A Strange Arrest in a New Alleged Fort Hood Attack Plot

By Mark Benjamin | July 28, 2011 | +

The immediate reaction from a lot of people when news first broke that a soldier shot up the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood in November 2009 was surprise that this kind of thing had not happened earlier. Many folks (including me) first assumed that this was the act of a soldier suffering greatly from combat stress after repeated combat tours who felt like he was not getting the help he deserved after his return. I’ve met a lot of soldiers who were so stressed under those conditions that they seemed capable of that kind of thing.

Of course, it turned out that the gunmen accused of killing 13 people, Major Nidal Hasan, allegedly had some weird ideas about Islam and was basically a terrorist.

Fox News is in the lead reporting on the new arrest of at least one soldier allegedly planning to shoot up Fort Hood — again. Fox says that Pvt. Nasser Jason Abdo, an AWOL soldier from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, has been arrested by the Killeen Police Department near Fort Hood. The Fox post uses the confusing verbiage that the arrest comes “after raising concerns over another alleged plot to attack Fort Hood.” And then this: “Authorities, however, will not say if Abdo is the one who raised security concerns.” Abdo reportedly had weapons and explosives at the time of his arrest, however.

Oddly though, he was apparently never deployed to combat and had only been in the Army a year. He was also allegedly under investigation for possession of child pornography and may have been in cahoots with others. Add to the scant information puzzle the fact that he also applied for conscientious objector status. Whatever this is, it is already probably not what you might expect.

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