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

Re:Sensational

[GodfatherofSoul]

First off, let me say I'm thankful for your service since anyone who doesn't support the war is branded as "not supporting the troops." We DO hear about the good news in Iraq in the States. The problem is, we destroyed that country. Iraq used to be the icon for a modern secular Muslim nation with an equally modern health care. They didn't NEED our mobile hospitals before we invaded. The large majority of this country does not want to be there any more. That doesn't mean we "don't support the troops." That means we don't support Bush's policies in Iraq. How much time have news services spend on the 32 students killed at VT compared to the 160 Iraqis killed the next day? There's this very incorrect impression that the "liberal" media has been hating on the occupation. Things are legitimately deteriorating over there, especially considering Bush's recent comments that we'll rely on Iraqi troops LESS! That means no more "stand down when they stand up" policy. That means more deployments for a long time for you.