When news broke of a shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, many naturally thought of Fort Hood: Was America seeing another terror-inspired attack?
In the days that followed, there’s been no evidence shooter Aaron Alexis went on his rampage to advance the terrorist war on the West, the way Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did at Fort Hood. But though the motive may have been different, there is another comparison just as troubling: the apparent inability of our military bases to deal effectively with men who were sending out loud danger signals.
For example, authorities knew before Hasan murdered all those people at Fort Hood that he had been in touch with a radical imam in Yemen and behaved erratically toward vets he was supposed to treat. Likewise with Alexis, who had a history of insubordination, unstable behavior and incidents involving guns. Though these were enough to get him discharged from the Navy, he still managed a security clearance.
Alexis and Hasan are not the only cases that have people wondering where common sense has gone. Bradley Manning gained high-level Army security clearance despite manifest mental problems, and then used his position to bleed secrets to WikiLeaks. Edward Snowden was sneakier, but you have to wonder about the ease with which he finagled a job with contractor Booz Allen, stole so much high-level info and then walked away with it.
The point is, areas that ought to be the most secure today seem the most vulnerable. We’re encouraged that Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has called hearings into contractor-hiring practices, but we’ll be more encouraged when we start hearing the hard questions asked.