicted in public, and to act in unpredictable and at times vindictive ways. They were also the most likely to "spike" people's careers due to political differences; a very popular Anthropologist at my Uni, an expert on Native Americans, lost his job when he rubbed the politics and "Noble Savage" stereotypes of the Dept. Chair the wrong way in public, and the only reason a similarly popular History prof. at the same institution still has his job is that his research makes him untouchable. This is all observed during my 6 years and two degrees-worth of coursework.



Because the cases were vastly different. If, as alleged, Maj. Hasan was a neo-Islamic totalitarian radical, he undertook his actions in a frame of mind within which his actions might lead to a desired-for political/social change. If he was simply reacting against perceived persecution, of which I have never seen any indication, it calls his moral culpability as a terrorist into question. The alleged pilot of this suicide attack appears, from his own words, to have despaired of even this possibility. His rant, though political in its' nature, betrays neither the hope nor the belief that what he intends will bring about whatever it is he desires.

Notice in particular that he never describes what he wants. Terrorists -always- describe what they want. Al-Qaeda and Muslim terrorists desire various religious and political goals which they openly propagate, as did Maj. Hasan if the testimony of his classmates is to be believed; so did the IRA, the Unabomber, Charles Manson and Josef Stalin. This fellow doesn't seem to have described a desired end, just a crushing sense of persecution and despair.