Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Seriously. Mods - hear me out before hitting "troll." Stand on the street and sell weed. You would make a lot of money. Yes, it's true that if things go badly you end up in jail. But if things go badly in Iraq, you end up dead. Death is permanent. With jail, you get out after a year or two, and you have a chance to put your life back together.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
I'd go. How do I sign up? Monster doesn't really carry that kind of stuff, and some basic Google searches didn't turn up much. Do I email Halliburton or something?
but every time I start giving it some real thought someone else gets abducted and murdered. I don't know what the pay rate is, i'm more interested in just the experience but i dunno if i'm confotable with the risks.
..maybe northern Iraq with the Kurds, from what i understand things are pretty stable there.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
While I have never been there, nor do I have a job in networking, or one at all, all I can say is that you should never travel or work alone. Find a way to get some protection. Get a gun, and some self-defence classes before you go. I have been in Middle East. I have lived in Israel for a few years and got an Israeli citizenship.
Big props go to you guys who are not letting the terrorists scare you away. You are indeed pioneers! It's like the ole west over there with money to be made in the face of great danger.
If you can look at those pictures on drudge and still bring yourself to go... you deserve the big dollars for your brass balls.
Those people are living in a phucked up world right now... they need honest people over there to help them... and to let them know that the basic American is not the military that they fear.
AC
NO NO No and more no.
You are not a target for some whack-job and their Whoopie-knife. Keep your head right where it belongs, atop your shoulders.
Greed, quite literally, KILLS these days.
The DoD was recently debating if civilian contractors should be allowed to arm themselves.
The fact that they where even debating the issue should give you pause.
First let me state that I personally have no first hand experience in a situation like this, except that when I was a kid growing up my father was a similar contractor and, since this was the seventies, my family was dragged along as well. That never happens anymore. But I was in Iraq in 1979 before the Iran-Iraq war and remember leaving just before the war broke out. Right now my father is in a similar situation about a job in Indonesia where the company is currently facing people leaving (ironically I was born at that same jobsite).
Okay. It depends upon the security arrangements. First of all working in a second or third world country is very cool. There's nothing like the culture shock while at the same time being an expert compared to most people around you. Second, there is a big difference between having to work outside a secure compound and working inside the compound. If your inside the compound, changes are you'll spend most of your time there is a pretty secure environment and the only time you'll leave is to go on vacation to Dubai or someplace like that and have a significantly better chance at meeting some rich heiress that if you worked in the states.
One the other hand, if you're working outside a secure compound (like for example as a civil or petrolium engineer), make sure your paid well. While you'll still be pretty secure, you never know what'll happen. That being said, when they say that contractors are being targetting, they really are talking about security contractors who are ex navy seal types.
-?-
"A contractor's personal politics play heavily when choosing jobs."
It COULD, but it would be incorrect.
MANY things are hurting the Iraqi people, and I don't think we should be there. That said, the US is doing a hell of a lot of good work in restoring/building infrastructure in Iraq. This is helping, NOT hurting the Iraqis...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Not true. An acquaintance of mine is a contractor there and he blogs it on his LJ. 1. He always carries a gun. 2. His company provides mercs for extra protection.
Its not for everyone, by far, I wouldn't do it either, but if you want to, its not a total death warrant. The aforementioned acquaintance has been there for a year now, with his gf who is also doing contractor work.
Imagine the feeling of a hand gripping your hair and pulling your head back. Imagine a dull, rusty knife sawing its way through the skin, tendon, and bone of your neck. Imagine your agonizing screams suddenly cut off as the blade penetrates your larynx. Imagine no longer being able to scream, but the agony continuing as the Muslim fanatic hacks off your head. Imagine your last sight being the video camera they're using to film your murder.
Imagine that stuff, and realize it could very well happen to you. If you're cool with that risk, then go.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
Some of us enjoy doing dangerous things. MOST of us live to tell our grandchildren about it.
1 - Don't learn by experience. My employer spent a lot of money on survival training for me.
2 - www.survivaliq.com/survival/introduction.htm I wouldn't rely on just reading this but it's better than nothing.
