In Canada, Income Tax was introduced sometime in the last century as a method of dealing with war debts if I don't miss my recollection. This "Temporary Measure" has proved to have remarkable staying power. Decades and decades later, and still going strong.
Hmmm. Kinda like the Liberals getting elected with a plan to repeal the GST (VAT-like tax). They never did. Hmmmm.
Temporary measures tend to not be. Governments tend not to repeal measures giving them more money or power.
The old RPG Traveller (by Marc Miller) captured this by pointing out (in the rules for generating worlds) the relationship between high population and oppressive government and between oppressive government and high levels of law and law enforcement.
It was only a game. But strangely reality seems to be following pretty much the pattern they mapped out....
Divide by x-1 where x=1 is divide by zero. No can do Chief!
But it took me a moment or two to figure out where this was broken....
You should see the explanation of how 1 + 0 does not always equal 1. We had a professor examine this situation and I got lost after the first 5 minutes, but I got the impression it spawned its own type of space. Something very scary....
Our buddies at M$ aren't snoozin'. They've figured out that they can wrangle this case out for quite a while (given appeals etc) and they can protest and force enforcement (and object to that) even later yet.
And when all is said and done, this is a remedy for a situation long gone by. There isn't really an OS war anymore. Linux hasn't got what it takes in the desktop market (*NO THIS WAS NOT A TROLL*) and OS/2 has went the way of the dodo. There will always be some variety in OS, but M$ has a good hold on the desktop market. And it has been denting the server market over the last few years. And I don't think anyone is gonna be going toe to toe with M$ - Corel tried and look what it bought them? Same with the Netscape crew.
So, the DoJ applies some remedies. Meanwhile XBox,.Net, Passports, etc. have all come into being and these aren't covered by existent proceedings AFAIK. So in order to address these, we need a whole OTHER cycle of litigation... and by then M$ will be off on some OTHER new things.
Those boys at M$... you can argue with their unsavory ways, but they are savvy to how to manipulate the law and the market. They make an okay product (not great, but not terrible) and they sell like the Devil himself. And when someone wants to butt heads with them, they play mean and dirty and they tend to win. Our free market (nominally) system has bred one tough-ass company in M$ and they continue to stay one step ahead of their many enemies.
Eventually, they'll probably stumble and fall and these cases and the costs have undoubtedly placed some drag-weight on them... but boy, you have to give them high marks for not waiting for this set of issues to settle out before investing in a whole new range of control tactics.
Gates of Borg may have never been a programmer except in his own mind, but he and his cadre sure know how to lay the hit on the opposition....
It sounds to me that you might not dislike CS as much as you dislike academia, or perhaps the fake nature of many school tasks. University and College do many things, but one of the things they do repeatedly is re-invent the wheel. There are some valid reasons for this, but it does get rather stale when you realize you're treading the same path 10K other people before you did. It's no fun to solve problems to which the answers are known.
I had a friend that did not so hot in school, not on account of any smarts problem - he's quite sharp - but a motivational one. Once he hit the job market, he became energized - real problems, real challenges, real solutions. He's now a PHB (trying not to forget all he learned in engineering) at a large Ottawa software company (Hi Deane!).
Point I'm making here is if I judged my current field (software development) by the worst jobs in it (wrote programming in awful languages) or by what I got clubbed with at University and College, I'd have never entered it. But the truth is, I knew there had to be more. But I had to get into the real world and hit some real challenges - pick your jobs carefully and this happens.
So far I have:
Learned wireless, client-server, the development cycle, and security while working on public safety software for Canada's major national police body. Learned a lot about communications protocols, TCP/IP, mainframes and UNIX systems.
Learned something about 3D, state patterns, and CASE tools as well as a bunch about air navigation working on a project for the CF Air Navigation School. Big C++ project using code framework generation by Rose.
Learned more wireless, a bit of Java, some ASP, some more C++, WAV files and streaming Internet audio, cellular gateways, etc. while doing some work for cellular portal technology companies out of Boston.
