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

You really suck! (You don't get it!)

[gdrumm0356]

Are you by any chance a member of Soros' groups/subgroups?

My son (USMC) came back from his tour in Iraq to visit me in the VA hospital, I didn't see him that trip, I was in a coma and not expected to live through it. During that visit my body functions started working again, and I lived. He came back after I woke up and we visited a while, with a little comparing of Viet Nam (my USMC era) with Iraq. The only thing different today is Fox News, and Internet access for the troops.

All other things remained the same, with the left-wing media only reporting the bad news for higher ratings, and to leave the people at home, and the rest of the world, with the mindset of - America is BAD, it tortures combatants and civilians, and anything else they can make up to fuel their political views. Of course WE can't show the dead and tortured Iraqi and US troops on TV, nor the beheading of the same, so they are not mentioned. Without fox and the troops mailing home, there would be NO good news. The general media doesn't even mention the Kurds, they had to make their own commercials to thank us, and PAY for them! The "bad" guys get free "commercials".

It is no big news that many veterans have clubs like the VFW and American Legion, and visit with other veterans and family members, who ALSO paid the price of their service. That price is living with the "Holier than Thou" attitude of most non-veterans, the media, organizations backed by Soros and other left-wing groups.

It's just comforting to go somewhere that you aren't scorned! During Viet Nam and on leave, I was denounced by my pastor and spit on by other church members, and I hadn't even been to Viet Nam!

With the Internet, and with the troops having their own blogs, one would think that the truth would, or could, be seen by anyone. You have proved that that is not the case, perhaps Google is filtering the information...

The only documented cases of "torture" is the posed pictures at Abu Ghraib, the beheading that can be viewed on al Jazeera, and the remains of Iraqis and our servicemen and women. I suppose that the Red Cross could be in the pay of the government and is lying about Guantanamo, but I don't believe that. You, the media, and the politicians do play it up a lot (For possible/future political gain?).

Perhaps you should post in the politics section of /. where those with better prose could respond. I am only a disabled Vet with no particular viewpoint to propose, and lack the language skills to twist the meanings of words to match my feelings about the subject.

Iraq, like Viet Nam, where the politicians pulled the funding and we left while winning, the politicians are trying to do it again. Remove the funding before a clear "winner" develops, and thus leaving before we finish. This is not to "just get the troops home", it's to implement a political agenda, and insure that a Democrat, or another "Clinton" gets elected President, because they want us to "lose". They don't care about Iraq or their people, and they want us to forget about the sacrifices our military members have made to date, including the fact they want to stay and "win".

A president (Democrat!) once quoted "Speak softly and carry a big stick: You will go far." Six times after we were attacked, Clinton "Spoke LOUDLY, but only used his little dick.". If the media and you were around during WWII, we would be speaking German and Japanese today.

Education may expand your knowledge, but it cannot bestow wisdom. Like you, I am lacking in both, but I WILL admit it!