At the Kirkush Military Training Base in the eastern Iraqi desert less than 15 miles from the frontier with Iran, an hour's wait for a helicopter was spent listening to Marilyn Manson, Eminem and Shania Twain before the Black Hawk fired up its turbines and somebody back in the barracks, as if on cue and with a dark sense of irony, cranked up Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

The songs came from a European satellite music channel and a communal computer where 12.8 gigabites of tunes had been downloaded for sharing on MP3's. The rule was simple: Take some music, add some music.

"Any time anybody on the team gets a new CD, they load it in, so we stay pretty current," said Sgt. Thomas R. Mena.

As the new CD from Tool blasted in the barracks, Sergeant Mena scrolled through the computerized music library, which ranged from Abba and AC/DC, through Limp Biskit and Metallica and on to Van Halen and ZZ Top.

Émigrés from West Africa who joined the Army for citizenship and career training arrived with the latest Nigerian pop CD's. Chinese-Americans hauled along hot Hong Kong video imports.

"We've got the whole world under one tent," said Pfc. Nicholas Allen of the First Infantry Division's Third Brigade Combat Team.

Troops running a checkpoint near the Kuwait border end their day by listening to Bush, not their commander in chief but the grunge riffs of a band with the same name.

Complete Story at the New York Times.

News just in. President Bush under advice from the RIAA has asked for all digital media held by allied forces in Iraq to be destroyed due to copyrights infringement. Cary Sherman was heard to say "This is a great day for democracy and the American way".

Since they are in Iraq, there are no laws against copyright infringement. There are no laws, period.

There is nothing illegal about this.

tool has a new cd?

"There are no laws, period."

sorry george, but that's not correct.. uniform code of military justice.

although i'd be very surprised if that said anything about sharing music.

It will now that the RIAA has heard about it.

I can't WAIT till they start harassing our troops for this (and you know they will.) The public backlash should be tremendous.

Makes me think of Navy boot camp days where we had only one radio to listen to from I think 5 to 9 PM daily and on the weekend. Naturally being able to listen to the radio was a privilege, that if memory serves me, my company never lost. But the most amazing thing that impresses me, now that I can think back on it, was how 50 guys could agree on one station to listen to.

As a veteran, thinking back about how it use to be or maybe thinking about how these soldiers are toughing it out in a hostile environment – you can write books about these thoughts. There’s even a tome to be written contrasting entertainment available via Armed Forces Radio vs. what these fellows are doing locally. And in all this analyzing, probably not one will ever consider that ever soldier there has heard at least one song that is inspiring him to want to get the CD when he gets back to the States.

If the RIAA or the other initials try to go after our servicemen and women, you know there'll be a huge backlash. It'll be the end of the RIAA, period.

indeed. agree or disagree with government's actions, america loves its troops. if the RIAA were smart enough (and they're not) to make a good PR move, they'd go over there and say "mp3's are bad, but here's a huge (huge) shipment of free cd's for our brave forces!"

you know, the missing inventory george couldn't account for from all their statistics.

very nice.. i want those nigerian tunes.