3 - Make sure you are totally backed up. If they want something bad enough, they will supply you with whatever you need to be safe. I'm sorry but working alone on a cellphone tower in hostile territory ain't going to happen.
4 - Make absolutely sure that you have transport out.
I spent a lot of time camped on the ice in the arctic. Every year there were 'adventurers' and 'explorers' who insisted on tackling a very hostile environment without enough resources behind them. We didn't admire their heroism, we scoffed at their stupidity. We were really serious about safety. Our camp had twice daily radio checks to our depot. Everybody out on the ice had hourly radio checks. Everybody had a gun in case of polar bears. We always wore survival suits when flying over water. We never went out alone. We always returned safely.
I served in the Persian Gulf during my active duty years in the Navy. I am now retired fortunatley. These days however, there is no way I would go back to that region for any reason or any amount of money. There is widespread hatred of Americans in the region, and anyone western is a target. The situation was bad when I was there, and now it is so much worse, I can't even imagine. Having made it through my Gulf tour without incident, I consider myself lucky, but having got back here safely, I'll never ever go back, not for any reason, or any amount of money. Believe me whatever the're paying you it isn't worth it. Its not really fun in that part of the world, so a best case scenario in you won't have much fun, the worse is you could end up shipped backed in a plastic bag. I'd say do no go, what would it be like for you're family if you were killed over there just for a job? There are other jobs, no job is worth dying for. Obviously the political situation in the middle east is only deteriorating, stay home, don't be a statistic, don't risk putting yourself family through what could happen. You saw the news today, I'd think that would speak for itself. Mark
here is the deal the tax break, only applies if you spend 330 days in a 365 day period out of the states. Also the tax free is only on the first 80K, It still works out pretty good, depending on where you are and what your company policyies are. You also need to factor in Perdiem which is 94 dollars a day in Kuwait + logding. some companies pay a flat rate of 10k permonth for vehicles housing and food, actual cost to live pretty comfortablyis only about 3,500 to 4,000 all perdiem is tax free also. based on my experience you could expect to clear 140,000 - 230,000 for a year.
All that stuff was working before the US blew it all up. Of course they should fix it, it's their fault it's broken. This is a "duh". this is like thanking Mr. Burglar for being a nice guy and fixzing the window he broke when he slipped in to snag all your loot. It's not a heck of a lot of good, it's a pittance of feel goodism to give the appearance of propiety to disguise the serious criminality over the illegal invasion of another soverign nation.
Remember, the military kills people and breaks things, that's their job, that's the only thing they even remotely do adequately. Now they got a big mess, and have turned a number of people away from any sort of western styled society, because everything their Islamic clerics told them about the west and what would happen to them came true. The americans came in, wiped out people, destroyed all sorts of stuff, and then they took over the prisons, slammed people in their under little pretext, and tortured and killed a lot of them, and they still support israel and are doing their best to get the free oil pipeline to israel set up and running smoothly-again, what was predicted to happen that was broadcast to the people there is coming true. They would get invaded and have their oil stolen, and the US would put in a puppet government and still stay there forever. All that is true, they state this is what has happened and what will happen. And the torture pictures released are the tame pictures.
And here's a final thought. Iraq is an artifical creation of the british empire a long time ago, and it took a dictator like saddam to keep basically three separate nations together as one nation. That is the only level of coercion that will keep iraq a single nation. there is no peaceful democratic way to do this. So you have to ask yourself, is the attempt in and of itself harebrained and misguided? I would say probably so-unless you accept it was based totally on lies and the invasion was for two purposes-steal theoil and get a permanent land based large military presence on the ground in the mideast, and two, remove one threat that the zionazis saw to their eventual expansions they thing are their eventual right. Then this invasion makes a sort of twisted sense. The top administration people are all israeli firsters and professional lobbyists, and/or they make millions personally from their ties to the oil and military industrial complex corporations. To me, the evidence is clear, the war was wrong from who started it-they should all be in jail really, various crimes-and they have constantly bungled it, they are just too stupid to be entrusted with actions of this caliber. I mean, boneheaded stupid, not any sort of world class thinkers represented there. Rumsfeld? Bonehead. Cheney? A psycho. Bush? A marionette with some serious social issues. Rice? Puh-lease...... wolfowitz, perle, geez, we got some winners there.....
