Americans Dare Call it Terrorism 
By Robert Maynard 

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, sixty percent (60%) of likely voters nationwide say last week's shootings at Fort Hood should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act.  As usual the American public’s instinct has cut through the fog of official reporting.  We are told that investigators are still trying to determine whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan acted alone, or was part of an organized cell.  This is a distinction that completely misses the point.  One does not need to be part of an organized cell to engage in acts of Jihadi inspired terrorism.

After 9/11 the Intelligence Analysts at the New York City Police Department issued a comprehensive report on the problem of homegrown terrorism.  In that report they identified the growing trend toward "Autonomous Jihad".  This is the term used for acts of terrorism carried out by individuals on their own who are motivated by Jihadi ideology.  Renowned terrorist expert Dr. Walid Phares has referred to the Fort Hood shootings as "the largest single Terror act in America since 9/11".  Every day a new revelation comes out that underscores the fact that Major Hasan’s sympathies have long been with the Jihadis.  As Dr. Phares point out "the main question should be, when did Hasan radicalize, and who indoctrinated him?"  This is a very good question as the event is not an isolated one.  Consider the following:

-- Muslim American soldier Hasan Abujihaad was convicted last year on espionage and material terrorism support charges after serving aboard the USS Benfold and sharing classified information with al-Qeida financiers, including movements of U.S. ships just six months after al-Qaida operatives had killed 17 Americans aboard the USS Cole in the port of Yemen.

--Jeffrey Leon Battle was a former Army reservist, convicted of conspiring to levy war against the United States and "enlisting in the Reserves to receive military training to use against America." He had planned to wage war against American soldiers in Afghanistan.

-- Egyptian Ali A. Mohamed joined the U.S. Army while a resident alien despite being on a State Department terrorist watch list before securing his visa. An avowed Islamist, he taught classes on Muslim culture to U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C., and obtained classified military documents. He was granted U.S. citizenship over the objections of the CIA. Honorably discharged from the Army in 1989, Mohamed then hooked up with Osama bin Laden as an escort, trainer, bagman and messenger. Mohamed used his U.S. passport to conduct surveillance at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. He later pleaded guilty to conspiring with bin Laden and admitted his role in the 1998 African embassy bombings that killed more than 200 people, including a dozen Americans.

There is a pattern developing that is related to a particular ideology. That ideology is radical Islam. Its instructions to the faithful to undertake jihad are written in Islam’s Holy Book. It is high time that we put aside political correctness and face up squarely to this troubling fact.

Robert Maynard is the Editor of the True North website and Executive Director of the Defenders Council of Vermont