Shooting at Fort Hood........

[nsedet]

What I see is people associating his conversion and criminal acts as a cut and dry label, thus making this a terrorist incident; when it may have just been a deranged person who happened to follow a particular religion, and in his case; may have associated with radical Mosques.

Thus, being far removed from the specifics of the case in question, I proffer my opinion that he was just that: a deranged person who engaged in a horrific act. With what I have before me, I can not quantify this as a Sleeper Cell action, though I have been wrong in the past and may be shown to be so in this case.

The key concern here is not that this action was the result of a sleeper cell in a traditional sense, but rather the shift towards AQ serving as the provocateur for motivating individuals or small groups to violent action. This is an evolution from the group deploying teams and providing direct support (training, funding, supplies, safehouses, etc) to operatives who were or had been in direct contact with AQ leadership at some level. AQ has always focused on public relations and propaganda, but has shifted towards prodding individuals to violent action.

Nothing new in this, as others have pointed out, although the age of the Internet has made this sort of remote radicalization much easier. Troubled or deranged individuals can now more easily find like-minded individuals and ideologies to feed into their problems, and extremists can motivate individuals to action solely based on their words without ever crossing into criminal action. No doubt some of these individuals would take violent action if left to their own devices anyway.

The media friendly term for this, at least in certain circles, is "sudden jihad syndrome." I've got several issues with this term, first being "sudden" which implies it happens overnight and the second being "syndrome" which implies a medical condition. However, if you search this term you will find some interesting perspectives on the underlying issues.

Again, less an issue in terms of the post-incident investigation of an attack, or even from a security management perspective, and more a concern for developing a real strategy for combatting terrorist ideology. We need to recognize that CT efforts cannot rely solely on military or law enforcement efforts over the long term, as our success in those arenas has been a major contributor in the AQ shift towards its agent provocateur role.

[papimike]

As I sit for my second week up here in Canada-- terrorism is ever changing. God only knows how many sleeper cells and growing extremists there are up here -for the "Tigers" to AQ - they are all up here - running businesses and opening up new shops everyday - drug trade run by the asians - it's a;; up here at our back door as we sleep and focus on the Mexican border - shame on us.

But, back to Ft Hood - this IS the new face of terrorism. You have folks who feel victimized - you have folks who whole heartedly disagree with us being in the middle east - call them lone wolfs of whatever you want - these people seek a familiar face - they seek people with their same views -- they then reach out to other extremists and groups like AQ -

That's the key to new age terrorism - their is no real heirarchy in some groups/arenas -- and groups like AQ are fine with that, as long as we keep getting attacked --

New age terrorism also involves mass deaths and casualties -- old age terrorists wanted news coverage, etc -- new age terrorists want to kill and injure as many as possible, period.

It's actually pretty simple for us all to do our part - if you see something say something - if some dude is displaying some extreme radical behavior, tell someone - if that someone/agency drops the ball, well then they will be held accountable later - if the dude is innocent, well, better safe than sorry

[Sgt Jon]

It's actually pretty simple for us all to do our part - if you see something say something - if some dude is displaying some extreme radical behavior, tell someone - if that someone/agency drops the ball, well then they will be held accountable later - if the dude is innocent, well, better safe than sorry

Well put!