120,000 USD/year isn't anything to sneeze at.
Considering that most USA IT pro pay scale has
gone way down in the last 2 years, MOST of the
pay differential is hazardous duty pay. Very
recent events in the ME would indicate that the
pay differential is for REAL RISKS.
I understand that the pay is tax-free, so there
is more money to spend on health & life ins.,
ceramic body armour, and a folding AK-47.
Where do I sign up?
I lived in Bagh-town for 3 months this year on Camp Victory. It was awesome. But make no mistake, it is dangerous: I was attacked at least once a day by rocket fire, mortar fire, or gunfire. Everyday is a day on the edge. However, in exchange for the risk, you come back with a WAD of cash (I made $4000/m just for being a go-fer), a sense of survival (nothing really shakes my tree anymore.. except slamming doors and unexpected sounds.. what I meant was people don't scare me anymore), and a wonderful sense of culture. The arabs are WONDERFUL people. Very unselfish and friendly (except the ones that one to kill us). I made many friends, and now have a good understanding of arabic. If you want to talk to me, reply to this message. I would be happy to discuss it with you. -Dust
Do you really think Iraq has the manpower and know-how to repair an oil pipeline that was destroyed by terrorists in TWO days?
Um, yes? They did pretty fine pumping their billions of barrels of oil for the past 70, 80 years, and repairing the damage after countless wars. I don't see why they'd start sucking now. They produce a fuck of a lot more oil than we do, that's for sure, and they've had a hell of a lot more practice than whatever 3rd-string dorks Halliburton shipped over. The only reason we bring in Halliburton is they import Greek and Russian muscle who don't speak Arabic and are, frankly, just too dumb to take bribes to sabotage things. It's not like they're any good at this stuff, the army gets bids from the Iraqi engineering firms who built the stuff in the first place, to have it fixed in 1/4 the time and at 1/10th the price, it's just that we don't trust them to do it.
I've been in some crappy neighborhoods, had friends mugged or beaten up, here in New York, when I lived in Ft. Lauderdale, and so on. These places can be dangerous, and I've heard Johannesburg, Mexico City and the lot can be much worse. And actually, aside from 9-11, I haven't known anybody who's died by an act of random violence in New York, and I don't even know anybody that's been robbed or mugged since Giuliani was elected mayor. In any case, there's dangerous, then there's just fucking crazy.
I'm an Australian who lived in Iran from March 2002 to October 2003. I don't think I was ever in any physical danger - I don't see why it would rate hazard pay now. I mean, people, we're talking about the third biggest country on orkut, where women post pictures of themselves without hijab and everyone lists their drinking frequency. Many Westerners have strange misimpressions about the place, and the Western media typically emphasise only aspects that stand out, not everyday life. Because of this, I have to come to believe and tell others that the only way to understand Iran is to visit personally.
This sounds like the classic "Tall" story from someone trying to impress you by pretending that just because he was out of the USA for a couple of weeks .. Now he thinks he's Rambo (tm)
IMHO your buddy gave you a lot of bulldroppings and you eat them straight ..
Have you been there ? no? ohh.. I thought so...
I've been to over there many, many times, and it's no more risky than your average 7-11 on a good day.
Do you have any idea how many thousands of turist go to S. America e-v-e-r-y month ?
Do you really think they all carry "ex-Ranger" security with them ?
For god sake.. most of them are nice senior citizens in really tack outfits..
ever heard of on of them being captured,killed,kidnapped etc ? ? no? oh.. I thought so..
C'mon .. use your head..
And the methodology for his study is what? And he defines "fanatic" how? No disrespect meant to your friend there, but the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." Back here on earth, more credible studies paint a much bleaker picture of Iraqi sentiment towards the occupation.
This is an area where you're likely to be kidnapped based on...
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
There's no place in Iraq where you're likely to be kidnapped. There are places where the possibility is higher than others, but nowhere is it likely.
Of course, if you're the one snatched, tortured, and beheaded, I guess it really doesn't matter what the odds were.
