Ft. Hood: Workplace Violence vs. Terror

The Ft. Hood shooting is a better candidate for categorization as workplace violence rather than terror. But this does not mean that the shooter won't join the popular rush to align himself with jihad or a more spectacular cause to somehow try to dignify his villainy. He may be nothing but a cowardly loser, yet he will most likely chase recognition and respect of a kind by trying to elevate his deplorable actions as something more than what they truly were. Here is the rationale for identifying him more with workplace violence than terror:

- Relatively few signs of planning other than giving away furniture -- at least based on what is in the media so far. Also, no sign of a Plan B, in case the shooting did not cause enough fatalities in his estimation.

- No apparent escape plan, although terrorists and rampage killers have been known to carry out one-way missions.

- Death toll comparable to Columbine, the work of unsophisticated kids, whereas this shooter was apparently a well educated individual who would have been able to plan for more casualties, particularly if under the control of a terror cell.

- Weapons choice: handguns vs. automatic weapons, explosives, or combination of both. Also, he would have been in a better position than most to unleash a biological weapon, particularly if he had returned to the good graces of his medical community. Historically and statistically, the bomb remains the terrorist weapon of choice and, given this individual's access, would have been easy to place strategically and in quantity in multiple areas on post to increase damage and fatalities. A modestly planned attack would have one explosion triggering evacuations right into the line of fire, for example. But this didn't happen.

- Multiple signs of volatility and instability, whereas an agent of a terror network would be selected and trained to avoid drawing attention and to blend until directed to strike. An unstable individual, on the other hand, would make a lousy recruit and threaten to compromise the network through ill-considered actions and
inattention to operational security. Even the Al Qaeda Manual that the British captured in Manchester in 2002 advised would-be agents of jihad to fit in, blend, and avoid overly ostensible identification with their true cause and ideology.

- In The Islamist as well as in other studies on the unconventional threat, I seem to recall that the more normal pattern of radicalization is to stop attending mosque and instead turn to a clandestine cell for social identity reinforcement and validation as one becomes more radicalized. Didn't this fellow go the opposite way?

- Triggering events consistent with last straws typically found in workplace violence cases: bad performance review(s), stymied in attaining personal goals (to avoid impending combat deployment),increasingly alienated without spouse or close personal anchors, most likely facing negative career events (court martial? loss of
professional licenses?), seeing no way out of self-created predicament.

- Nick Catrantzos