Cheat-Seeking Missles

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Orlando Bomb Suspect Probably Not A Terrorist, But ...

The man arrested Tuesday at Orlando's airport with bomb-making materials is an Army vet who apparently has no direct ties to terrorists groups, according to an Orlando Sentinel article.

Kevin Brown served in the Army from 1999 to 2003 as a logistics specialist, serving stateside and in Germany, but not in any combat zone. He later went to Iraq as a logistics contractor -- basically a warehouse guy -- under contract to the company KBR.

He told the FBI he had the bomb-making materials because he wanted to show friends in Jamaica how to build bombs "like the kind he saw in Iraq."

Does that put the story to sleep or raise more suspicions? The latter, for me.

How would a warehouse contractor see bombs in Iraq? Granted, some contractors are at risk of explosive devices -- but that's because they're driving by them, not because they are involved in their seizure or disposal. The story is made up.

And when stories are made up, there's still a need to get to the truth.

BTW, if the MSM tries a "troubled vet" meme on this story, slap them upside the head. Brown obviously had some serious troubles, but the only fair "troubled" story would be the "troubled Army contractor" story.

BTW II, if you're scratching your head at the cost of the Iraq war, you might find this passage of the referenced article enlightening:
He worked there as an equipment parts receiver from July 2007 to late 2007, according to LSI and Houston-based KBR Inc., the contractor that hired the Georgia firm for military support work in Iraq. Contractor tours typically last at least 12 months, with base pay of $90,000.
$90,000! That's just a tad more than the average Army private makes, eh? There was a day, before Clinton decimated the military, when equipment parts receivers for the Army were the Army; now they're $90,000-a-year contract workers.

The war is expensive not just because of military ops, but because of the wealth of high-paying civilian jobs it's created!

See also: Reporting All But The Key Facts

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