Learned more Java, game programming, a lot about virtual environments, etc. working in my current job for a Quebec multimedia company doing 3D immersive world technologies for the Internet.
Learned a lot of TCP/IP and many application layer protocols while teaching TCP/IP network programming at our local college.
All of this in 6.5 years after work. I can't imagine more challenge, excitement (sometimes stress), more satisfaction in design and implemenation of real solutions and not-done-before problems, and I got paid fairly well along the way. Oh, and I met a damn fine bunch of people.
Don't give up on the field. Make a point to find out what it _really_ holds by talking to some people _in_ the field. Go to computer tradeshows and talk to the staffers. Go visit any local computer companies.
There is more under heaven and earth than NP completeness, re-implementing the linked list, or figuring out yacc and lex.
GRIP has a server and a client, and it runs an IRC like chat utility, has mapping (including a neat fog of war/visibility capability and maps that reveal as you move through them), GM to group and GM to player interactions, the ability of the GM or players to exchange media, the ability to make requests for die rolls from players, built in dice rolling, and lots of other neat stuff.
My only complaint was a little while back it had some limited capability re: firewalls, but that was being worked on.
Take a gander at Fantasy Realms - Look for the little links at the top to GRIP and iPC.
I recall the glory days of my Engineering school. There were two classes of engineers, those with an HP and those without. The thing ate matrix algebra (the kind used in RLC circuits) for breakfast. It did graphing of calculus functions. It calculated 253! faster than my 80286 did 49!.
My HP28S _STILL_ enjoys a place of respect, even if changing the batteries is a pain in the ass (and it uses an odd size too) and even if all I do with it now is basic math/trig/etc. I don't need the powertool for what I used it for since I'm now a software engineer, but I still can't use normal calculators - RPN has spoiled me.
RPN has got to be one of the most sensible ways to do things for anyone who ever understood computer systems - stack operations just make so much sense!
But alas, RPN hurts the heads of the mass of the uninitiated or the uninformable. And so, a legend of quality goes to the boneyard. People would rather have the sub-capable alleged "calculators" on the Palm100 (what a piece of crap) than have something that can _really_ do complicated math (even complex math and convolutions and all sorts of neat stuff) with brutal speed. I guess that's probably because math (the kind done by people, rather than expensive software packages) is largely a dying art.
Ah, the memories.... the first time I heard someone play all of Star Wars from the HP... the first time I aced a mid-term because my calculator reduced the mindless number crunching to a manageable task.... the first time I encountered complex numbers because the HP spit back an odd result (x,y) and the y part was the complex component.
Sad day indeed.
Re:Hmmm.... that's a nice quote... but....
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The U.N. and World Court are ineffective because the U.S. is constantly working against them. Look at the history with Nicaragua and Israel. The U.S. ignored international law in its war against Nicaragua (remember the Iran-Contra scandal?), and the U.S. and Israel have consistently stood alone in voting against peace resolutions in the Middle East.
Really? So, let me ask you this: If all your neighbours voted to tar and feather you, and only you and one of your friends voted against it, does that mean you are the problem? A peace enforced from without and without the consent of both parties is not a peace - it is an ultimatum.
And on the other hand, do you really think it is only US intransigence that hobbles the UN? Not the fact it represents 160+ interests, each with their own lobby groups, some led by some very unpleasant folk, and representing populations with some real questionable standards of education and free discourse? You don't think corruption, incompetence, and personal ambition have hobbled UN performance as much as US action? If you don't acknowedge the UN has far more wrong with it than the US's stance, then you're either poorly informed or intentionally misleading yourself.
So if the U.S. took actions that it knew would cause the deaths of thousands of Afghani civilians, then Afghanistan would be obliged to retaliate against the U.S.?
If the US were to INTENTIONALLY slaughter a large number of Afghans without having a provocation in the form of a massive attack on their population, then yes. You're attempting the moral equivalence ploy and it ignores key distinctions. The coalition is NOT intentionally targeting civilians. bin Laden (Taliban supported and funded) did and do in their continuing attrocities. The coalition didn't throw the first punch in this round. bin Laden and the Taliban did, striking without warning. These are rather important distinctions. Similar to why shooting someone trying to kill you is not murder... even if it is unfortunate and tragic in a human sense.
