(Iraq vs US) or (Linux vs Windows)?

[LP]

Well, you've seen the topic name, which is basically the introduction... look, US and Iraq are both made of living people, as both Windows and Linux run on the same circuits. There've been many flame wars between Windows and Linux and many discussions, but did anyone consider killing each other because he didn't like the other OS?
I feel a shame for people living in United States because their president has no human concience. There will be no forgiveness ever for somebody who kills a single person. No matter how bad Saddam Hussein can be, no matter if there's any oil in Iraq and no matter what race lives there, President Bush has no right to kill innocent people! Myself, I know an arabian... he is good person and wise programmer and he also has family. Why does he and his family need to die just because *Bush* wants to disarm Iraq (which "has chemical weapons")? I haven't heard the date when US disarmed itself. Did not? So, US has enough nuclear weapons to destroy several times our planet Earth, not including loads of armament in order to kill everyone on the planet, like few bullets per person, and worst of all - an inhuman president who has the power to use all the weapons he needs.
As far as my understanding of terrorism goes, Terror is when innocent non-military people are killed in a military action (concept probably goes from World War 2). In Bush's command, lots of civilians, mostly Arabs have been killed. Isn't this terrorism? ...or a mistrake? ...or are Arabs no longer considered living people just because of their religion or because some of them committed suicide-bombing? Well, thinking like that, I'd better get a gun and go to the nearest Internet Cafe and kill everyone there just because they're "lamers"!
Oh well, any of you from US, do you think that we'd just kill each other? Is all life we live worth anything, when we do nothing, but to actually destroy what we have? I hope not...

[ra001]

Its is werry sadly who is on planet today. My cuntry government is with Bush and play some game with him. But my country people is against war, i dont understud so match in big politic and i don know why this war is necessary un how stop this madness, but i understud only one - war is big mistake...

[Ultra]

I'm against the war. I really don't see what anyone would have lost if the weapon inspection continued. But I must also add that I don't think that Iraq would be so helpful as they actually were if USA and their allies hadn't threatened with war.

I don't support Saddam at all, in comparison with him Bush almost look like one of the good guys, but I can't support the killing of so many lives for something that could have been solved in another way.

[fitzbean]

Lol, Lifepower..

If a crazy kid lived down the street from you who on any given day could freak out and come kill you while you are sleeping, what would you do? That's basically what Saddam is. It has nothing to do with your programming arabic friend - I'm sure he's a great person; unfortunately, the deck of cards he drew from at birth put him where he is now -- under the thumb of a potential madman. It's not his fault - it's not his doing. Nobody is blaming him. Nobody is trying to kill civillians - but unfortunately, Saddam is so unhonarable, that he'll use his own people at the drop of a hat for a human shield if the situation arises. Where ever you live, by the way, the US is helping you too. If we let Saddam get away with continued building of weapons & ruling, no doubt there would be two more crazy leaders tommorow.


Fitz

[LP]

Greets... Fitz, why is Saddam so unhonorable? please, provide few arguments... who said he was going to unleash murder or how do you know he will? I mean, Iraq has been in stable non-aggressive position for years, it's very unlikely and not logical it would make any aggressive acts (which will turn entire world against it) after the the Afganistan attacks... I once saw a TV after Afganistan bombing... what I saw impressed me... ruined city... all buildings completely destroyed, everything that many people called "home" was now a bunch of rocks. Did US help these people? I tried to imagine, if this would happen to me... if someone would destroy my home, kill my friends and ruin the hope of living in peace... now matter how much help they'll provide later, I won't forgive them. And I'm sure nobody out there will. Sorry, I can't say that US is helping anybody... and US is not peace-keeping, it's peace-broking (war with Iraq is the proof). It's a pity that a country where I was planning to work (btw I don't plan that anymore, because it's most likely the situation in US will get much worse) has fallen that much.

[Xorcist]

You're better off staying where ever you are Lifepower. No seriously, all the major technology companies in the U.S. are hiring... get this... all but U.S. citizens. Hell Sun is being sued for laying off a huge amount American workers so they could outsource for cheaper labor from India! Your chances of getting a job for a company based out of the U.S. are actually better if you don't live in the U.S. It's sad, but unfortunately it's true.

As for the whole "war" thing. I'm not in a position to care. So I don't.

