Ordinary Americans Getting The Message Out In Iraq

24 Feb, 2003 by John Hawkins

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Ordinary Americans Getting The Message Out In Iraq: You want the embodiment of that, “be a pack not a herd” phrase that Glenn Reynolds likes to talk about? Then simply go to the, “Iraq Daily News.” It’s an Iraqi run website — one that generates a lot of traffic judging by the fact that it’s the 9,987th most popular website on the net according to Alexa. But, if you click on the, “Watch Live — Iraq Satellite Channel” button you get a nice little Pro-American/anti-Saddam message to the Iraqi people that reads in part…

“The American People are a loving people. We do not seek to take your oil or your wealth. Look at our history. Did we not help Taiwan and South Korea? We did not colonize them or control them or steal their wealth. We can make a gasoline substitute out of our corn from our millions of acres of land that is not even under cultivation now. We are a very powerful wealthy country that only wants your government, under an evil dictator, to stop threatening his neighbors and the world.”

Now, my first thought was, “hey, the CIA is cranking up the psywarfare, good for them.” But, there’s a strong pro-Christianity message on there which doesn’t seem like the CIA’s style. Then I was thinking that the page may have been hacked, but again, hackers would have probably posted something like, “Super Pikachu clan ownz j00 Saddam!!! W00T!”

However, there was an email contact button on there and I decided to actually get the word about what happened straight from the horse’s mouth. The person who put all this together was one Robin Poole and here’s what he told me when we corresponded via email…

“…I didn’t really hack it. I purchased it legally over the net as it was advertised for sale. I read an article in the Providence Journal by Sheila Lennon that indicated that the site had lapsed due to UN sanctions against the hosting company doing business with the Iraq government. I don’t know if that is true or not. I have received many emails with the majority of them supporting my efforts and quite a few congratulatory emails from French, Spanish and Arabic people, not all of which I could read. I have received a few “flames” but no major threats. I am in correspondence with a few of the people who were not in agreement initially and some of them seem to be coming around from being nasty to being cordial, yet in disagreement.”

“I am trying to get the Iraqi people to see that Saddam is the next Hitler and that now is the time to stop him… I hope the Iraqis will learn from history and know that the free world will not tolerate another Hitler.”

“…The link to www.iraqtv.ws was still active on the Iraqi Daily site last time I checked and one email friend even told me it had been propagated more widely in Iraq since I got the link. God has a way of opening his own doors as He has shown me so many times in the past. …We must all work together to get rid of this new Hitler, before he can strike.”

If you like what Robin did, check out his website, TechTrainingInAudio.com and you may even want to shoot him an email. But whatever anybody else thinks, Robin, RWN salutes you!