Just for grins this act only applies to the financial industry. The act that you are complaining about happened entirely on a military installation, so where would a civilian court have any jurisdiction?

The act does indeed define what an act of terrorism is but you need to read to the exclusions and that is found in (C):

(C) DETERMINATIONS FINAL- Any certification of, or determination not to certify, an act as an act of terrorism under this paragraph shall be final, and shall not be subject to judicial review.

http://www.treas.gov/offices/domestic-finance/financial-institution/terrorism-insurance/pdf/TRIAasamended-CompositeTextPost.pdf

You may know Constitutional Law but what about the laws passesd by Congress ans signed by our President.

On December 26, 2007 The President signed into law an amendment to the Terrorisim Risk Insurnace Act of 2002.

Among other things it defined a “act of terrorism”

Read it–if what the Major did doesn’t conform to this definition then I am stupid.

Also, am I nuts for thinking that creating a special category for “terrorist” crimes actually strengthens the intended effects of such attacks? We seem to imagine “terrorists” as some sort of Hannibal Lecter-type characters. What if we thought of the Sept. 11 attackers as just pathetic gang members?

I hadn’t heard of that book. I bet you’ve also read Jeff Sharlet’s book THE FAMILY. Stupak is a member of “that” family–as well as Ensign…and Coburn…and Sanford… and so on.

We can only hope that Kristol will meet the same fate as Tucker Carlson. BTW, did Tucker fall off the face of the Earth–or did he have an untimely death?

He is no doubt a ticking time bomb with information on future plots. If you want to be really scared read, Democracy Inc. by Sheldon Wolin. Bill feels himself part of a superior group, already well beyond the rat gene potential, who must lead our nation to its manifest glory. Really crazy stuff. I keep trying to figure out why this man has a job.

Why waste valuable time waterboarding Hasan when we can just declare him guilty and put him to death?

I think Kristol is getting “worser and worser” with every passing day. Too many of these “talking head” political pundits we hear spouting off on TV and the radio are ideeeeeots.

OMG! This man has no bottom to what he will advocate for a buck. Although he’s going a little soft because he didn’t want to waterboard him before murdering him. What’s up with that?

Kristol Urges No Trial For Hasan: ‘They Should Just Go Ahead And Convict Him And Put Him To Death’

KRISTOL: I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/13/kristol-hasan-trial/

Secondly, there were red flags about Hasan everywhere. I believe part of the reason they were ignored is because he was in a profession. Professionals tend to close ranks to protect each other and others get harmed. That happens all the time.

Butt Towel indeed.

I understand your points. Personally I think Hassan is probably off his rocker, at least that is my initial thought. Although the lines are a bit blurred and I can certainly understand why people are jumping on this as a terrorist action.

Unfortunately I think my conservative brethren want to use this as a cudgel against Obama, as in he has been in office only 10 months and already we have a terrorist attack on our soil. I hope that they aren’t using the deaths of 13 people for political maneuvering but it wont be the last time a politician or political party does that.

I will not argue that point and stipulate to your “butt towel” analysis.

I do, however, think it’s critical when examining whether an act is or is not terrorism to keep focused on method. Let’s forget the media for a minute and ask this question: What is the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? Simply target selection, methodology in execution and winning the PR war. But it’s a really important distinction. Because “terrorism” is a crime of desired outcome and therefore of method. If the creation of terror incident to mental illness occurs, it is often ancillary to the actors motivation. Their drive is not primarily the creation of fear for political gain, but their pathology.

McVeigh was a Christian terrorist and Hasan is probably just an insane Muslim. If you want an inverse example, compare the church shooting that occurred earlier this year with the Madrid bombings. One was an act by an insane Christian but the other was the act of Muslim terrorists.

they were/are both butt towels.

I think I can shed some light on sane vs. insane in contrasting Hasan and McVeigh as related to “terrorism”.

McVeigh’s plan was calculated to maximize damage and maximize his survival. In addition, he targeted a building with a large civilian contingent in addition to Federal offices: a recipe for fear in the general populace – the very definition of terrorism.

Hasan’s plan was not really a plan. He opened fire on a military base. Even if Hasan were a “suicide” attacker, he still really didn’t have a plan now did he? Sidearms on a base where fully automatic weapons and explosives ordinance are kept? To be honest, I’m a little shocked he was able to go on as long as he did before being shot himself. But to me these are the actions of a man who wants to die as much as he wants to kill. As an aside, I bet there are few sorrier bastards on the planet than Hasan was when he woke in hospital. And it serves him right too. Dying would have been the easy punishment in the karmic sense.

I’m see these two and I see one man as an exercise in control and the other as a person driven by impulse. Hasan has more in common psychologically (based only upon his attacks and what I’ve read about the behavior leading up to this) with a spree killer than a terrorist. There is no doubt in my mind at all the McVeigh was a terrorist. One man was mostly madness and the other was mostly method.

And it’s the method that defines the terrorist, not the motive.

http://powertoxins.blogspot.com/2009/11/greatest-source-of-power-toxins.html

Allegedly SOA stands for Soldier of Allah.

Although my guess is that he just went nuts as you would think any postal worker or other that went nuts. Think Texas Tower, that guy was a Marine and we don’t attribute that to terrorism.
Although Charles Whitman wasn’t trying to contact Al Qaeda.

It looks to me like he was trying to serve 2 masters and the dichotomy caused him to have a major meltdown.

He should have resigned his commission as soon as it became clear to him that he could no longer intellectually or emotionally support our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whether he was nuts or he was doing this, in his mind, for the greater glory of Islam, his act was utterly despicable and cowardly.

I agree. It could be called Talk Turkey with Turley.

Rules of evidence are what they say they are at the time. Sharing of files? Worse than trying to get DOJ Officials acknowledge before the day of trial certain evidence exists. It usually does get to you on the eve of the trial.

I can see why the military wants it tried on base: 1) No Media; 2) No Rules of Evidence; 3) It is what I say it is; 4) If you disagree with rule No 4, see Rule 3.

This is basically a Court Marshal and Civilian Courts have no authority to hear these matters. Worse yet is it all happened on a Military Installation so no competing state interest will prevail. The person charge, well a military employee subject exclusively to the Code of Military Justice whether on base or off, on duty or off.

The bottom line is like trying to force another country to enforce our laws and requests save Roman Polanski.

(Sorry – EDIT for “thing”).

This is all so terribly troubling. We need a new era of responsibility. In Australia we have had military service deaths deemed “Systemic Failure”.

A sailor died when he was left outside his submarine as it dived, despite similar incidents that hadn’t resulted in deaths.

Three sailors died when the known unsafe fuel hoses on their ship’s engine caught fire.

Two airservice men died when a known reckless pilot crashed them into the sea attempting a helicopter ship landing.

In each case the “system” was at fault. PEOPLE knew, but the SYSTEM failed.

The only think that will make this worse for victims families is a gutless “Systemic Failure”.