[Paulius]

I'm not saying that US is doing a good thing, but hey do you know how people live in Iraq. They have lots of oil, but aren?¢_Tt getting anything from it, because of Sadams government. Uneducated, poor people can be controlled and convinced that US is responsible for all their troubles much easier. What they are taught at schools is not much more then using AK-47 and why Americans are evil. Lifepower, do you watch CNN, most people go about their business and aren?¢_Tt that unhappy about this war. They aren?¢_Tt really free now, I?¢_Tm not sure, but I think it's even illegal to use the internet there. Look even at Afghanistan, US 'freed' it and now buys oil from them at normal prices. Infact people in Iraq will probably live better after the war. US's goal is to eliminate a threat, they think that unhappy nation produces unhappy leaders which are dangerous and happy people cause no threat, so they strive to make 'freed' countries happier. Look at Japan, US put lots of money into it and now its prospering and has no wish for war. I find worlds politics funny: Russia shouts stop the war, while they are at war with the Chechens, France wants to show off and look important as always (like when accepting Britain into the EU) and who knows what Germany wants to achieve.
Lifepower you think Sadam wants to live in peace? Weapon inspectors did find missiles with range capabilities which exceeded those allowed by UN resolutions, if Iraq wasn?¢_Tt going to attack then why build missiles which break UN resolutions? Yes war is a bad thing, but hey, Iraq produces terrorists (Sadam even offers help to them), which threaten more innocent people then this war.

[fitzbean]

Lifepower,

Saddam has killed tons of his OWN people, whole families even, for no obvious reason - it's well documented. I can't imagine why you are defending such a man, really... get a grip.

[Stevie56]

As this is a programming forum, I will not respond to any remarks regarding the invasion of Iraq. Those interested my views can find them expressed on more germain forums than this.

Except I will say comparing programming rivalry with slaughtering my fellow human beings (whatever their race, creed colour or how horrible their leader) is such a cheapening of the worth of human life.

A few lines of code compared against a human being?

Am I on the right planet?

[LP]

I'm not at Saddam's side, but I don't blame him for things he did not. I haven't seen any useful documents saying that he was. I just say, because of one man, you just can't attack the country.
Stevie, sorry, but I thought forum description "Anything else you need to say, do it here :)" would be acceptable for this topic, besides I just wanted to hear programmer's opinion :wink: Personally, some of my grandparents died in second world war, that's why I'm all against it. I think few "important people" or even "important countries" can't play god by deciding whether to bomb one country or not. As for missiles, sorry to ask again, but does US have long-range missiles or all its weapons are within UN restrictions? Don't interpret me badly, I ask this because obviously I don't know, but I think it does.

[Useless Hacker]

Personally I support the war. This doesn't mean that I 'wanted' war, but I think it was necessary (though actually I think they should have dealt with Saddam properly the first time around instead of letting him stay in power for another 12 years). In any case, the war has started, so it is no good protesting against it now. The allies are not going to withdraw, and doing so would do more harm than good.

Anyway, on a lighter note, the big question is, who to attack next? :twisted:
KalvinB of GameDev has started a survey:
http://www.icarusindie.com/devzone/adgraphics/survey.jpg (http://www.icarusindie.com/survey/)
I voted for France. Sorry Momor! :wink:

[Useless Hacker]

I have started a poll on this: http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?t=407

[Paulius]

I actually support this war. I mean, I live in Lithuania and I don?¢_Tt like USA much, because Americans promised to free us, but never did (I realize that it would have led to the whole world being nuked so there is no point to accuse them); we only were able to declare independence when the USSR came apart. I found it funny that Bush not so long ago came to Lithuania and spoke about NATO and stuff and added that US never accepted Lithuania?¢_Ts occupation, when we were actually a bribe for the USSR. My point is that Iraq is getting what it deserves (freedom from dictators and oppressions) things that we (Lithuanians) were never given, but had to get ourselves. Some people think that a few civilian casualties are not acceptable, while thousands of people around the world die, because of starvation, accidents, homicides etc. every day. Another thing is how the US is fighting, not bombing everything in sight, but very slowly, little by little, giving an opportunity for civilians to escape and for soldiers to surrender. Being against such a war looks strange, especially when you had seen how being oppressed feels like.

[LP]

Ok, thanks everybody for the answers! By the way, this topic is about 12 replies long (not counting this one)... gee, if it was a bad topic, it wouldn't have replies, would it? :wink:

[Bobby]

Lifepower - I dont see how you can say that the USA and our allies arent helping the Iraqi people. Do you have any idea what Sadam does to his own people?

