I wanted to avoid this conversation. I really did. In fact, I've found myself relieved that I've been busy of late. I actually had thought about my response to this thing on these forums. But it sort of is right up my alley... soooo.....

There seems to be a debate as to whether this is religiously-motivated terrorism. I don't want to disparage the remarks that I've seen thus far, but both sides are missing the piece of the pie here.

First, this appears to be at least partially ideologically-motivated. To argue that a guy that (a) yells "Allahu Akbar" while firing into a crowd of soldiers, (b) made Internet postings comparing suicide bombers to respected warriors, and (c) probably (interviews ongoing) argued that Muslims need to stand up against Americans isn't reigliously-ideologically motivated seems deliberately ignorant. He may not have been TOTALLY motivated by whatever perversion of Islam he adheres to, but he was certainly PARTIALLY motivated by it. I'm not arguing he killed those soldiers because he's a Muslim, but I am arguing that it certainly seems like he thought killing those soldiers would be in the service of Islam. That shouldn't be ignored.

Second, this act is absolutely, positively, 100% NOT terrorism. There are literally hundreds of different definitions of terrorism that have been suggested within government and academic literature. They mostly have slightly different tenets, but one of the common tenets is target type: specifically, a CIVILIAN TARGET. Because Fort Hood is a military installation, this dude's actions are more akin to an act of war rather than terrorism. Since he doesn't really have a home base, however, what he did is probably technically just "ideologically-motivated violence."

That said, the debate here seems to stem from motivation. And that's an understandable debate. It makes sense to dub what he did as terrorism because the media tends to label anything like this as being terrorism. As a student of terrorism, my personal take is this:

Technically, his actions do not constitute terrorism, but they do constitute ideologically (probably partially religiously) motivated violence. Based on what's been found thus far (though the investigation is far from over), saying that his religion or ideology had nothing to do with his actions is downright stupid.

Think of it this way... how many soldiers do you think are upset when they are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan? How many "snap" and shoot over 40 of their fellow soldiers? There has to be a moderating variable here. That moderator, in this case at least, seems to be his extremism.