The watch list is a bullshit piece of legislation that means nothing because it's little more than a document filled with Arab-sounding names. Dude was clearly non-practicing and was almost certainly not connected to any Islamic terror groups. The list is broad and indiscriminate, and as a result has a false positive rate that makes it worthless as anything but a fomenter of anti-Muslim sentiment. Dude was serving in one of those mercenary paramilitary organizations, so it's not like the government thought he couldn't be trusted with weaponry. This is the reddest of herrings.