by Karen McKay

The Fort Hood massacre. Terrorism? Act of War? Treason? Crime of mass
murder? Why all the public agonizing over what to call it? It seems
complicated, but it's not. Words have meanings, and meanings have
consequences.

Some have declared the Ft. Hood attack to be an “Act of War.” No. An Act
of War, i.e. a “casus belli” is an action taken by one country against
another with which it is supposedly at peace with the intention of
starting a war—or an action which is taken by a state to be cause for
war. Pearl Harbor was a casus belli. 9/11 was a casus belli. Al Qaeda is
not another country, but for all intents and purposes, it is acting as a
virtual state. It had been at war with us for more than ten years before
9/11, but the United States had not acknowledged any previous attack as
casus belli.

Treason? Well, yes, the man did take an oath to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and
domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. The label of
traitor, however, has lost its sting. Treason is so common since the
publication of the Pentagon Papers that it has achieved banality.

There are more than 100 “official” definitions of “terror.” In the early
1980s, this writer was instrumental in the official US Congress'
definition of terrorism that would not sweep up legitimate, guerrilla,
resistance and freedom fighters in the same broad brush stroke. The
cynical cliché that “one man's freedom fighter is another man's
terrorist” is uninformed idiocy.

Narrowly defined, terrorism is a violent act publicly perpetrated
against civilian targets for the purpose of political gains. Guerrilla
warfare is a violent act against a legitimate military target in support
of war aims. In practicality, there can be a gray area between the two.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan's attack on unarmed military personnel on a
military installation could come under the heading of guerillas warfare.
Under a broader definition, it could be categorized as terrorism because
Ft. Hood is not, technically, a combat zone, and he knew that his
targets would be unarmed because nobody other than law enforcement at a
military base is permitted to carry arms outside of a training situation.

Nonetheless, the FBI's own website states: In accordance with U.S.
counterterrorism policy, the FBI considers terrorists to be criminals.
(www.fbi.gov/publications/terror/terror2000_2001.htm) That is the crime
here. What Hasan's assault most emphatically IS NOT is a “crime.”
Whether a terrorist attack or a guerrilla action, this was not simply a
crime of mass murder.

Was Hasan a radical already when he first enlisted in the Army, and then
had his education all the way through his MD specialty paid for by the
Army? Was he planning for this all along? Or did he become radicalized
by Islamist recruiters at the mosque where he prayed beside the future
9/11 hijackers, preached to by an al-Qaeda imam? Or was he a lone wolf?

It matters not to this discussion. He was a sleeper cell, and he acted.
Whether he was a one-man cell self-or other-actuated, or part of a group
may be learned in the course of investigation. Bottom line: Nidal Malik
Hasan is an enemy agent operating inside our military. As such, he falls
under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) and the Geneva
Conventions (Law of Land Warfare). He is not subject to US or Texas
criminal law.

What is crucially important is that he was permitted by the system to be
a sleeper cell. He was known to be an Islamist—outspokenly anti-American
and pro-terrorist--and those who said they were watching him were
restrained apparently by political correctness.

Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince warned that moral decay so weakens a
country that it will collapse from a determined push. The fall of the
Mede empire to Cyrus. The fall of Rome to barbarians. The capitulation
of France to the Nazis. The disintegration of the Soviet Union under
Reagan's relentless pressure.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin in his 1999 book, America's Real War, posits that
Liberalism and Political Correctness are greater threats to the survival
of our nation than any outside enemy. It is this corrosive philosophy
that permitted an officer of the US Army to operate openly as at minimum
a terrorist sympathizer without restraint.

In psychological warfare, semantics is all; facts are irrelevant.
Political correctness sprang fully grown from the forehead of Joseph
Goebbels, Hitler's gifted propagandist and specialist in mind control.
His attentive students find easy prey still in the gullible, the
mentally lazy, the well-intentioned, the fearful and the ignorant in
America and Europe.

Political correctness is itself a form of terrorism enforcing
group-think. Americans are terrified of being accused of bigotry,
racism, Fascism, warmongering, sexism, [fill in the blank] if they do
not conform to the Liberal world view. Even Army Chief of Staff General
George W. Casey worries that the Ft. Hood massacre might harm
“diversity” in the service.

It's intellectual cowardice, and the outcome is the paralysis of
Political Correctness. Its iron grip is evident every day in the
language of news. Euphemisms avoid the unpleasantness of calling a spade
a spade. Terrorists are called “militants” or “extremists.” President
Barack Obama has banished the term “terror.” We make war no more; we
engage in “overseas contingencies.” Obama's “Agenda for Defense,” issued
by the White House on January 22, 2009, swears to deter and defeat any
“conventional competitors.” “Competitors,” not “enemies.” The Ft. Hood
shooter becomes the “alleged” or “suspected” shooter. The attack becomes
a tragedy. Tragedy it was for the victims and their loved ones, but the
act was an atrocity.

Media pundits and politicians cannot look reality in the eye. The PC
Iron Maidens they wear dictate that the “alleged” shooter, Major Malik
Nidal Hasan, is “disturbed,” suffering from “Pre-Traumatic Stress
Disorder,” even a “nut.” He was “hazed” for his religious views, he is
excused and “understood” for his Islamist statements, his sympathetic
admiration of suicide bombers was merely “medical research.”

The Ft. Hood massacre should be recognized as casus belli to declare war
on the Political Correctness that allowed Hasan to skate through the
system. The Political Correctness that denies both the act of terrorism
and the Islamist identity of attackers in Arkansas, New Jersey, Los
Angeles, DC Metro area, North Carolina and other places in recent years.
The “Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil” monkeys must die, and the
clear-eyed Bald Eagle be restored, unpinioned and blindfold removed, if
our nation is to survive.