He stands there and makes a guys mom applaude while one of his soldiers shoots her son in the back of the head just because sadam thinks that he is a traitor.

He makes dads watch Iraqi soldiers rape his daughter and wife.

He gasses his own people.

He starves his own people.

He kill innocent civilians for no reason at all.

How can you say that we aren't helping the Iraqi people. None of our weapons are targeting civilian areas, we arent carpet bombing cities, we are using missles and other very accurate weapons to take out military sites. Our only goal is to wipe out Sadam's regieme, not take over the country. You should read up a little more before you start sticking up for monsters, and saying that America is just out on another one of its uncalled for wars against terrorism. When nobody else will do the job to stop innocent killings, the USA and the UK always come in and gets the job done.

Who would have thought that the country that we got our independance from would become our best ally :)

[Karaman]

War of the US against IRAQ will be very healthy for the US economy, however the US commanders are very stupid and dont know how to fight. They are blind to think that technology will bring victory, but this is not true. The human factor is everything. How many people will die in this WAR. Too many I think, as in every war. I hope that Saddam dies soon and that there would be no guerilla followers.

This WAR has ever been INEVITABLE, the CAUSE is OK, but no WAR deserves its CAUSE

I thought US had commandos who could kill Saddam in black-ops, but unfortunately they had not :), so we have war :(
I hope it ends soon

However the war stories might be good ground for developing new games:
here are sample titles

1.RTS : Comamnd and Conquer the Middle East
2.FPS : SCUDDOOM 4
3.Turn-Based : Civillization N - Test of Saddam
4.Card-Games : SADDAM's HAREM POKER
5.Simulators : Tomahawk 2003!!!

hmm, i wonder if I can make 1 and 3 in DelphiX

[LP]

2 Bobby: relax :wink:
As for starving - well, all of us sit behind the computer with average cost bigger than $500, with food, water and other things near by, etc. However, there're much more people who die of hunger on the streets - almost everywhere, in any country! If I'd take a point of view of Bobby, I'd also say that President Bush is also starving his own people, not saying many young men who went to the war and anyone can be killed and their families will be in pain. Is this good? Please... Oh, and how about Bush allowing such Twin Tower disaster in NY? Lots of people died there... did Bush prevent this? No... he let thousands of people die there and he still makes people die in the war... HE is the tyrant... Ok, enough exaggeration, just messing around :wink:
As for war being inevitable... people! there're no INEVITABLE thing in the world! Saying that war is inevitable is the same as "the doom has come". There's NO such thing that CAN'T be solved in PEACE...
Oh and another thing, Bobby, I know that Bush is your president and that you have your own point of view, but sometimes it's good to look at the world from another perspective. I said this before, I'd say this again - if you say "He makes dads watch Iraq soldiers rape his daughter and wife" - please provide some proof... otherwise it's nothining but a bunch of empty words. It's just an irratic idea you get by watching TV and thrashy movies. Too bad there are few people who are against the war... I could try to argue more on this, but I think I've already tired the readers of this topic... personally, I'm not against US in any way, I just think its government is doing the mistakes that other governments did in the past.

[Bobby]

It makes me upset when people like you who dont know what they are talking about go on forums and post anti-USA views. How could you even joke about saying that President bush ALLOWED two airplanes to hit the twin towers, thats just plain stupid. And your point about Bush starving his own people made no sense whatsoever also. Think before you post, it helps.

[LP]

Ok, sorry 'bout this... what I mean was that president and his parlament are in charge of country's security and if it's not enough to keep their citizens safe, then it's not a good goverment. Even though, it's actually YOU (Bobby) who posted a message with non-argumentive statements, since all this "rape" and "killing" stuff has no proof!
I admit that some things I said can be interpreted as anti-US but what I posted here wasn't anti-US... it was ANTI-WAR... be advised, both US and England are wrong to enter this war, not just US! I'm referring to US, because anyway both countries are somehow related. My strong anti-war view is because most of my grandparents died in Second World War fighting against Germany and my brother was just about to go to the war against Afganistan (when there still was USSR), fortunally he had luck.
And please, don't get upset - if you think I'm wrong, you're welcome to tell me that and I'll be glad to hear it... after all, in my first post in this topic I asked for the opinion... and Bobby, your last message sounds like just plain offense. Well, if you think it's necessary, it's your choice... because I wouldn't even try to offend a person, a delphi graphics library developer that have my respect.