And as for the crap about the "front lines." Wake up, you moron! (Whichever moron posted the remark, I mean.) There are no more front lines. Iraq is incredibly peaceful and incredibly secure when you consider what it's been through recently. Hell, there are many places in the United States that are less safe, in terms of per capita violent crime, than most of Iraq. I'd feel safer wandering the streets of Basra or Baghdad or Mosul at night than I would walking to or from the Metro stop in southeast D.C.
I write in my journal
Wow. That's a pretty impressive show of completely ignoring the facts in order to make your point. Neato.
Look, numbers don't lie. Plain facts don't lie. Last December, the story broke that the homicide rate in Baghdad had fallen to below the largest American cities. If you took the military casualties out of the equation, the Baghdad murder rate was lower than any American city.
(The story was covered in depth by Canada's National Post. They don't have it on their site any more, but here's what appears to be a reasonably intact copy of the original.)
I write in my journal
Whether you think the "state" argument applies here or not, realize it ain't just about the money. For $100k a year are you willing to become part of an occupying force? To the natives that's what you will represent, and all your income will be tainted with the blood both of the natives who died in the occupation and of the "allied" soldiers who died not for the money, but because they thought it their duty to be there when their country asked.
To quote Rick Blaine: I don't mind a parasite; I object to a cut-rate one.
I think that most of the people who do these kind of "offshore ventures" are not doing it just for the money. There are a lot of other valuable things you can receive from a job besides money.
Statistically speaking, I think you have a better chance of getting killed in America through one of our favorites (heart disease, automobile, gunshot) then you do getting beheaded in the Middle East. However, if you are killed in the Middle East you will probably enable your loved ones a brighter future through public sympathy donations and potential gigs on television.
But the people who do this kind of work are doing it because they are trying to make a difference in the world and they believe that they are on the side of GOOD.
If you do this, do it not because of your wallet, but because of your conscience. Think who you might become as the result of this experience.
Have you considered going to a desolate place instead of a war zone?
I don't know if there's much chance of you getting a job there (I've known a guy who got an offer, but they wanted him for engineering duties), but it might be another option. The offer was from our government (Argentinian), about US100000. And he said that was cheap. Maybe there's some IT jobs to be done there. He didn't take it, though. Didn't like the mandatory appendix extraction.
You won't get that kind of money now here, but maybe some commonwealth government (the British have an importante presence there), or the Americans could make an offer.
It's going to be hard to get, networking stuff can be usually done remotely (I'm a netadmin myself), but there might be a chance.
GPG 0x1B479C78
I've worked for a couple of companies that have advertised huge bonuses and paychecks to work on projects in the middle east. None of the assignments were like post-war Iraq, so this might not apply. The jobs were all in countries with stable locally-owned and operated governments, and these were not a US government funded projects, so excess costs didn't get billed back.
I never had a desire to go, based on the experience of others who had returned and told how their huge paychecks were eaten away by various bribes. For instance, you could live in a tent... or... you could pay a local a nice bundle to get you into some kind of better housing.
Those who returned had two complaints; they were bored to death the whole time they were there, and a lot of their money went to paying off the local insiders.
My metamoderation cancels your moderation
You'll appreciate this story then. A mate of mine was a journalist in Lebanon covering some pretty bad stuff in the early 90s. While he was in the basement with some of his colleagues sheltering from the latest rocket attack on their hotel he mentioned that his next assignment was to Johannesburg. As one the others said: "Johannesburg! Are you crazy?"
Joburg (where I live now) is like any big city in the US or Europe (and I've been to a few): good areas, dodgy areas and absolute no-go areas. Even Lagos can be OK if you know what you're doing.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Please explain where the math is wrong. I didn't say it was 10K for a person for a night, it was 100 people at $100 a night. I think the whole point is, and the army apparently agreed, is that it isn't exactly right to take a huge staff on an extended assignment, alongside soldiers living in tents, thinking you rate putting your entire staff in a five star hotel for the duration, at the tax payers expense. Halliburton/KBR signed up to work for the Army, alongside the Army, they get paid well for it so they should be living like the Army lives and like the Army tells them to.
All in all its more than a little excessive. Rent some god damn apartments if nothing else.
They just don't make war profiteers like they used to.
@de_machina