home-grown terror

First it was Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma. Only he wanted to live to watch the spectacle. Now Joseph Stack is upping the ante. In a veritable mini-9/11 suicide attack he crashed his plane in the IRS building in Austin, Texas. Officials were quick to point out this wasn't a terror attack. Austin police chief Acevedo called it, "an intentional act by a sole individual."

We are drawing a fine line here. If flying your plane into a building and killing people is not terror then what exactly is a terror attack? Is it not terror because Joseph Stack was an American, or because he was a "sole individual?"

Note that Joseph left a message stating his intentions. He knew what he was doing. Granted the message was "rambling and lengthy" but he did rail against the government and the IRS in particular. He also killed people and destroyed an official building, or at least a building housing 199 IRS employees.

If that doesn't amount to terror what does?