Workplace violence?

The president of the United States loves to dance around the English language to make everybody feel better — even this country’s enemies. With the military trial of Maj. Nidal Hasan underway, it’s become much more evident that such sashaying comes at a real cost to those who have lost their lives or been injured at the hands of terrorism.

When Hasan went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2009, killing 13 fellow soldiers — plus the unborn child of a pregnant soldier — and injuring 32 others, it was fairly apparent that this was a terrorist act. As Investor’s Business Daily noted in a Thursday editorial, Hasan, who self-identified as a “soldier of Allah,” shouted “Allahu Akbar” and began mowing down innocent Americans on that day. Furthermore, the FBI knew prior to the attack that Hasan was emailing known terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki, and a bipartisan Senate report concluded that the Department of Defense had evidence that “Hasan embraced views so extreme that it should have disciplined him or discharged him from the military, but the DoD failed to take action against him.”

It sounds pretty cut and dry. But it isn’t, because in the president’s mind, we must be overly politically correct with our enemies. And so, in the nearly four years that have passed since the shooting, it has been designated a workplace violence incident. Nothing more. Hasan was just having a bad day and went postal. And the Obama administration, to this point, has steadfastly refused to reclassify this as a terrorist attack — ostensibly an act of war.

This is nothing new for the administration. The global war on terror is no longer that, but an “overseas contingency operation.” And last week’s evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Yemen was not termed as such, but rather a “reduction in staff.” You can’t make this stuff up.

It directly affects the benefits that go to the family members of those killed and to the survivors of Hasan’s attack. Soldier Shawn Manning, who testified in the trial last week, has lost $70,000 in benefits because of the workplace violence designation. He and others would get more if the attack were deemed terrorism. Meanwhile, Hasan has collected nearly $300,000 in pay since the shooting — $6,000 per month.

Enough with the semantics from the Obama administration. Call this awful act for exactly what it was: a terrorist attack, an act of war. And take proper care of those soldiers and civilians who were killed or injured in that one-sided battle.