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

[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:

I voted for France. Sorry Momor!

[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?

[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
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
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.