[Stevie56]

In another thread, someone wrote "There's a lot of crap on this thread". Such a posting would fit neatly here, too. So here's my ten cents.

Iraqis must think the Allied definition of liberation a strange one.

First, we destroy all of the key government buildings that we can find in a search for Saddam Hussein. Then we relentlessly attack the Iraqi military, which of course counts among its conscripted troops, members of tens of thousands of Iraqi families. There are wives, children and parents also being attacked whenever we attack a soldier.

Then we launch a cruise missile that destroys an urban market in Baghdad, claiming that it was intended for a battery of rocket launchers placed in the area by the Hussein regime. Then later, we claim it wasn’t ours at all, but an Iraqi missile that went astray (with US markings?)..

Then we launch a cruise missile attack on the only water desalination plant in Basra, thus bringing a threat of cholera, dehydration and other diseases to the civilians we are liberating. And we nonchalantly take out with a rocket a civilian van full of women and children that didn’t stop at a roadblock, because the heavily armed soldiers in the APC defending the checkpoint felt "threatened" by a van full of unarmed civilians driving away at 25 miles an hour.

And all of this, after twelve years of painful sanctions that have reduced the nation's life expectancy by 30%, helped boost malnutrition, and contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens. Although some would seek to blame those conditions on Saddam himself the World Health Organisation states the sanctions of themselves have done the damage to his nation’s health, not Saddam and his regime.

Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld and that ignominious bunch expect not only Americans and Britons, but more importantly the Arab world (and Iraqis themselves) to accept our assurances of benign intent; to believe that this has nothing whatever to do with oil (as if we would wage war costing billions of US dollars and UK pounds sterling just to oust a dictator in a nation whose main export were green beans or tulips), and to believe that we care only for the freedom of Iraq,

We also ask them to ignore the writings in the 1990’s of these same White House thugs regarding "Energy Security" and how best to obtain it (by - would you believe - enforced regime change in Iraq and the imposition of a "right minded" alternative government).

Despite having long financed, armed and stood by the very same monstrous dictator we now hope to destroy, we expect the Iraqi people to welcome U.S. and British troops as liberators, and cheer the war effort. Despite the fact that it was the U.S. and Britain who sold this "mass murderer" the very materials that we now insist he must no longer possess, and stood by while he gassed Kurds and Iranians, even lying about the latter to our own people to make it seem as if the Iranians had been the ones doing the gassing.

Only a profound disrespect for the intelligence of the Iraqi people and the Arab and Muslim worlds could possibly lead one to believe such a scenario is even remotely likely. To believe that they can forgive and forget the history of which they are acutely aware and been forced to live through.

A history that saw British bombing Kurdish towns and civilian installations, and Winston Churchill giving permission in 1919 to gas the Kurds, an action only prevented by the unreliability of the delivery systems threatening the British troops more than the Kurdish population. A history that includes U.S. support for the cruel Ba’ath party, dating back even before the ascent of Hussein to power; a support we offered because they were so efficient at slaughtering the progressive and democratic forces in that nation--forces that were also nominally socialist and thus a danger "to freedom" which had to be crushed.

Only a profound disrespect for those who still remember the photograph of Rumsfeld warmly shaking Saddam’s hand only 18 months after the gassing attack on Hallabja.

Only a belief that the rest of the world sees us the way we see ourselves--a view so out of touch with reality that it simply boggles the mind--could lead one to believe that Iraqis (or anyone else, for that matter) will welcome U.S. domination of the Gulf region, or the U.S. administering a provisional government there until truly free elections can be held (so long as they go in a pro-Western direction, of course, and not before very lucrative contracts have been handed out to all those US Corporations that funded the election of the Bush Administration).

They can, after all, look at what we have done in Afghanistan, which is destroy a tyrannical regime, devastate an already impoverished nation with indiscriminate bombing, install a leader who was not the choice of the people, and then abandon the country as usual, so that areas outside of the capital are now being run by fanatical warlords, rapists, murderers and Taliban throw-backs. And after all that wanton devastation we STILL failed to capture "Dead or Alive" the single man who we asserted was being given sanctuary there.

Quite the liberation that, Muslims world-wide must be thinking. Especially the women.

