The Language of War

Muhammad Rasheed – [shared toon meme]

Muhammad Rasheed - Careful. You might get labeled a "kook" by a random Facebooker. That shit'll follow you the rest of your career. Oddly, if you direct the charge back at the random Facebooker it will only be "alleged" kookiness. It's in the manual. Look it up.

Pat Giles - This seems obvious to me and not at all radical. Why the hell won't they say it's "terrorism?"

Muhammad Rasheed - Because they are not trying to sabotage their carefully crafted agenda.

Pat Giles - I thought it was outright funny that the initial reaction on FOX was that this was an attack on "religion." It's like they are holding their hands over their ears and going "lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala"

Muhammad Rasheed - If the GOP wins the White House next year (and Jeb will sell his soul to do so), they have every intention of cranking the war machine back up. It's very important that the language exclusively used to describe their intended enemy-victim continues to point in that direction.

Rick Drew - I can see both sides of this. It was not done in the name of a "group" and he was not member of any group. He did it because he was pissed off. If someone launches an attack in the name of XXX, I'd say terrorism. If someone does it because they are nuts, etc, it's mass murder. However, any attack with the intent of causing "terror" can be consuidered a "terrorist" attack.

Rick Drew - But if you go by the definition of terrorism... "the unlawful use of force or violence, committed by a group(s) of two or more individuals"

Muhammad Rasheed - terrorism

[ter-uh-riz-uh m] 

noun

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

http://dictionary.reference.com/

Muhammad Rasheed - Rick Drew wrote: "It was not done in the name of a "group" and he was not member of any group."

Did you read his manifesto?

Rick Drew - The dictionary definition is not the same as the one the government uses, or is accepted as the "official" meaning of domestic terrorism.  Domestic terrorism in the United States (Wiki)

Muhammad Rasheed - The one you quoted was from a 1994 FBI memo. It has since been changed, under The Patriot Act, to include "(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."

There is no such "two or more" limitations in the current definition so defined. Note how the Wiki article you sited considers Theodore Kaczynski a domestic terrorist?

Pat Giles - Rick, I think it's definitely part of "group think" for an extreme point of view. The Tsnarnaev brothers were acting in the service of a larger idea, and not necessarily a particular group, but the label f terrorism wasn't questioned. Oklahoma city was definitely terrorism, too. I think we tend not to see gun related tragedy as "terrorism." He definitely had a "political" goal, dumb as it was.

Bar Barian - I have no problem call it terror, likewise the same goes for that whackjob soldier who wiped all those people out in Texas.