Who is a terrorist?

I appreciate everyone's patience.  I haven't been responding to comments over the past couple of days because I have been busy corresponding with the many generous people who sent in donations to check if they want to earmark the donation for something specific and to get permission to list them on the 'Trepp Honor Roll'.

That said, there have been some very interesting comments and emails and I'd like to address a couple of them here:

First of all, an email from a reader calling himself Bruin74 and a comment from the lovely and talented Seattle blogger Lachlan both raised the same issue of how to classify the guy who shot up the Jewish Federation in the Emerald City on Friday.

The main contention seemed to be that because this guy seems at first scratch to be mentally unstable with a troubled family history... perhaps it was unfair to label him a terrorist, and his rampage an act of terrorism.

Before I weigh in I'd like to bring up a few historical examples that I feel relate directly to the topic under discussion:

In the Southern United States in the years before and during the struggle for Civil Rights, lynchings and other deadly attacks against African Americans, black-owned businesses and places of worship with predominantly black membership, were endemic.  Undoubtedly many of these attacks (perhaps even most) were carried out on behalf of organized hate groups such as the KKK.  But there were certainly many free-lance lynchings and deliberate attacks on people and property that were carried out by weak minded individuals who acted based on their sympathies for ideas advanced by groups like the KKK... and out of their own shaky handle on the difference between right and wrong. 

Back before Jerusalem was reunited in the Six Day War of 1967, it spent 19 years as a divided city with a high wall running between Jordanian East Jerusalem and Israeli West Jerusalem.  Every few days there would be shooting from the Jordanian side of the wall towards Israelis walking in West Jerusalem.  Each time this happened the Israelis would file a formal complaint with the international authorities and the Jordanians would reply that the culprit had been a mentally unstable soldier who was acting on his own and would invariably regret the loss of life or damage to property caused by the shooter.  In a bit of typical black humor, the Israelis took to calling the frequent shooters 'HaMeshugah HaToran' (roughly, the person whose turn it was to be crazy).

There have been several well documented attacks on foreign tourists in Egypt by heavily armed individuals.  Each and every time a bus-load of tourists has been targeted, the Egyptian government has issued a standard statement (I think they have a pre-printed form at the press office) deploring the attack and assuring the world that the perp was mentally unstable and not connected to any organized terrorist organization.

In July of 2002, an Egyptian named Hesham Mohamed Hadayet walked into Los Angeles International Airport, made his way past several other airline's ticket counter and approached the El Al counter before opening fire with a handgun.  He killed two people and wounded another four.  Within minutes the FBI and local police were on the news announcing the preliminary details of the shooting and assuring the public that this did not appear to be an act of terrorism, but rather a random act of violence by an unstable individual.  Even as documented evidence continued to mount that his attack was premeditated and that he had harbored violent feelings towards Jews/Israelis for some time, the US government didn't budge from its assertion that this was the act of a lone madman who may or may not have been aware of the ethnicity/nationality of his victims.  It wasn't until much later that the authorities quietly admitted that the shooting was an act of hate/terror.

What do all these examples have in common?

They all assume the following:

• That a lack of clear membership/affiliation with an organized group means a lone/unaffiliated violent actor lacks the same motivation as people associated with an established group.
• Mental instability of an individual shields him from the assumption that his actions could have been inspired, or even ordered, by a group or organization.
• That weapons and other terror resources magically appear in the hands of individual actors.
• That there is no duplicity involved in a terror/hate group's openly advocating, and even carrying out, a specific type of violence against Jews/Israelis while simultaneously denouncing identical acts performed by individuals who are not card-carrying members of their organization or (ostensibly) directly under their orders.

Let's think for a moment about who the majority of terrorists are... and who they are not:

• You will not see family members or close associates of any senior members of a terrorist organization strapping on a suicide belt. 
• They tend to be people from the fringes of the society from which the terrorist organizations pull their membership. 
• They are sometimes mentally ill. 
• They are frequently adolescents or post-adolescents who are ripe for emotional manipulation.
• They are frequently people who are open to coercion because of insurmountable debts, perceived breaches in family or individual honor, etc.
• Contrary to popular belief, terrorist are not by definition poor.  Middle class disaffection can be equally responsible for an individual's decision to carry out violent acts.

This latest attack in Seattle is a perfect test case.  While no group or terror organization has stepped up to claim the actions of this individual shooter, the results bear the hallmarks of an actor who was either ordered to carry out a terror attack... or who decided on his own to emulate previous actions carried out by terrorist organizations.

That he is mentally unstable (perhaps even 'bipolar', to use a word I admit to only partially understanding) is sort of besides the point.  Even assuming for the moment that he is a lone actor (something of which I am not yet convinced), he was able to...

... formulate complex political opinions about who he wanted to harm.

... navigate the process of acquiring two semi-automatic handguns and ammunition.

... identify a Jewish/Israeli target in a city that, when compared with places like New York, Chicago and LA, has a dearth of 'quality', identifiably Jewish targets.

... come up with a simple and effective plan for breaching the security entrance of the Seattle Jewish Federation building (he took a 13 year old girl hostage and threatened to shoot her if the door wasn't opened immediately).

... appreciate that what he was doing was wrong and come up with an effective exit strategy based on the fact that immediately after shooting his first victim he forced her to dial the police so he could open negotiations for his safe passage out of the building.

Therefore I ask you the following three questions, dear readers: 

Is membership in an organization required for an act to qualify as terrorism? 

Does the actor need to be of sound mind and free of ulterior motivation to be labeled a terrorist?

Does it make a difference to the victims if they were targeted because of the same criteria used by terrorist organizations if the person who kills or wounds them is acting as a free agent?