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Iraq's Open Source Possibilities
An anonymous reader writes "In a Linux Journal article, Iraq's 2 person LUG describes the software consumer market in Iraq today, and their hopes for educating the masses about open-source software: 'Iraq is now a blank, unformatted hard disk and can be loaded with anything. Everything is open in Iraq right now. There are no regimented standards or massive expenditure in a particular monopoly's software'."
On Saturday, I had an Internet chat with Iraq, between a coffeehouse just outside of Washington, DC, and the Baghdad Internet Cafe.
One of their questions went like this:
baghdadic: LATEEF ASKS U HOW MUCH THE LATIST MODEL OF COMPUTER IN US ?
techartvideo: U can get good computer for 350 dollars, very good for 3000 dollars.
baghdadic: IT IS EXPENSIVE
techartvideo: How much for a computer in Baghdad?
baghdadic: 200 USD FOR P4 ( ASIAN ORIGIN ) TO 1300USD FOR LAP TOP
Which goes to show that the world is pretty much the same everywhere, especially for geeks!
The reconstruction of Iraq has largely been contracted out to anybody who cared to bid as long as they were American and Halliburton. Where does open source anything fit into that picture?
Now wash your hands.
There are many 'Blogs' by actual Iraqis. Check out this one by a particularly brilliant and inspiring Iraqi named Alaa: (in English)
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/
"America has not "conlonized" a country we defeated in war."
If you don't want to consider the various possessions that fell into our lap after the Spanish-American War (Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.), there's still the whole "northern half of Mexico" bit.
"I'll accept you as knowlegable about (American) history if you can give me an example of American "colonial expansion", due to war. I can think of one, but it was more than a hundred years ago."
I'm sure some people living on Okinawa feel as if they were "colonized" after an American victory. There's also the interesting fact that Japan is the only country in the world to have a foreign military base in its capital (we might not "take over," but we certainly don't leave)
We took the Panama Canal Zone from Panama a few seconds after we "liberated" Panama from Colombia. Sure, that was a while ago, but we only just gave it back. There's also the coup staged in Hawaii, which we only recently apologized for (a little late, I would say...). If you're willing to count covert wars, Iran can fit into that category as well.
Of course, these can be written off as "little" issues, since most of our expansion was during the Nineteenth Century. But did we stop because we're now nice guys, or simply because we're big enough? From the beginning of the Twentieth Century to July 4, 1946, from St. Thomas to Luzon the sun did not set in the United States. And even today it's still damn close.
What makes these people the experts? Here what I do know.
During the time Saddam was gassing kurds and iranians he was a close ally of the US. We supplied him with weapons and more importantly intelligence. Our sattelites and spies informed him of iranian troop movements. Maybe you are right and he got the raw materials from other countries but he got the knowhow from the US.
Finally. After Saddam gassed the kurds and those awful pictures got transmitted the UN drafted a resolution condeming Saddam. The resolution never passed becasue the Reagan Administration (Reagan, Baker, Bush sr, Cheney etc) vetoed it.
I think that pretty much explains everything you need to know.
War is necrophilia.
Iraq was called the "Fertile Crescent" when it was a part of the Ottoman Empire, and Biblical legend had it that the Garden of Eden was at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The people of Southern Iraq are sometimes known as "Marsh Arabs" Because of the flood plains of the rivers.
Iraq is similar to Egypt in that rivers have provided sufficent water in an arid part of the world for people to form urban populations since pre-history.
I'm amazed how much you know about this. I won't claim that I know, but judging by the interviews and reporters I've seen from Iraq, many say they are far worse off at this moment. For instance, all prisoners were let out of jail when Saddam fell. A political and unfair law system may work better than no law at all... I've also seen a few interviews with people who say they used to have electricity, petrol, water and heating, but haven't got it anymore. I guess some people are better off, and some are not. Judging by the (quite extensive) coverage from Norwegian TV and radio, I believe most people are temporarily worse off. But then again, Norwegian media are probably communist.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you