Autism Spectrum and terrorism

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This guy's lawyer, in an attempt to minimize his sentencing, is saying that his client, due to "Autism", didn't understand the consequences of his actions. I'm curious what people think about this. Does it conflate autism, violence and extreme points of view? Or is at legitimate expression of the difficulties people with Autism Spectrum can have?

http://news.ca.msn.com/world/ap-lawyer- ... autistic-1

Do you buy it? Is it a bad argument?

No, I don't think autism causes people to become terrorists, and unless he was cognitively impaired, he should have been able to understand the consequences of what he was doing.

However, I can see how in the right circumstances, autism could have contributed his being vulnerable to jihadist teaching--
- Many people with autism have the ability to follow logic to an extreme point without getting distracted by the emotional, human consequences, which is not a bad thing under many circumstances. However, in this case, if this boy was convinced that Islam was the truth, and if he was guided by a Muslim teacher who taught a literal, violent interpretation of jihad, then he would be a prime candidate for an Al-Queda recruiter.
- As an 18-year-old with autism, he probably has the social and emotional maturity of a much younger teenager, which doesn't excuse his actions, but I am sure his lawyer will want the jury to take that into account.
- If he grew up alienated from his peers and from American culture in general, that would make it easier for an Al-Queda recruiter to convince him that America is an enemy.

My guess is, the lawyer is not to argue that autism causes violence, but he is going to try to paint his client as a "naive, emotionally immature autistic kid."

Yeah, that was essentially my original take on it. The lawyer will use it as a mitigating circumstance. I was just annoyed by some of the original news headlines related to the story. They chose to take the Autism as mitigating circumstance angle which plays into the autism = violence mindset.....by association.

Consider the following headline:

"Lawyer says teenage US terror suspect autistic, didn't understand consequences"

This type of headline can do 2 things:

1) Autism and violence in the same headline means the two terms are associated in the mind of the reader.

1) If people who are autistic don't understand consequences then they must be more likely to engage in violence. This is, of course, untrue.

Autism is have complete independence of Terrorism. We do understand the consequences but it is matter of patterns. I think the root cause of terrorism is maginalizing people where they feel they have no choice but to rebel.

Question we are facing what are we as individual is getting out of the current society? If you take away hope of better future of person and his or her family they may feel they have no other choice to retaliate through violence. Most of society is asking people with autism to be nothing more than second class citizens at best or even third. So we have our hope taking away and our dreams squashed and people say we have no right to demand more and what about their families. It about our families too.

It is easier to believe we do not understand. Or we are not social aware enough of the inequalities because it would change things and may be re-evaluate what is right or wrong.

It is just excusism, he was capable of knowing the consequences of his actions. He was involved with terrorism because he wanted the consequences that were intended by Al-Qaida.
Terrorism is created by hatred and the desire to destroy the object of their hatred. You don't need to be marginalized to be a terrorist, all you need is the ability and willingness to act on your desire to destroy what you hate.
He is responsible for his actions and should be punished like any other traitor and terrorist.

The situation is complicated.

Gary McKinnon was looking for ufos, he left taunting messages and caused over 350,000 pounds worth of damage. He could have been extradited to solitary confinement.

He may have been misguided, naive because of his ASD.

i think it is very neurotypical to think that injuring isolated strangers from some oppressor-group is a way of destroying that group.

autistic sense of justice might go so far as to retaliate for an actual injury, but would see distinct individuals rather than group-representative targets.

however, it is entirely neurotypical-credible to consider scary people they don't understand, & weird people they don't like, much the same thing.

PS in other "news": OTHER scary weird people! same thing! has to be!

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt237279.html