Oh sure, most Iraqis would welcome the demise of Saddam Hussein. But there’s a difference between welcoming regime change from within and cheering the foreign armies that impose that change by force. Even now, according to a report in USA Today, Iraqis in neighbouring Arab states are returning home just to fight. Powell is accusing Syria of sending troops, without realising it is more likely exiled Iraqis coming over the border to defend their homeland against an unprovoked invasion.

Though they insist they despise Hussein, they are also clear about the desire to fight the invaders and defend their country, which they see as being destroyed, not saved by us. A few days ago, news reports (NOT on CNN, of course) noted that Iraqis in Basra were smiling and cheering as American troops came marching in, but that as soon as the troops got out of sight, they would just as quickly turn to the reporters on the scene to curse the Americans, and praise Saddam.

Even worse, if it were possible, Middle East experts are almost uniformly expressing the opinion that this war is proving to be the best recruiting tool al-Qaeda has ever had, meaning that even if the Iraqi people see the bombing as a weird form of liberation, to the extent this view is roundly rejected by most of the Arab and Muslim world, our actions may yet provoke many more 9/11's all over the Western World.

It's all so very simple even a child of 10 could explain it. People really don't like to see their homelands invaded or bombed into submission to a foreign power. We certainly wouldn't.. As much as Americans and the British quite rightly badmouth their government and politicians, there is a tendency to put aside that anger and criticism when faced with external aggression. Imagine then what facing interminable bombing and imminent threat of invasion to effect a forcible regime change would tend to do for American and British public opinion. Surely it would tend to rally most of us behind our leaders, even if they were corrupt and malodorous ones? So too in Iraq as anywhere else on Earth.

But the arrogance of the powerful makes it impossible to see what a 10 year old child can. It is the same arrogance that prompted whites to view the genocide of Indian peoples as progress, and a civilising mission (at least for those we didn't butcher), and a mission for which the savages should have been grateful.

The same arrogance that allowed the belief that we were doing Africans a favour by enslaving them, and "bringing them to Christ" before hanging them

The same arrogance that let the British invent the Concentration Camp, without seeing the disgusting and dehumanising nature of the very concept

The same arrogance that inspired the notion of "destroying the village in order to save it," in Vietnam.

The same arrogance, and fundamentally the same racist and supremacist mindset that forever and always inspires the masters of the universe to believe their own hype and expect everyone else to be so gullible, ignorant and infantile as to accept it too. They want us to keep placidly watching CNN and ABC to get fed the Hollywood-sanitised pap the corporate sponsors want us to swallow without thinking for ourselves, criticising, or intelligently questioning what we are shown, why we are shown it, and what’s been left out.

This same arrogance allows us to believe that we and we alone have the right to dictate who will and will not govern a foreign country, who will and will not have weapons of mass destruction; who will and will not have to follow United Nations resolutions; who will and will not be able to launch a "preventative war", who will and will not have to respect international law.

The same arrogance that allows Donald Rumsfeld to shriek hysterically at the violations of the Geneva Conventions by the Iraqis for merely showing American POW's on film and thereby "humiliating them," but which allows him to think nothing of the far more serious violations of those same Geneva Conventions evidenced by the deliberate and intentional U.S. bombing of civilian water plants and power stations, a certifiable war crime under Article 54. And to flout the Nuremberg Convention which clearly and concisely describes an illegal war.

The arrogance that allows those same shriekers of outrage at the flouting of International Conventions by others to carry on perpetrating the humanitarian obscenity at Guantanamo Bay.

The same arrogance that ultimately explains the widespread hatred of the U.S. throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world, large parts of Europe and most of Asia The British aren’t hated so much as despised for their "coat tails" foreign policy - the proud bulldog has become a servile lapdog.

Wherever you live in the World, under whatever kind of regime you have, just ask yourself this simple question….

Would you prefer to be ruled by a single dictator of your own nationality or by 23 US Generals imposed upon you after they have fired 5,000 cruise-missiles at your capital city?

Gunboat diplomacy has given way to cruise-missile diplomacy and living in the Age of Schoolyard Geopolitics does not make me feel safer.

Like I said. What goes around comes around.

[Useless Hacker]

In another thread, someone wrote "There's a lot of crap on this thread". Such a posting would fit neatly here, too.
After reading your post, I entirely agree.

[LP]

Hmm, after the laaarge post, I also agree - that phrase would fit perfectly here :wink: j/k and thanks for the critics... to bad that serious discussions become messy like this one :?

[orwa]

you are an angel Lifepower,
you know exactly how things go on .

i will give you this salute :salute: