Posted at: 11/06/2009 9:03 AM | WHEC.com
Updated at: 11/06/2009 9:52 AM

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Retired General Barry McCaffrey talks to News 10NBC about Ft. Hood massacre

The gunman in the Ft. Hood massacre is identified as 39-year-old Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist just promoted to major in July. As a doctor, he treated others for combat stress and was preparing to deploy overseas just after Thanksgiving.

So what was his motive?  Was Major Hasan upset over his deployment or was there a sudden shift in his ideology?

Hasan, an American citizen of Jordanian descent has always been a Muslim. Now authorities are looking into internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.

Retired 4-Star General Barry McCaffrey, who attended a fundraiser Thursdays night in Rochester for the Veterans Outreach Center, believes today's shooting could turn out to be an act of terrorism. “This is going to turn out to be a political act. People who are frightened of deployment don't murder their fellow soldiers. This was completely out of the ordinary, we've never seen anything like this. We have murders periodically in the armed forces, but it's somebody 20 years old, drunk, it's two o’clock in the morning, it's drugs, it's girls, it's cards its something so this was planned mass murder.”

Mass murder on a military base that general McCaffrey says is safe. “There's perimeter security, to get on base is difficult. People don't lock their doors, their children walk to school in the morning, so they are places of safety.”

Now that safe, comfortable feeling has been flipped upside down. “It's a terrible tragedy where thousands of families now are spending tonight in mental trauma wondering if it was their loved one who was hurt or killed.”

This retired, four-star general has so much insight but he knows there is still a lot about this he does not know. “This may not be have been only a mental health problem, we're going to have to listen carefully to what the FBI and the Army CID learn in the coming days. Was this a political act of terrorism or was it mental instability and violence such as we've seen on college campus or high schools.”

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