According to eyewitness reports, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of the U.S. Army opened fire at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009 and yelled “Allahu Akbar” — “God is the Greatest.” To those present at the scene, at that moment of horrendous bloodshed when 13 people were killed, it must have appeared like total social breakdown. Today, it is still hard to fathom the horrific events.

In writing my last column about terrorism, I chose not to discuss the deplorable attack. It had happened recently and the implications were not clear. Yet almost immediately, speculation began that this was an act of terrorism. On a subject of such great concern, it is important to deliberate carefully. What does this attack mean? How do we respond?

More than anything else, the Fort Hood shooting was an irrational tragedy. It must have seemed that way to those who were present: One human, indistinct among many, vastly outnumbered by those he killed and those who survived him, engages in a hopeless and senseless act of violence that could have been prevented. Any number of small events might have averted the tragedy if just a hint of Hasan’s plans had been known.

Yet hindsight will always reveal the blind spots that allowed an attacker to successfully execute a plan. Short of instituting a totalitarian government to monitor all activity, such blind spots will inevitably exist. That is the price we pay for living in an open, democratic society. Similar danger has always existed where the power of the state is constrained. Nevertheless, there is always demand for somebody to blame.

Already, the reckless charge is being made by conservatives that Nidal Hasan was a member of a global jihadist conspiracy. To some, his exclamation of a phrase associated with Islam is enough to damn him to the terrorists’ circle of Hell. Not only that, but he also visited radical Islamic Web sites and had attended a mosque that included anti-American members. It fits the McCarthy narrative perfectly: the sleeper agent works for years to gain status before he is activated and attacks the homeland internally.

Yet this analysis essentially ignores the facts of the case. There has been no evidence that this attack was “plotted” in the way traditionally attributed to terrorist conspiracies. No indication has been found on “voluminous” data files of Hasan’s that he communicated with any Islamic agents about his planned attack. Though he did attend the same mosque as several radicals, including some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, thousands of other people did as well: It is one of the largest mosques in Virginia, offering a few conspirators (probably not including Hasan) anonymity amidst the vast majority of peaceful practitioners.

But if Hasan did yell “Allahu Akbar,” would it counter some? If this is true, it simply means that he was Muslim, as well as mentally ill. There are mentally ill people of all kinds, and some of them are violent. Of course, mental illness can become entangled with ideology, as seems to be the case with Hasan. So in this case, rather than empowering radical Islamists by calling this attack an event in their far-reaching ideological movement, we should marginalize them by correctly labeling their ideas as the reading material of the mentally ill.

Most of all, we should keep faith with the families of victims by accurately investigating the events at Fort Hood rather than politicizing them. President Obama has rightly restrained from discussing Fort Hood in the context of terrorism because there is not yet evidence that it is an example of terrorism as we know it. Other commentators should follow suit.