So Afghanistan should begin bombing Washington?
Hmmm. I thought the Pentagon was in Washington. As I recall, they crashed a plane into it. I'd say they started this round by bombing Washington.
For the record, I'm not sure you can use the corrollary consequences of this (ie the refugee tragedy of unknown and varyingly estimated extents) as a reason to not do this. If that was the case, are you saying all a murderer has to do is hide among a population of the downtrodden and starving in order to evade justice? If so... I see a new trend for terrorists. (Actually, it is an old one because these places look like they are good recruiting beds too). Without putting too fine a point on it: WHERE DO YOU THINK THE LARGEST AMOUNT OF THAT AID COMES FROM?
The United States. In terms of gross dollars, the US is the most generous nation on earth. Perhaps even per capita. And yes the flow of that aid is impeded. If they hadn't given it (to people who are willing to bomb their cities....), then it wouldn't be sitting there waiting to be shipped and those people would still be starving.
The Taliban have brought their people to this juncture and trying to place the blame on the heads of the US is like trying to blame society for the actions of a sociopath. It is misplaced blame. The US has a hard challenge in getting the Taliban and bin Laden fast enough to save the bulk of the refugees and avoid a major widening of the conflict. But that doesn't begin to suggest we shouldn't be doing it, just how we should be doing it and what the parameters of our operations are.
Re:Hmmm.... that's a nice quote... but....
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Please tell me the irony was deliberate. You cannot in one breath claim that there is a universal right to life, and that anyone who violates that right is evil, and in the next breath claim that innocent deaths are a reasonable means to an end. It is hypocrisy, plain and simple.
Calling it hypocrisy does not make it so. It is only hypocritical if you are utopian. Every human has (IMO) a right to life. So killing them isn't a good thing. However, part of ensuring the right to life of the greatest number of humans is pursuing those who violate that right. If the pursuit has bad side-effects, they must be weighted in the decision. But so must the consequences of not pursuing those who violate this right. This is a situation where I forsee no "winning" strategy, just losing and losing worse. Losing worse is doing nothing and letting slaughter go unattended. Letting murderous animals plan further attacks and execute them with the sponsorship of a corrupt and monstrous state. That is the worst case. Fighting a war that risks a small number of civilian deaths, while bad, is the "least bad" if it can bring the killers to account, remove the monstrous state from power, and in the long term offer options for the many survivors and refugees.
It is this kind of muddy thinking that perpetuates the cycles of revenge in the Middle East, in the Balkans and in Northern Ireland. Sadly, a new cycle of revenge is being created between America and the Muslim world. Do you think the deaths of innocent civilians will make Osama Bin Laden sorry for what he has done?
Did I ever suggest that it would? No. So what makes you think I am that out of touch? bin Laden is "broken". We can't rehabilitate him. He has chosen his path. I believe his "faith" (the maltreated and selective variant he espouses) will sustain him in any horrific action. Guilt won't be something he feels, or at least he'll be able to assuage his guilt with his other convictions. The best thing we can do with him is render him incapable (jail or otherwise) of doing any further harm. I leave it to his God and mine to sort out the status of his eternal soul.
Or will they attract more people to his cause? Do you think that killing the family of a potential terrorist will make him hate you less?
Anyone who has relatives killed in war will feel animosity. That is natural. BUT... if a murderer walks into a grocery store and starts gunning down schoolgirls, do the police shoot him or do they worry that his brother might hate cops after that? They shoot him. The risk he presents is such that the risks that _may_ follow are weighed less. Similarly, bin Laden before Sept 11 was a dangerous guy. But that wasn't enough to merit his hunting down. Now he's a mass murderer and an international icon of fundamentalist hate. Those deaths call out for an accounting, for justice.
The difference between justice and revenge is mostly a matter of perspective and motivation. A state imprisoning or killing someone can risk that person's relatives becoming villains out of rage and hurt. But that doesn't remove the need of a state to pursue crime. Similarly, the coalition community, acting in the abscence of a true international government (and any real effective international power group), are taking the steps to pursue a mass murderer and his associates. Is there a risk? Surely. Does that suggest we should not pursue this course? Nope.
Re:Hmmm.... that's a nice quote... but....
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I understand the dangers inherent in a cycle of violence. However, in our societies we define the murder of an individual as a very serious offense (perhaps even capital). How can the murder of 1000 people be less serious? Must we not pursue it with the maximum vigor possible?
Further, there is a quantifiable difference between:
1) attacking an unsuspecting civilian population with weapons of mass destruction
2) attacking an identified military force (enemy national or terrorist) with precision munitions and targeted strikes
In the first case, I don't care who I kill. The more the better. In the second, I try NOT to kill non-combatants. Sure, if they end up dead that is a bad thing and their relatives won't see it any way but that way.
But the difference is in part in the intention, in part in the degree. I cannot abide a logic that suggest we do nothing because in selecting a particular course of action we may have a small number of very unfortunate side effects. That argument would have you sit on your behind awaiting the perfect (ie never happen) solution with no sad collateral effects such as unintended civilian deaths. And that is basically saying that those 6K people who died don't matter because the fact we may kill a few hundred innocents in the pursuit of a longer term good has detered us from acting.
We have to try VERY hard not to kill those not involved, though identifying the "involved" in the Afghan situation is a little dicey. But for the good of that region, it must be liberated (and I do use that word deliberately, because you cannot call the Taliban government anything short of monstrous in terms of the way it treats dissidents, those of other faiths, and women). And rebuilt. Rebuilt with input from those who live there, but rebuilt to respect other nations right to exist, to respect the right to life of other nations populations, to respect the rule of international law and the rights of the individual Afghan to have some sort of security, opportunity, and freedom from oppression.
Is this a hard task? Hooo boooy. Yes. Japan and Germany are the scale we're talking here. This is not a weekend project. This is generational. But look at how successful we were in Japan and Germany. They are now among the most democratic and to a large extent non-aggressive nations in the civilized world. They have benefitted from the reconstruction and the increased education and economic opportunity, which have strengthened the cause of freedom and social justice. Are they perfect? Nope. But they're a lot better than they were. And they're a lot better than Afghanistan now. But it took decades.
Any death is a horror. But sometimes (as I said) life leaves you ten bad choices and one of them is just less awful than the others. That's the one I think we're trying to take here. Could it cost us badly if things don't pan out? Oh yeah. Could it cost us a lot even if it does pan out, given it wasn't a perfect option to start with, oh yeah! Don't get me wrong: This is a nasty little adult situation - no white knights, no cavalry to the rescue. The only way to get out of this with any redemption is by winning the military fight quickly, carefully, and getting to work saving the millions of innocents with a vengeance. And rebuilding something that can eventually join the international community as a worthwhile member. That's what we've got to do and it will be the Devil's own bit of work to accomplish.
But we don't seem to have too many good options, now do we?
Re:Hmmm.... that's a nice quote... but....
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I suspect part of my original thinking did not come through clearly enough.
Pursuit of someone who kills N people in a terrorist action isn't "retaliation". It's pursuit of a criminal to bring them to justice PERIOD. Not pursuing them is saying "you've killed people, but killing one person is a crime, killing 1000 is a statistic." You cannot set that precedent. You cannot so denigrate the value of a human life that you are not willing to stand up and say "someone who takes these lives must be hunted down and brought to account".
Yes, if this conflict is poorly spun (and bin Laden is a good infotruthspeak spinner), then we could have a lot of problems. But letting him go after he did this was never an option. And with a state to harbour him that itself is guilty of murder and oppression, I don't see as we had much choice but to act. The trial will come after the direct attack is done and when all that remains is the aftermath. Therein lies the real challenge.
