Reply #9: McVeigh definitely; too early to tell on Hasan

[PurityOfEssence]

McVeigh wanted to strike at the government in retaliation for Ruby Ridge and Waco, and he wanted to scare the government into leaving people alone. (Okay, that's simplistic, but pretty much accurate.)

There's a lot at play with Hasan. There's OBVIOUSLY a religious component, and there's definitely a bit of the disgruntled employee schtick at work, but whether he was trying to terrorize the U.S. Government out of waging an alleged war on Islam is open to debate, and the whole thing is filtered through the prism of some fairly questionable sanity.

McVeigh's act was, by definition, terrorism.