"Sudden Jihad Syndrome"

This is one of the most cogent, comprehensive and balanced arguments I've seen towards redirecting US policy to a reasonable and effective treatment of Islamic terrorism.

Despite the already-established Al Qaeda modus operandi of multiple simultaneous attacks (e.g. the 1998 Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings, 9/11, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the 2005 London mass transit bombings), when Major Nidal Hassan jumped on a table at Fort Hood's Readiness Processing Center in 2009 screaming "Allahu Akbar," no warning was put out by the US government in the immediate aftermath of the event that the attack even "might have been" inspired by Islamist extremism.  This left countless, competent US security professionals without the necessary information to temporarily execute passive security measures to ward off potential collateral strikes.  It is merely fortunate, in this case, that a network was not in place for attacks against other US targets.  While Pipes adequately addresses the tactical ideology behind not wanting to attribute such attacks to Islamic extremism, it is inexcusable for the US government to have unilaterally put US citizens' lives at risk to buttress such a tenuous, narrow (and arguably failed) approach. 

Denying Islam's Role in Terror: Explaining the Denial

by Daniel Pipes
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2013

Over three years after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's massacre at Ft. Hood, Texas, in November 2009, the classification of his crime remains in dispute. In its wisdom, the Department of Defense, supported by law enforcement, politicians, journalists, and academics, deems the killing of thirteen and wounding of forty-three to be "workplace violence." For example, the 86-page study on preventing a repeat episode, Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood, mentions "workplace violence" sixteen times.

Indeed, were the subject not morbid, one could be amused by the disagreement over what exactly caused the major to erupt. Speculations included "racism" against him, "harassment he had received as a Muslim," his "sense of not belonging," "mental problems," "emotional problems," "an inordinate amount of stress," the "worst nightmare" of his being deployed to Afghanistan, or something fancifully called "pre-traumatic stress disorder." One newspaper headline, "Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery," sums up this bogus state of confusion.[2]

More Here: Denying Islam's Role in Terror: Explaining the Denial