Whereas I'd agree that the general approach is that it is okay to not understand the odd white box with the funny keys and the odd looking windows logo....
That's still a bit simplistic. There is a reason that some things are done the same way in almost all implementations. Certain things get red flashing lights. Some buttons are big red mushrooms, etc. Interface design hinges on understanding that certain types of operation should be obvious to anyone. And in general changing the interface for no better reason than "because we felt like it" or "because it gave the UI team some work" is rather silly.
If a UI standard was evolved that all the operating systems could draw from (one may exist, but it hasn't emerged as a defacto standard), is there any real reason that moving a file from directory A to B should be any different on two different OS platforms? Not really. The problem is everyone is playing to the beat of their own drum. So we have to learn new things about where things are.
For example, in going from NT to 2K, I've had a bit of a time (and I've been on Wintel platforms along with a bunch of Unix variants) finding where some of the stuff I was used to on NT was moved to (administrative progs, some other options). This frustration was made greater by the fact I could see no great reason to move them from where they were to where they ended up. So I wasted some time, for no reason I can think of.
Another example, outside the UI but along the same lines, is how the location of the etc\services has moved around in various windows versons over the years. I now just use "Find" to locate it rather than guessing. Why has this moved around (given that none of the locations it has been stored have been terribly sensible)? The only reason I can see is "because".
There is a reason a VCR has common controls that are recognizable on every VCR, DVD, and on most of our CD and DVD and MP3 and MPEG players.... because then you don't need to reprogram yourself to use the new piece of technology. Spend your time learning important distinctions between two systems when those distinctions have some real significance in terms of capability or efficiency. Don't spend your time learning differences when the only gain is.... unquantifiable or perhaps non-existent. We're all only here for a certain finite span of life... let's try not to waste it re-learning UIs to no great benefit. (This is similar to seeing coders re-write time and again things like linked list classes, string parsers, error handlers, buffer overflow checking routines - haven't we all done these enough times that someone should have been able to create one optimized and bug-free variant we can all use? I distinctly get the "Og invents wheel... again. Film at 11" feeling when I see this).
For the record, I don't consider people like this very smart. If you have no desire to learn the details of how something works, you shouldn't be using it. I know a guy who had no desire to learn how his car works
I will observe that there is a difference between having the interest in something and having the time to investigate it. For example, there was a time when a car was a fairly rudimentary thing to do most operations on. This was well before a dozen sensors controlled combustion, before vehicle engine control modules with arcane diagnostic codes that require a mechanic or a nasty piece of hardware to get at. This was before the level of complexity of those systems grew to the level it currently is.
I also don't know... you may have tremendous amounts of spare time. Most people don't. I'd love to know why my Doctor prescribes a certain medication, but at some level, I have to take his word for it as anything more than a beer n' pretzels explanation will exceed my university chemistry knowledge level. Similarly, I ask my mechanic why he's doing something, but once he moves off into bafflegab, I'm left with two choices: trust that he's a professional or don't.
I think I could probably walk around almost anyone's house or the environment they work in and identify at least some things about which they know little or nothing other than how to operate the item in question in a simple way. We humans now live in a complex world and not only is it infeasible for you to know something about everything you come in contact with, it is inefficient. Specialization is efficient. Knowing a little bit about a lot of things has some utility, but that isn't having real knowledge of those things. A veneer isn't in-depth knowledge. And if you spend your life trying to investigate all of the existing objects that you come in contact with, you won't be doing much else.
Reduction of complexity to usable levels is how humans cope with an increasingly complex world. Reducing formerly complex tasks which had to be understood in detail to black box technologies that anyone can get at least average utility out of is how we move on to dealing with higher level concerns. I for one am glad that I don't have to worry about what IRQ or DMA channel or I/O space address my various PC cards occupy now. There was a time when I did. I wasted hours friggin' around with these things because it was a necessity. It no longer is, and I can worry about new (and more worthwhile) concerns.
