Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter Lane
A Crime, Not Terrorism
RECEIVED Sun., Nov. 22, 2009
Dear Editor,
Ephraim Levin writes [“Certain Fort Hood Was a Terrorist Attack,” Postmarks, Nov. 20], “Investigators will find the antagonist was recruited and trained by a terrorist group.” The best known reporting so far is that Major Nidal Malik Hasan sought out an al Qaeda contact (they didn't recruit or train him) – maybe. Maybe it is true that he was indeed recruited and trained by a terrorist organization – the U.S. Army. Or does Levin perhaps mean to say that all Muslims are a terrorist group? That would be in keeping with the conservative evangelical Republicans in this state and country who support the Christian jihad against Islam, which dovetails nicely with America's war for resources in Iraq and Afghanistan and the eventual attack on Iran (don't think we won't attack them just because Obama is president). George W. Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “axis of evil” and worthy of preemptive strikes in the “war on terror” – what if mainland China had taken him at his word and dropped a million soldiers on Baghdad in the name of finding weapons of mass destruction and fighting terrorism? What would the response of the chicken hawks have been to that? Or just maybe the major was a whacked-out, mentally ill Army officer caught up in the frustration of seeing so many lives – American and otherwise – ruined by our imperialist aggression. No doubt his actions were premeditated and rose to the crime of murder, but terrorism? No. This was a crime, just as the events of September 11 were a crime. This crime should be investigated as a crime, not used as justification for continued U.S. aggression abroad.
Ephraim Levin writes [“Certain Fort Hood Was a Terrorist Attack,” Postmarks, Nov. 20], “Investigators will find the antagonist was recruited and trained by a terrorist group.” The best known reporting so far is that Major Nidal Malik Hasan sought out an al Qaeda contact (they didn't recruit or train him) – maybe. Maybe it is true that he was indeed recruited and trained by a terrorist organization – the U.S. Army. Or does Levin perhaps mean to say that all Muslims are a terrorist group? That would be in keeping with the conservative evangelical Republicans in this state and country who support the Christian jihad against Islam, which dovetails nicely with America's war for resources in Iraq and Afghanistan and the eventual attack on Iran (don't think we won't attack them just because Obama is president). George W. Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “axis of evil” and worthy of preemptive strikes in the “war on terror” – what if mainland China had taken him at his word and dropped a million soldiers on Baghdad in the name of finding weapons of mass destruction and fighting terrorism? What would the response of the chicken hawks have been to that? Or just maybe the major was a whacked-out, mentally ill Army officer caught up in the frustration of seeing so many lives – American and otherwise – ruined by our imperialist aggression. No doubt his actions were premeditated and rose to the crime of murder, but terrorism? No. This was a crime, just as the events of September 11 were a crime. This crime should be investigated as a crime, not used as justification for continued U.S. aggression abroad.
Daniel Lea
