Feminists For Choice

On this morning’s NPR, I listened to “experts” debate the definition of terrorism and then if the term should be applied to the Ft. Hood shootings. The outcome of the debate was that the “experts” believe that Major Nidal Hasan’s actions were both an act of terrorism, and the actions of a mentally ill person.

The debate over the definition of terrorism got me to thinking about the assassination of Dr. George Tiller and the pending trial of Scott Roeder, the man accused of killing Dr. Tiller. One of the things that defines terrorism, according to the NPR story, is that the act is intended to have a political consequence. Columbine and the Virgina Tech shootings wouldn’t fit into the category of terrorism, because the shooters were acting out of a personal vendetta and didn’t intend a political change to occur. Roeder, on the other hand, has publicly stated that he intended to kill Dr. Tiller because Tiller performed abortions.

Yesterday I reported that Roeder’s lawyers may try to claim a “justifiable homicide” or “necessity defense.” They will bring up facts about how many abortions Dr. Tiller performed, and argue that Roeder was acting to prevent more abortions from being performed. However, if the judge in Roeder’s case allows this type of defense to be presented, what’s to stop Major Hasan’s lawyers from trying a similar defense strategy?

All of the people that Major Hasan shot at Ft. Hood were about to be deployed to Iraq. Major Hasan had stated on previous occasions that he was opposed to the war. Should his attorney be allowed to bring up statistics about how many Iraqi civilians would be harmed by each of the service members about to be deployed to Iraq? If the attorney does that, arguing that the shootings were “justifiable homicide,” what does that say about the war in Iraq? Although our government has tried to claim that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are just wars, allowing Major Hasan to present a “justifiable homicide” defense would blow those claims right out of the water. Maybe that’s a good thing.

The other thing that puzzles me about the debate over the definition of terrorism is that we seem reluctant to apply the label to actions of white men, but when a person of color is involved, the label is often the first word out of the vocabulary box. Rachel Maddow is the only reporter that I’ve heard apply the label of terrorism to Dr. Tiller’s murder. What does it say about our culture that even supposedly liberal media sources like NPR will use the word terrorism to describe Ft. Hood, but they don’t use the term to describe anti-abortion violence? White men make up the majority of anti-abortion nut jobs (not that white women are off the hook here).

I don’t have any answers to the questions that I’ve posed here. I do love a good debate, though. If you’ve got an opinion about either the Ft. Hood shootings, or Scott Roeder’s upcoming trial, I’d love to hear it.