Nidal Malik Hasan killed people randomly. That makes a huge difference. Another difference is motivation: He killed from hate, not for a military purpose.
The whole point of picking a specific target is that you consider them a combatant. (You don't have to shoot a gun to be a combatant, helping the military is enough.) A civilian contractor for the military can be a combatant. So no, the Iranian car bombings would not legally qualify as terrorism under U.S. law - the bombings targeted a combatant.
Intent matters too: Are you are killing a person because of that specific person? (To prevent that person from contributing to the military.) Or are you killing so that other people see the killing and get scared?
You are right that it's a silly argument because your eyes appear to be closed on the matter (although to your credit you argue constructively). So lets turn this around, in your eyes in what scenario would it be assassination and not terrorism?
I don't think there are too many other technological details to be found, so this thread is likely to end up as a huge discussion of the morals of this action.
The whole point of picking a specific target is that you consider them a combatant. (You don't have to shoot a gun to be a combatant, helping the military is enough.) A civilian contractor for the military can be a combatant. So no, the Iranian car bombings would not legally qualify as terrorism under U.S. law - the bombings targeted a combatant.
Intent matters too: Are you are killing a person because of that specific person? (To prevent that person from contributing to the military.) Or are you killing so that other people see the killing and get scared?
You are right that it's a silly argument because your eyes appear to be closed on the matter (although to your credit you argue constructively). So lets turn this around, in your eyes in what scenario would it be assassination and not terrorism?
I don't think there are too many other technological details to be found, so this thread is likely to end up as a huge discussion of the morals of this action.