Accidental shooting, pt. 2

[lederhosen]

Further updates on Jacob Kovco, the Australian soldier who was shot in Iraq:

* Now being reported that he did not die cleaning his gun. In Brendan Nelson's words: "It was near him in his vicinity and he made some kind of movement which suggests that it discharged."

("Near him in his vicinity"? "Suggests"? Did I hallucinate the five years where Nelson was Minister for Education, before he was promoted to Defence?)

* In an impressive feat of incompetence, they flew the wrong body back to Australia. Officially, Kovco's body is in Kuwait, held up by a public holiday, but his mother is of the not-unreasonable suspicion that if they accidentally flew a dead Bosnian to Australia, maybe her son's body ended up in Bosnia. (She also looks to be about as convinced as I was by the 'accidental shooting' story.)

Comments

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

When I suggested that a member of the Blackadder family was serving in Iraq, I didn't suspect that Mr Bean was there as well - obviously in charge of 'cargo' administration...

Has anyone seen Rowan Atkinson lately??

[insaint.livejournal.com]

That's just completely insane.

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

My favourite is trying to reconcile this:

This morning Dr Nelson said that Private Kovco was in his room with two others at the time of the incident and had his 9mm Browning pistol nearby.

"He was in a room with two of his mates who were doing other things, working on the computer and so on," he said.

with the fact that the weapon would have had the safety off and a round chambered to discharge. I mean, he was in an obviously secured area, where it's kind of against the rules to have a live weapon, right? You don't have a live weapon in your bedroom, right?

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

I honesty have no idea what happened in Iraq but this bungle just adds insult to a family that have just lost there son, I can’t imagine how they feel.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.. Do you suppose he may have been shot by a fellow digger in an dispute?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's possible, but my general motto is "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity".

If I had to bet on an explanation, I'd split my money between two options: suicide, or an embarrassing accident (embarrassing to somebody still living, that is). Somebody clowning around with a firearm, that sort of thing.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Suicide is plausible, but on the description seems unlikely (the Kiwis had one casulty in East Timor - a soldier shot himself on patrol in the SW corner). Clowning around with firearms in the middle of Iraq doesn't seem to likely either.

Whilst I concur with your general motto, I'd still put money on a dispute.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Clowning around with firearms in the middle of Iraq doesn't seem to likely either.

People do stupid things when they're tired and stressed and trying to blow off steam, though. I'd have thought Iraq would be as likely a place as anywhere. But at the end of the day, that's no more than a guess; will have to wait and see what comes out.

[carlowe.livejournal.com]

Like, if they got the right body, they might know it was bullshit?
Gaahhh...

[quatranoctal.livejournal.com]

Did I hallucinate the five years where Nelson was Minister for Education, before he was promoted to Defence?

Sadly, no. I recall those five years myself, with all the great achievements he managed to, well, achieve. I wish I had been hallucinating them.

Besides, there's been a long-standing tradition of giving ministers portfolios they have little or no personal experience with - when was the last time the Minister for Immigration was an immigrant, the Minister for the Environment a hippie, or the Minister for Science a scientist?[1]

[1] OK, I guess we all know the answer to the last one. But that was still some time ago.