And, strictly as an aside, the snide down-the-nose look that most Geeks tend to give the untermensch that compose most of our world and who use M$ products doesn't exactly enhance the reputation of our caste nor encourage people to seek our help our to try our chosen solutions. In fact, it drives them deeper into the hands of those who offer them no pain and who pander to how the world is, not how we all wish it were.
SYN and ACK? Does that mean the conversation must be finished with FIN?
Re:Hmmm.... that's a nice quote... but....
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if this were true - that a terrorist holds a baby in front of themselves as a 'shield' -- then just WHO is the person who would continue to shoot their bombs there anyways? babies and children have died from these 'accidents'.
John, you'll pardon me for saying this, because it isn't a happy topic any way you look at it, but I'd at least consider it.
Here's why: If you allow a terrorist to leverage you by using a hostage (or by hiding behind his population), then you give him free license and all of them will adopt this tactic (since it works). If it doesn't work, then why bother? So in a sense, letting them use it succesfully once encourages its use again and again. Futhermore, if you are afraid of causing a single casualty in the war against these villains, then inevitably you will see greater death and destruction as they are allowed to continue (they hide behind their people, we don't strike, they plan more strikes against us by proxy and their agents carry them out). This is (unfortunately) very much a case where if we don't defend ourselves (ha ha, we're Canadian..... what I really mean is if the U.S. and Britain don't defend us...) and actively persecute those responsible, we end up showing ourselves as fine targets for further atrocities. If we believe in the value of life, we must stand up for the dead. That particularly applies to those in the WTC at the moment. It may also apply to Palistinians unjustly killed by the Israeli army (not all of them probably... but some) and Israelis bombed by Palistinian suicide bombers. And for every other living being struck in this type of crime. Only by standing up and saying "Yes, we really really really hate our options sometimes, but we have to pick the least bad" (and this sometimes means bombing targets near civilians... sadly) can we truly stand up for our convictions that a better world cannot be built on a foundation of ignoring mass murder.
a dead child is a tragedy both here and there
Yes. But sometimes the choice is a risk (or even a certainty) of one type of tragedy to prevent another. Sometimes life offers one precious few good options. I think this is one of those, to some extent. I don't like the idea of collateral damage, and we should never be casual about it or the prevention of it. But OTOH, we cannot allow mass murder to go unpunished, nor can the International community hold itself up as a champion of justice and freedom and all that if it does not strike against those who would kill, who would hold their people in bondage, who would murder their own in a genocidal fashion. These things we cannot abide, even if the cost of our action is a degree of tragedy, for the other alternative is to admit that these things have a place in our world and thus a far greater tragedy is accepted.....
Re:Globalisation for Greed
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Here we are talking about various nutters with guns who we happen to like. Lets not kid ourselves that the currently popular "Northern Alliance" are not a bunch of murdering thugs as well.
Has it occurred to you that the US has been remarkably slow to engage front line Taliban units to open up a path to Kabul for the Alliance? This they could have done weeks ago. They do not. Why, do you think?
Because they probably realize the problem of having the Alliance take-over. But there really are not 1000 good choices and having Abdul Haq hung wasn't a real good thing either.
I'm not sure the doddery old king is the answer, I'm not sure the Northern Alliance or a Pakistan puppet government is the answer. I'm not sure weeding out even moderate Taliban supporters is wise. I think the answer is very complex.
I suspect it involves some moderate Taliban members, some of the Northern Alliance, maybe the King, the UN (UNMOs and Nato troops too), and a lot of outside attention. Media, Education, funds to rebuild but with strings attached on the human-rights/democracy front.
The Afghans (tribes anyway) are a rowdy lot. They have a militant tradition, like their guns and a good fight. But they also love their families and no one really wants to be killed and most people would like a chance at security, stability and a future for their children. If a rebuilt Afghanistan can offer these opportunities, even if it takes 10 years to get rolling, then its worth it. For us in the West and for the Afghanis themselves. It won't be easy, and it can't be exactly another "America in the East" (not that you'd necessarily want that anyway), it will have to be something that combines the interest groups and binds them into a framework that gaurantees a few social changes and some basic human rights. But if we can at least get that, or a start towards that, some peace and stability, then we can probably rob the bin Laden's of the world of a fertile recruiting ground.
