I slightly misspoke. The gunman was an army psychiatrist.

There is limited info available and the accuracy of it all is questionable. Regardless, this is some of what's out there and my speculative analysis (which can change as we get to learn more):

The shooter is of Palestinian descent and is Muslim. He was born in US, joined the military right after high school, went to med school here, and did residency in psychiatry (Walter Reed Army Medical Center), even doing a "fellowship in Disaster and Preventive Psychiatry." He is apparently a very intelligent and educated person. He was promoted to Major just recently so this guy had shown himself to be quite a loyal and competent fellow.

In July he had some poor performance evaluation. Also, it looks like he was trying to get discharged for several years, both because of constant harassment by military colleagues because of his ethnic background and religious affiliation (Apparently he had even hired a lawyer for that), and also it seems that he had become quite disenchanted with the currents wars after hearing some stories from the soldiers returning.

Most of my info comes from Wikipedia (after verifying the sources) by the way.

Based on this info, my guess is that this was not particularly religiously motivated. It had to do with being harassed for his ethnic/religious identity, being overwhelmed by some of the horror stories he was hearing about the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, being a short time away from being deployed to Middle East himself, finding it all overwhelming specially because he was identifying both with US soldiers (his training and current life) and Iraqis/Afghanis (perhaps through his parents, and religious/ethnic identification). In short, he was emotionally exhausted and he was aware of it. It seems he had been trying for a few years to get discharged.

The essence of the story is typical of many US soldiers who are burned out and want to return home or get discharged but can't. It is the reality of the current failed wars with no end in sight. The fact that he took out his frustration out on other soldiers instead of himself or random civilians may be related to the harassment issue and his identity.

Obviously he became a psychiatrist to help people, and he did for many years. It is too sad and very surprising that he as a therapist was unable to manage his own emotions, taking the lives of others so violently, and injuring other human beings. His difficulties somewhat explain his behavior but don't excuse it. Americans know that the wars are not going well and many innocent Iraqis and Afghanis are getting killed. Soldiers don't want to be there. Obama is planning to pull them out soon. What message was he trying to send? Or was it merely an extreme and irrational reaction to being bullied, a sort of workplace violence when the employee is fed up?

It is also too bad that a psychiatrist had to put up with small-minded bigoted people in the army eventhough he was there to help soldiers with PTSD. It is too bad that he did not get discharged despite asking for it consistently. And finally it's too bad that he will be used by the media, small-minded people and those with an agenda, as an example to re-ignite the flames of hatred and anger, create more hostility and spread fear, and remind the public of everything that has been going wrong since the September 11 tragedy.

sorry to have mentioned your racist comments.

I believe Tex was trying to tell you that no one likes a tattle-tale DAS.

Shame on Tex and every one who agrees with his childish comments............ for how do's Tex have the gall to cry like a baby when we ALL know he and his right wing lady boy friends campaigned to have the whole thread about a book review deleted just cos he did not like the name of the book , which was being used as the threads title

"our resident snitch" once again I say Shame on you TexasBlue and I say to those who follow that bully TexasBlue "no one likes a tattle-tale" shame on you.

and good on you DeepAtSea............. thank you

I agree, Juicy.
Thanks for that detailed analysis!

I laugh at these people that come on TV and say that these shootings could have been prevented if the accused person was monitored.

So what happens then?
You fire him for not doing his job well and then he comes back later and shoots people because he was upset at being fired.
Seems like a no-win situation there, pal!

when cable is on your side, you should realize that you were wrong

I'm sure you can't just "come back later" to an Army base after you've been fired....

I was in a heavily-monitored area of a hospital once (less than a day; what a joke), & it was actually written in the rulebook you couldn't return for 30 days after you'd been discharged.

On another note, the thing that got me was when I watched the memorial (how could you miss it; on every channel), & part of what was said was about the non-military parts of each victim's life. It's sad when anyone dies, so I was upset enough when I didn't know specific facts about each of them.