Michael Mangum: True terrorism

I read with great interest Anthea Butler’s June 21 column “Call it what it is: terrorism” on the importance of calling the nine tragic murders at Emanuel AME Church what they truly were: terrorism. Amen to that!

Any heinous act motivated by obsession with an ideological cause rightly earns the “terrorism” label. Sadly, what Butler deplored – the hesitancy to correctly label a terrorist act – was on full display in the 2009 Fort Hood Massacre: the murders of 13 unarmed U.S. soldiers by a self-described “Soldier of Allah,” shouting “Allahu Akbar!” as he stood to open fire. Media outlets spoke of Nidal Hasan as “upset about a scheduled deployment” and soon reported he “had shown signs of mental problems for months.”

Perhaps true, but his actions clearly were terrorism. Yet for years our government labeled this terrorist act a workplace violence incident. Really?

My hope is that as a nation we learn to openly confront and discuss the often painful, brutal facts of our darkest days. Only then can we move past ethnic and sectarian divides and become “one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Michael Mangum: True terrorism."