My HOWTO Occupy Tunisia post has been attracting referrals from companycommand.army.mil, a forum set up by the US Army for officers returning from or going to Iraq to share experience and knowledge. A sensible idea. I'm rather pleased they read it. However, because as far as I know those of us outside the US DoD can't get to the site, let alone read it, can the chap who lunk to it please get in touch and tell me what they say about the HOWTO?
In other Iraq-related news this morning, I see that a rightwing American journalist has been going around saying that things are getting better in Iraq, because a lot of people have mobile phones. Obviously, he didn't realise why: they're good for letting off roadside bombs. They also have the advantage that carrying one is not suspicious, unlike other radio devices, and the calls are even encrypted. Granted, no doubt the US military have long since cracked the GSM encryption, and more importantly the core network is probably lousy with official bugs. But it is probably good enough for tactical use, as such things take time, and you at least can't be overheard directly. And, as everyone else in Iraq is on the same net, choosing whose line to tap is a non-trivial question.
Oh, and the other reason; we bombed the landline exchanges, although if the mobiles work we must have either spared or restored the long lines and such. Eerily, Mr. Zinnmeister also refers to the number of satellite TV dishes he saw...in 1969, John Vann used to take journalists on tours of the Mekong Delta in his helicopter, proudly pointing to the number of TV aerials they saw.
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