What do you call it when a self-proclaimed “Soldier of Allah” shouting “Allahu Akhbar” opens fire on dozens of US citizens — killing and maiming as many innocents as he can?
You call it terrorism, if you’re sane.
And “workplace violence,” if you’re the Obama administration.
That’s right: Three years after Nidal Malik Hasan’s jihadist shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, in which he murdered 13 people and wounded 29 more, the Defense Department still refuses to classify the attack as what it is: an act of terror.
Instead, it continues to label the shooting officially a case of “workplace violence.”
This isn’t just a question of linguistics; avoiding the terror designation means victims and their families “do not get combat-related special compensation that provides disability pay,” reports the military news site Stars and Stripes.
Which is why survivors and families of those killed released a video this month asking Obama & Co. to do right by the troops — and classify the attack as terrorism.
Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning, featured in the film, was shot six times but denied benefits that would accrue to a soldier injured in an act of terror or a battle overseas.
Fellow victims at Fort Hood “were killed and wounded by . . . somebody who was there that day to kill soldiers, to prevent them from deploying,” says Manning.
“And if that’s not an act of war, an act of terrorism, I don’t know what is.”
Precisely. And there’s a paper trail a mile long that proves Manning’s point.
Before the bloody day, Hasan had defended suicide bombings and told fellow soldiers that Muslim service members would be justified in killing US troops.
Was he reported? Nope. Try promoted.
(So much for his being a disgruntled worker.)
The FBI even knew of Hasan’s communications with Anwar al-Awlaki, then one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, in which Hasan asked about carrying out jihad against the United States.
Yet in President Obama’s remarks at a memorial service for Fort Hood’s fallen, he never used the word terrorism. Not once.
Why is the administration trying to rewrite history? Comments by the Army’s chief of staff at the time, Gen. George Casey, might offer clues: “As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”
There was an effort, that is, to dismiss Islamist terror — and not offend Muslims.
Yet that, as Texas Gov. Rick Perry notes, means denying “heroes and their families all of the benefits and honors they are due.”
Obama needs to rectify the situation.
In 2009, he said that, for “families who have lost a loved one, no words can fill the void that’s been left.” Which may be true.
But at least he can correct the record, call the massacre at Fort Hood by its true name — terror — and accord a proper measure of respect to troops who’ve been denied it these three long years.
It’s past time to act.