Knowledge, wisdom, education - these are the weapons which can be used to change the world. Guns, planes, and bombs are only a (sadly necessary) first stage. The real trick lies in the rebuilding. And that requires architects, builders, and leaders of the community - not soldiers and airmen.
Hmmm.... that's a nice quote... but....
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· Score: 5, Insightful
violence begets more violence - he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword
John, did you notice that a lot of people who don't live by the sword get killed by those with swords? I hate to suggest you might be a bit naive, because I suspect that perhaps you understand this truth but if all of us sheep were to disarm, you think the wolves would disarm too? Sorry, but I have to think not.
I am in agreement that we must understand the nature of the problem on a deeper level than most people seem interested in thinking about it. Only then can we address some of the issues that give the bin Laden's of the world a fertile ground to recruit terrorists from - the dispossessed, the downtrodden, the hopeless. I also agree that certain parts of this 'war on terrorism' could lead to a widening of the conflict... up to and including a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan.
But to suggest that we can allow 6000 murders to go unpunished or unprosecuted is equally reprehensible. I don't (frankly) care what excuse bin Laden has (or the hijackers) - 6000 murders is still 6000 people slaughtered with malice of forethought. The kind of individuals that could do this won't hesitate to do it again and they're far enough gone that attempts at "understanding" will only give them time to work more of their evil. Similarly, waiting for the UN to accomplish anything (ha ha, World Court, good joke...) is pretty utopian and also allows these villains to work their evils.
It boils down to this: If you are a human being, you have some right to life. Those who would abbrogate your right to life for whatever cause are probably evil. They need to be brought to account. Is that all that needs done? Not by half. Afghanistan and a few other places need rebuilt. They need rebuilt not to make them anti-Islamic or to make them capitalist, but rather to make them a place where the women are not oppressed and where reasonless fundamentalism doesn't reign and where terrorists are made unwelcome. That is why we must dismantle their government and their terrorist networks and seek to bag bin Laden.
Innocents will get killed. Some new bad feelings will be created. But appeasement or ignoring the problem because the solution might be costly (as we saw clearly in several historical periods) has lead to more death and destruction than a lot of forthright actions. The horror of war is a universal constant, but the horror of the Taliban and Al-Queda is greater.
And instead of focusing on the few civilian deaths (yes, they are rotten...), try to focus on this: This is probably one of the few wars in history where anyone has TRIED to distinguish between civilian and military targets. No firebombings of Hamburg/Mecca. No Nuclear bombings of Hiroshima/Kabul. There is a conscious effort NOT to hurt those already brutalized by war. Will some be hurt or killed? Probably. But not all that many and the Americans should be lauded (along with their allies) for at least making a firm attempt not to kill those who aren't involved. Ask the Taliban to stop parking military vehicles and HQ inside of civilian neighbourhoods if they value their people. And if they don't, this is further evidence they need removing. I notice Al-Queda and the hijackers don't distinguish between civilian and non-civilian targets. Bin Laden himself said all Americans (and by extension, the rest of us in the civilized capitalist democracies) are his enemies, whether we carry a gun or pay taxes.
I don't know about you... but when a man declares me his enemy without ever meeting me just based on his assumptions about me, and is willing to kill me for that, I'm more than willing to see him prevented (permanently) from doing harm to me or others like me. He is willing to assign my life and the lives of those he uses as pawns a value of zero or less... so I am forced to consider him a fundamentally broken mind and an evil the world can do without.
Well, if you used a product other than the one in question, you might have some other alternatives by which to contextualize and understand what an idiot was....
Your comments on slashdot and group moderation are interesting but fairly obvious. Isn't democratic form of any kind essentially subject to hijacking by a special interest group? And when you have something like slashdot which essentially is entirely a special interest group, should you be surprised? Moderation is a way for a community to express its opinion. When most of the community shares an opinion, that is reflected.
Democracy - dictatorship of the mediocre masses.
