Turley: Fort Hood shooter is a murderer, not a terrorist


By David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Friday, November 13th, 2009 -- 11:53 am

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Major Nidal Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the Fort Hood shootings and will be tried in a military court. The Army apparently sees no reason to treat the case as one of terrorism or turn it over to federal prosecutors, and the FBI has released a statement saying it has no information that "Hasan had any co-conspirators or was part of a broader terrorist plot."

However, this has not stopped Sen. John McCain, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Oliver North, and any number of Fox News commentators from demanding that the shootings be regarded as an act of Muslim terrorism.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow sees these assertions as stemming from an eagerness to charge President Obama with allowing "a terrorist attack on his watch," even if it means ignoring the legal definition of terrorism. She turned to constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley to explain the legal issues involved.

"I think that the Army is going about this in the right way," Turley began. "Criminal investigators and lawyers and judges don't have the luxury that some people have on television to just simply say this must be terrorism."

"You can't just simply say that because somebody kills a large number of people that it's terrorism," Turley explained. "There are plenty of people who act out of rage. ... Some of them are perfectly unhinged and they will latch onto religious views or political views, but what they're really acting out of is mental illness."

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"Terrorism is more than just killing people," Turley emphasized. "We're becoming a nation where we want to define everything as terrorism. ... We have a shooting of an abortion doctor, it's terrorism. ... A hate crime is terrorism. Well, it's not. It's murder."

Turley has maintained this position consistently in the past, even when it was liberals insisting that a crime be described as terrorism. He wrote last summer, with reference to the killers of George Tiller and a guard at the Holocaust museum in Washington, "There is an important legal difference between people who seek to terrorize a society through coordinated acts of killing and people who act on impulse to kill people they hate. ... Calling something a terrorism case puts it in a different category for investigation and prosecution. Special laws and punishments apply."

"Terrorism is when you not just murder someone but you're murdering someone to coerce or intimidate a government or society," Turley told Maddow . "There's no indication that [Hasan] went into this location for that purpose. ... Most indications are that he's a deeply disturbed individual who released his hate on these people."

"Is it possible for an insane person to commit an act of terrorism?" Maddow asked.

"Anyone who's a terrorist is by definition somewhat insane," Turley replied. "You really do have to have a screw loose."

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Nov. 12, 2009.

however those who were part of Iran/Contra were terrorists and should be in jail

Turley is qualified to define terriorist. He is not qualified to define insane/mentally Ill...

Definition of Terrorism
[Source: Patterns of Global Terrorism. Washington: Dept. of State, 2001: vi]

No one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance. For the purposes of this report, however, we have chosen the definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d). That statute contains the following definitions:

The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant (1) targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

The term "international terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country.

The term "terrorist group" means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.

The U.S. Government has employed this definition of terrorism for statistical and analytical purposes since 1983.

Domestic terrorism is probably a more widespread phenomenon than international terrorism. Because international terrorism has a direct impact on U.S. interests, it is the primary focus of this report. However, the report also describes, but does not provide statistics on, significant developments in domestic terrorism.

(1) For purposes of this definition, the term "noncombatant" is interpreted to include, in addition to civilians, military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty. For example, in past reports we have listed as terrorist incidents the murders of the following U.S. military personnel: Col. James Rowe, killed in Manila in April 1989; Capt. William Nordeen, U.S. defense attache killed in Athens in June 1988; the two servicemen killed in the La Belle disco bombing in West Berlin in April 1986; and the four off-duty U.S. Embassy Marine guards killed in a cafe in El Salvador in June 1985. We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site, such as bombings against U.S. bases in Europe, the Philippines, or elsewhere.

I do not see how this can be seen as an act of terrorism. This is a massacre, but not terrorism. It was on a military installation by a member of the military. The fact that no one knows what to call it doesn't give anyone the right to just shout terrorism. The definition above, has been extended from the original to include anything that could possibly happen to a person who is in the military whether the shooter knew they were military or not.

My own personal definition of terrorism is a lot more narrowly defined than this.

I agree that relative to the information that is publicly known, it wasn't terrorism and that Turley
has the expertese to establish that it was not. Whether he would be judged criminally insane is another
matter...