terror group. peh. I think they mean terrorIST group.

I still don’t think that the DC snipers were terrorists, by my definition. If you define it broadly enough - someone wanting to cause terror by their actions - then yes, they would qualify, but so would a lot of street thugs. And if you want to say, it’s people who do things out of ideology, then maybe that would work but still, I think it needs another bar. The dictionary defines it as “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”, and I think that’s getting closer. The “means of coercion” is pivotal - there has to be a reason for the behavior that involves pushing the object of the terrorism either toward a preferred state or away from a disliked state, and I think it needs to involve something bigger than either the offender or the victim. For example, I think those who kill abortion doctors or bomb clinics could rightly be called terrorists: they target a specific person or location for ideological reasons, with the goal of ceasing a behavior that extends beyond those targeted. Muhammed and Malvo may well have hated America for ideological reasons, may have ascribed to radical Muslim views, may have gone on their shooting spree as a means of expressing their disdain. But I don’t think it was terrorism any more than James Huberty’s shooting up a McDonald’s in San Ysidro was terrorism; their behavior didn’t have the coherence necessary to stand the attack-for-ideological-gain test.

I have to disagree with you, Susanna. Does your definition of terrorism take into account the fact that Muhammad celebrated the first anniversary of 9-11 by changing his name (to Muhammad), and celebrated the second by buying the car that became his deathmobile? Or does it take into account what may be the most dangerous aspect of potential domestic terrorism—that sympathy with the terrorist cause may lead to freelance terrorism? The Oregon case, the Lackawana case, the LAX shootings and the Muhammad case all point to a small but determined effort on the part of various freelancers to strike while the war is hot, whether they have their al Qaeda graduation certificates or not. And then there’s the as yet unidentified anthrax attacker…

I think we have to step outside of our pre-9-11 boxes a bit when assessing cases such as the DC snipers. They were certainly not your average serial killers, fitting none of the various profiles that we normally use to catch such killers. You know all about that, I know—your profiles led you to concur with the white guys/white van theories, which turned out to be wrong. And everything about the man suggests anti-Americanism, from his illegal alien documents business to fragging his officers in the Gulf War to celebrating 9-11 (twice) to killing a few innocents seemingly just to scare the rest of us, with a possible side benefit of raking in $10 million. And now we find that he also has apparent links to an Islamist cult. Could it be that the $10 million was intended to support that cult? Hopefully we’ll learn about that as the trial progresses.

All the signs are there for freelance terrorism. Whether his alleged attacks fit a classic definition of terrorism or not, and whether they created a coherent message or not, as I see it the weight of the evidence suggests that he intended to be a terrorist. And actually, for those of us who lived in the area while the snipers were out and about, there was a coherent message—you’re not safe, even in the very heart of the country, and you’re not safe no matter who you are or what you happen to be doing. Whether he intended to send that message or not, that’s what we heard from him. All other speculation—that he intended to get back at his ex-wife, etc—is just that, speculation, until evidence materialized to support it. There’s more evidence of an intent to terrorize, imho, than just about any other intended outcome.