Bringing Bandwidth To Iraq

jemevans sends us a link to his nonfiction tale of two California cypherpunks who went to Baghdad to seek their fortune and bring the Internet to Iraq. A much abridged version ran in Wired a while back. From the original: "Ryan Lackey wears body armor to business meetings. He flies armed helicopters to client sites. He has a cash flow problem: he is paid in hundred-dollar bills, sometimes shrink-wrapped bricks of them, and flowing this money into a bank is difficult. He even calls some of his company's transactions 'drug deals' — but what Lackey sells is Internet access. From his trailer on Logistics Staging Area Anaconda, a colossal US Army base fifty miles north of Baghdad, Lackey runs Blue Iraq, surely the most surreal ISP on the planet. He is 26 years old."

Comments

Need employees

[phorm]

One of my questions would be. Who out there is still hiring, what are the wages like, and who here on slashdot would be willing to sign up?

We take a lot of our technology for-granted. Bringing modern technology to a war-torn, outdated country could be both a dream and a nightmare.

Re:Need employees

[Chris Pimlott]

Except that you wouldn't so much be bringing Internet to the Iraqis as are would be bringing Internet to the American troops, Haliburton contractors and Blackwater mercenaries. While this will eventually (years later) trickle down to average Iraqis, make no mistake; right now it's by westerners for westerners.

Re:Need employees

[slamb]

So come on, right-wing types! Where's your "support the troops" spirit?

Maybe due to my left-wing political views, I don't understand this question. You seem to be talking about something entirely different than supporting our troops. It seems like there are several different actions you can take, including

• what you're suggesting - strapping on body armor and do similar things as our troops, with shrinked-wrapped bricks of hundred-dollar bills replacing training, "semper fidelis", and command structure. This is what I call "being a mercenary".
• joining the military yourself. Not as lucrative as mercenary work, but much more respected, at least historically. (The popularity of euphemisms like "private security" seems to indicate a recent change to that attitude.)
• participating in our democracy to keep our troops as safe as possible - ensure they're not sent anywhere they don't need to be, and ensure they are well-equipped when they are sent there. This is what I think of when people say "support our troops".

Re:Sensational

[spitefulcrow]

If it is sensational journalism, at least it's reported from the other end of the spectrum from the unending series of "Everything in Iraq is fine" articles we get from American mainstream media.

Re:Sensational

[spencerogden]

Where are these positives articles about Iraq which you speak of?

Re:He sounds like he working in Oakland, CA....

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing missing between Iraq an Oakland or Richmond, CA is flying helicopter to place to place.

Does this look like California to you?

Asshole!

WANTED: People who like Dollars more than sense

[grapeape]

I'm all for entepreneuership and making a buck, but there are a couple things that bother me about this. First the likely clients will be the ones who were wealthy before Sadam was ousted, so more than often than not they will be supporting the same ones who helped keep down the people we are supposed to be trying to help. Second, on the likely chance that one of them is taken hostage or killed you can bet the news will be splattered with sob stories about them as if they were heroes helping the common man while dozens of real heroes die with no mention beyond a tally of bodies. There should be a list that separates the civilian humanitarians from the opportunists just so the media will know which ones to ignore.

Re:Sensational

[Wordsmith]

Um, huh?

Don't know if you do, but I live in America, and I've yet to get that impression from our media. It's a whole lot of "Oh dear lord, we're stuck in a quagmire" - and I don't think that comes from an anti-war slant so much as a consistent barrage of bad news there's no way to spin in a positive way. The closest to "everything is fine" that we get is Fox telling us things are bad, but not nearly so bad as everyone else says.

Re:That's what it's all about for US companies

[Achromatic1978]

Absolutely. These guys are lauded like humanitarians in this article, but bullshit. Show me the Iraqi that can pay US$3000 a month for Internet access. There isn't much going on in Iraq but shameless profiteering from the rampant destruction (oh, and the small matter of death and carnage) - so forgive me if I fail to be in awe of anyone mentioned in this article, other than their utter gall and lack of remorse?

Re:Internet in Iraq

[ProfessionalCookie]

Thanks for your service.

Re:Sensational

[illumin8]

The Good news is normally played over and over and over, to the point where we can mute the TV and say exactly what they are

This is called propaganda and it's used to bolster the morale of troops who might otherwise find out from the "real news" (whatever that is, perhaps NPR?) what is really going on over there and how badly we are losing. You might ask yourself: Why are they repeating that one good story about the mobile hospital fixing vision problems for poor Iraqis over and over again? Is it because that is the only good news they could find and they wanted to boost the morale of the troops? Or is it because repetition matters (you said yourself you could mute the TV and repeat every word verbatim) and they want to program you to think that you are doing a good thing over there?

Ask yourself some tough questions, and maybe you might come to the conclusion that just as Americans not in the war might get an overly negative view of the war, those getting their news from propaganda central might be getting just the opposite. The truth is somewhere in between.