http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091112/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_fort_hood_shooting

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has found no evidence that Hasan formally sought release from the Army as a conscientious objector or for any other reason, two senior military officials told The Associated Press. Family members have said he wanted to get out of the Army and had sought legal advice, suggesting that Hasan’s anxiety as a Muslim over his pending deployment overseas might have been a factor in the deadly rampage.

Hasan had complained privately to colleagues that he was harassed for his religion and that he wanted to get out of the Army. But there is no record of Hasan filing a complaint with his chain of command regarding any harassment he may have suffered for being Muslim or any record of him formally seeking release from the military, the officials told the AP.

as per the drill, an anonymous source.

But if he was already unhappy and wanting out at Walter Reed, someone is going on the record with what it meant for him to be transferred to Ft. Hood.

An extra year’s service

Another Army official, Lt. Col. George Wright, said Wednesday that Hasan likely would have had to commit to another year in the military when he was transferred to Fort Hood earlier this summer. It is common for an officer to incur a one-year service extension when they receive a transfer to another post.

I seem to recall that officers can buy any personal sidearm that they want as long as they can obtain ammunition for it–which might militate against the 5.7-mm FN pistol, since the Army-issue weapon is 9-mm. The FN would be a solid choice, though, for a rear-area person like a doctor that probably would not be issued with a rifle. It was designed for just such purposes. The old 9-mm bullet no longer has enough performance against armored opponents with assault rifles. At short range, the FN 5.7-mm supposedly does.

The anti-Muslim hazing is also probably connected with low recruiting standards. When my brother went into the Navy in the ’80s, a guy with a neo-Nazi or racist tattoo was either rejected or told to get himself a belt sander. Now tattoos and even Nazi paraphernalia can be openly displayed in barracks. Drug abuse and crimes that used to exclude you from the service now are either OK or are covered up by recruiters.

OTOH, on the theme that this was a guy who was getting very frustrated and unhappy in the military and gave off signs that he may have been getting unstable in his anger and frustration, I do think that things like his presentations were “suspicious” in the sense that they should have created a different and more investigative response in the military.

I suppose one possibile explanation would be if the current average/general level of upset, frustration, resistance, etc. of those getting deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan is running so high that Hasan’s stressed tenor didn’t stand out against everyone else’s. I don’t have the background sense to evaluate that, does anyone else here?

For that matter, does anyone here know whether the weapon purchase was actually unusual for someone about to deploy? Again I don’t, but I also remember a long history of stories about soldiers buying their own battle gear — bulletproof vests, vehicle armor etc. — because the USG was persistently failing to adequately equip them for their safety in-theater. Does that gap extend to weapons? Hasan’s time at Walter Reed would, one imagines, have exposed him to some of the most extreme stories/information about USG failures to support soldiers in the field. From that POV, making sure he had a really good self defense weapon before deploying might have been a rational step, especially since he knew he’d be in extended close contact with whatever number of soldiers and contractors the insane war has made insane with indiscriminate, murderous Islamophobia. Whatever actions against him by fellow soldiers could be assumed to be more destructive than what he’d already experienced stateside.

Of course from the POV of his previous history, the attack was the opposite of rational. But put all the elements together that were present just before the attack, and you’ve got a potentially highly explosive pile. As far as understanding what happened goes, the big question at this point is not the prior history and the intel – law enforcement handling of it, but rather why did he go astable at that point — was it premeditated?, was there some further and extreme provocation we don’t know about yet and he snapped?, did something entirely different in nature happen to make Hasan go a little funny in the head? Again, irrational based on what came before. The previous history as we know it so far while concerning did not rise to a level that would have supported a prediction of mass mayhem.

That is not meant to minimize in any way the importance of heading off the opportunistic, disingenuous grabs of power and Constitutional rights by Lieberman, CrazyPete, et al. In that sense (and in that sense only) I agree that this attack is analogous to 9/11, though unlike last time, this time we actually have a chance to stop the rights erosion train.