One of the most effective and relentless advocates for our men and women on the front lines, Citizen Smash, notes a hoax floating around the blogosphere based on a misunderstanding. Rumors are swirling that the military wants to cut off Internet access to troops in Iraq, but the truth is a bit more complex -- and for those of us who sometimes take the pragmatic approach to "borrowing" bandwidth, all too familiar:

A POST by milblogger Ginmar has sparked a rumor that the military is planning to cut off Internet access to all GIs in Iraq.

At the very least, KBR is not allowing any private computers on their system for the next ninety days. There might be one other option, but if you don't hear from me for a while...

Several bloggers have picked up on this story, and speculation is rampant on why the military is asking KBR to cut GIs off from the outside world.

It turns out, however, that the story isn’t true. I’ve checked in with several milbloggers in Iraq this morning, including Doc in the Box, Stryker Mike, and Dagger JAG – and none of them seems to know anything about it.

It turns out that the issue only applies to Ginmar's unit, and for a rather mundane reason: they'd been hijacking bandwidth from KBR, who took steps to cut them off after griping about slow access times. (Smash: "Poor babies," and I'm inclined to agree.) Smash recalls how his own unit had to get their own equipment to set up Internet access. Read the entire post, and maybe the blogosphere could start a drive to get this equipment into the hands of our sisters and brothers on the front lines.

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