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Networking in the Danger Zone?
Croaker-bg asks: "I currently am an Information Security/ Network Engineer for a large government contract firm and have recently seen several solicitations come across email regarding gigs in the Middle East and surrounding regions, including both Iraq and Afghanistan. Understanding that the pay might be good for being willing to face the hazards, I continue to have my curiosity perked by these short-term jaunts. Lately however, the news of fellow contractors being abducted has put a new spin on the hazards of working abroad in these areas. Has anyone survived such a trip and lived to tell the tale with a fat wallet? If so, would you consider doing it again or is it just to dangerous?"
you cant spend money when your dead.
You have to ask yourself the (deliberatley skewed left by me) question "Is the lure of money so great on me that I would leave my country to work somewhere where they are kidnapping people exactly like me?
This isn't an opportunity. You aren't "helping shape a newborn government" or whatever. Even if you're Christian, Iraq is the oldest place on earth. If you need the money, do it. Otherwise, don't.
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The last digit of pi is four.
I had the chance to work in Johannesburg. At the time it was "the most dangerous city in the world outside of a war zone." I was there for 4 months, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. While there, my co-worker was on a contract on New York. This was around 9-11... He saw the towers fall in person. You can die anyplace. Be careful, take precautions, be aware, and you have a better chance. Do the math... How many people have been killed in New York in the last 6 months? The risks may be higher in the mid-east, but how much higher? Especially with you watching everything around you?
For Paul Johnson the front lines stretched across the border into Saudia Arabia. Look for them to keep spreading.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Huh? And what precisely do the al-Quaeda fanatics have to do with Iraq?
Unless all of our western intelligence agencies have failed miserably, al-Quaeda people only began moving in Iraq as a direct result of Gulf War 2...
Yes, the Middle East is a dangerous place right now. (Particularly for Westerners.) However, people do have a tendency of exaggerating the danger because of the context.
For example: just a few years ago, seven people were gunned down at a computer engineering firm in Massachusetts. But if I were offered a job in Massachusetts, I doubt that questions of personal safety would even enter my mind.
Of course I'm not saying the Middle East is safer than Massachusetts (though if it keeps you from eating at McDonald's too often, it may well be)! But don't let high profile shock stories bias your judgement too much.
Whether or not he was truly a civilian, of course, remains to be seen. But given that he voluntarily surrendered in order to ``clear things up''? I give him the benefit of the doubt. At least enough to refrain from beating him to death.
...but if you get abducted and beheaded, don't expect me to shed a tear. I have little sympathy for the carpet-baggers currently over around Iraq's moribund corpse.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
"Where's outsourcing when you need it???"
"What's your likelihood of being abducted by terrorists in Saudi Arabia? Not very high. Even if you are there."
/. would something like that be mod'ed "Insightful".
Well, it's kind of hard to be kidnapped by terrorists in Saudi Arabia if you're NOT there.
But if you do go there AND you look like an American, then the chances go right up.
"Certainly not relative to any other of a number of ways you could die."
Stepped on by an elephant while having sex in Tacoma. Hmmm, statistically, that has NEVER HAPPENED.
Do you know what "relative" means?
"You can lock yourself up in your house if you want to. It just depends on how you want to live."
False dichotomy there.
Either
Lock yourself in your house
or
Go someplace where lots of people who don't like you want to kill you and can recognize you easily.
Yeah. Whatever.
"If you are really concerned about your life being out of control and in the hands of terrorists, just get fitted with one of those poison teeth. Then at least you can save yourself from suffering while you die."
So, the terrorists can kill me or I can kill myself before the terrorists kill me.
Only on
How about he get a job at a small insurance company and die from a heart attack 60 years from now brought on by too many donuts for breakfast for 60 years?
I am not a computer professional; I do international development work and so I travel a fair bit. I was in Afghanistan and Pakistan last summer and Iraq last November and December.
I found Afghanistan pretty likeable, but it would be a hard place to live for an extended period. Outside of Kabul it gets very primitive very quickly. Additionally, the security situation outside of Kabul is very much worse than it is inside.
I found Iraqis (and most people, really) to be pretty nice, hospitable people, but the situation there is just all kinds of bad. The security situation is part of it, and this keeps you indoors and in very close quarters a lot of the time, and this gets old quick. And regardless of how you feel about the current administration or the war, being an American in Iraq is a mighty uncomfortable thing to be in 2004.
I presume the people paying big money for these services are military or military contractors. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, these guys live in shipping containers, often in the middle of nowhere. In the Green Zone, shipping containers are stacked everywhere and people are shoved into any space that will fit them. Many people --civilian contractors -- share their bunks in shifts.
If you are really considering this just for the money, I would think very carefully about what you are doing. How much is money really worth? Because especially in Iraq, you will be exposing yourself to physical danger and psychic stress that is considerable.
And if you are going for a travel experience, I can support that, but I would suggest that in a military environment you are unlikely to get much of a cultural experience. There are other, better ways to do this.
If you really believe in what you would be doing (as I did), then go, but do keep an open mind and remain observant and inquisitive; regardless of your position now, you will find things are quite different from how you thought they were.
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Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.