Depressing poll on nature of Fort Hood attack

Ray G. writes from Dearborn:

This is depressing:

A Fox News poll released Friday finds nearly half of the public—49 percent—think the shooting is most accurately described as “a killing spree.” Almost as many—44 percent—say the incident should be called an “act of terrorism.”

LA replies:

I agree it’s depressing. But given the constant repetition of the establishment message calling Nidal Hasan a deranged person, could we expect more than 44 percent to understand that it was an Islamically motivated jihad attack? Given that message, would you expect, say, 70 percent to say it was a jihad attack?

Also, given the false choice constantly pushed down people’s throats by the media that either the act was the work of a terrorist organization, or it was a spontaneous killing spree by an unhinged individual, and given the fact that Hasan acted alone, many people will naturally conclude that it was a spree. The media fill people’s heads with false concepts that make it difficult for them even to conceptualize a jihad attack.

Also, calling it terrorism is confusing. I would not call this an act of terrorism, which is defined as the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments. He wasn’t seeking to intimidate or coerce society in order to gain some political end; he was simply seeking to harm the infidel to the maximum extent possible. It was an act of war, not an act of terror. The word terror is greatly overused today, so that all Islamic enemies are called terrorists, and any act by the enemy is automatically called a terrorist act.

It’s like the scene in Goldfinger where Goldfinger straps James Bond to a table where a moving laser beam is about to slice his body in two. Goldfinger starts to exit the room, and Bond says in desperation, “Do you want me to tell you something?”, and Goldfinger answers, “No, Mr. Bond, I want you to die.” Hasan wasn’t trying to intimidate America into doing something. He wanted Americans to die.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 21, 2009 09:20 AM | Send