Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Code And War
"Should Open Source developers help the U.S. prepare for war with Iraq?" Roblimo has a piece on NewsForge which addresses that question by showing a specific way that the U.S. military is using Free and Open Source software (in simulator-based training for Blackhawk helicopters), and letting one of the developers involved speak for himself. If software is Free, doesn't that already answer the question of who can use it?
"peace at all cost" thinking costs more lives than just going to war when you are up against a madman. Think Europe, 1938 or Ethopia, 1933.
Saddam is a psychopathic fascist who does unspeakable things to his people because he wants to expand his influence in the region. He won't be any easier to deal with once he has nuclear weapons.
When you support the anti-war movement, you support him and everything he stands for, much like people who in the 1930's insisted that we should stay out of the war. Just as then, it is lead by anti-capitalists (pro-fascists and stalinist freaks), who hide their very unpopular political backgrounds from the useful idiots who suck it up because they have the philosophical sophistication of a six year old, (or in this case, missed out on the sixties) and can't seem to draw moral distinctions between the fire and the fire brigade.
Just as then, the anti-war movement is totally irresponsible because it offers no practical solutions except the immediate and total surrender of our ridiculously successful way of life. Suggesting we should kick the oil habit without a viable replacement is the mark of an idiot or someone who wants die of starvation. Suggesting we should do nothing while our cities are attacked or while our enemies prepare to attack our civilian populations is the mark of a coward or klebold worshipping loser. Suggesting that we are a haven for facsim when people who live in *real* fascist countries risk their lives to get here and not the other way around is just deluded.
The Iraqi's *want* us to invade. You'd have to be a moron not to see why.
"Appeasement is the practice of feeding a steak to a tiger in the hopes he will become a vegetarian". - Winston Churchhill
Seems to me that Japan turned out alright after US occupation. East Germany and later reunified Germany also seem to be alright.
If the US was in that habit of propping up more dictators, then i might agree with you in worrying about another monster. But since we seem to have been slowly learning the lessons of nation-building - and back democracy over puppets - I think you're just being contrary for the sake of demonstrating your knowledge of past foreign policy f*ckups.
Unfortunately, the cost of our defense priority at the time (stopping the spread of communism, right or wrong it was our public goal) - is that we have left people like noriega, usama, and saddam in power. utterly unfortunate - in hindsight. However, at the time, we didn't have the fortune of picking our battles or picking our time. We couldn't spend resources in securing a nation building in every country we used to help protect western thought. Now, with no one to openly oppose our military might on the battlefield - we can be a little more spendthrift. with the UN actually commiting a decent number of troops to assist in peacekeeping - we can take our time. But we didn't have that luxury before.
France and Germany's current elected officials seem to only be blocking in the UN to try to make UN approval seem like less of a formality for US foreign policy. Unfortunately - by doing so they run the risk of forcing the only remaining super power to operate outside of the UN, and potentially irreparably destroy the viability of that entity. Currently, the UN itself has felt compelled to do nothing but pass resolutions that apparently have no consequence when ignored outright. Should it insist on being stubborn on this issue - it might well fall by the wayside.
N Korea and Pakistan do not have histories within the last 40 years of gassing their people, nor in invading their neighbors. Pakistan is not ruled by dictatorship, but by democracy. N Korea has only recently been under the control of a dictator who is drawing a shocking parallel between himself and saddam. At the time of the bomb building - we tried to put a cap on the situation with diplomacy. Thats where the power reactor plans and the fuel shipment agreements came from.
So which is it? Are we wrong for wantint to forcibly stop Saddam? Or were we wrong for trying to feel secure with diplomacy in reigning in N Korea? You can't complain that we're too aggressive, and yet not aggressive enough at the same time.
The real problem now is that we've learned the tragic results of inaction. After the 1993 WTC bombing (under beloved liberal Clinton) and the USS Cole bombing we couldn't get any international support to put down ground forces and stop Osama. That's why we had to settle for cruise missiles. We've learned that we can't just settle with what the international community thinks.
When we encounter world governments that are not forthright, not honest, not stable - we have no choice but to ensure that they cannot jeopardize the safety of other free peoples.
You're right, we aren't motivated by the plight of the Iraqi people. We're motivated by the plight of the state of world security. Just as we weren't motivated by the horrible atrocities the people in Afghanistan had to live with. But does that mean that we aren't doing good by freeing them? Does that mean that we're tyrants for ousting murderous regimes and installing democracy?
The risk of inaction is too high. Tyrants can no longer be ignored because they don't have many troops or tanks or are half the world away.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
How come every post in this thread that is sympathetic to war is modded down as flamebait?