However, I will note that good technical information does tend to get moderated up. Yes, you have to ignore some of the rah! rah! Open-Source! Down with M$! propaganda that gets modded high positive, but OTOH is that any worse than ignoring the corporatist slant at many other sites that claim unbiased journalistic integrity? I think not.
One thing you can say about slashdot, you know what you get, bad or good. When its bad, its bad. When its good, it can be pretty impressive.
Like most things in life, it boils down to panning for gold and trying to sort out truth from lies. If you think you'll get away from this anywhere and that journalistic integrity is much more than an oxymoron, then you're kind of naive. At the end of the day, it costs money to keep a site hosted and capable of handling heavy traffic. Someone pays those bills. People have to eat. So we see the creeping onset of the true capitalist revenue stream in the open-source world (since all the too-stupid-to-live VCs have washed away and the remaining survivors are wily enough to know mixing any three buzzwords is not a business model worthy of note...).
Slashdot at least still lets people vent. If you don't like the moderation scheme, you certainly can adjust your reader prefs accordingly and read even downmod'd comments.
But if you want to leave, you can. That's the one good thing about a democratic forum. To quote Morpheus "I can only show you the door. You must go through it yourself." (roughly).
Want to improve as a programming in terms of how you handle errors? Be assigned to 7/24/365 support of your product. When it tips over, deal with the irate user. When its most minor function doesn't work, get paged out of bed at 3 am. Have it do something important with lives at stake and then just _try_ to walk away from a half-fixed problem or say SEP.
Once you've been on this hook, you look direly askance at poorly documented code (even code you wrote three years ago), code that doesn't do required error checking, needlessly convoluted code, and code which isn't easy to read at 3 am when the live system takes a hemorrage repeatedly and someone might not get a 911 call through...
Once you've had to put yourself in the pressure cooker some clients have to deal with, you develop either a) sympathy for their situation or b) a great desire to never ever ever hear from them again. That's a good motivation to quit or to do the damn thing right in the first place.
Too many coders are allowed to write crap, churn it out as a release, and then not worry about support, either doing none or passing it off to some other poor bugger. If core developers got stuck supporting what they wrote and their own laziness or poor planning came back to bite them on the ass, they'd learn rather rapidly to improve their code quality and handle the errors in a robust manner the first time!
Been there, learnt the lessons, DESIGNED the T-shirt....
An Engineering Approach to the whole software development process is more useful than exceptions. The problem with most programming is we (programmers) tend to let something loose then see if it has problems. We don't know in advance where the failure points lie. Most proper engineering tends to know to a very high degree of confidence what can fail in a system and under what circumstances even before the system is constructed.
The use of robust tools is key in software development, that much I will say. But I hardly think exceptions are a requirement. In what sort of sensible object model are you going to be tossing exceptions upstack anyway? Most exception handling should be done at point of occurrence for context reasons and for efficiency. If you throw exceptions up half a dozen levels, you've really taken a performance hit to do so and the code level that is addressing the exception probably has only a fragment of the context the error occured in left to work with.
Exception generation, while interesting in concept, is useless (or problematic at least) in the real-time world. Returning with an error code is much faster and handling that error code where it occurs is usually advantageous anyway.
If you don't care about speed, then exception handling is wonderful. I'm sure as processors continue to produce greater MIPS and BOPS counts that we will see more use of exception handling. But you can program badly with exceptions just as easily as without them. Good programming can be somewhat impeded by a lacking toolset, or by a lacking language which is inefficient or semantically poor, but it can't be totally defeated. Similarly, bad programming is not alleviated by the presence of these tools. You _can_ program well in assembler. You can program badly in Perl (God knows...) and Python.
It all boils down to the discipline of your approach, the level of effort at rigorous error handling and disaster recovery, and the dedication and competence of your programming team. If any of these aspects is lacking, your project will suffer.
One of the problems with the Net as a news medium is exactly its nature. To wit, if I wish to get news from Radio... I turn it on and tap into the broadcast radio waves. Everyone in my neighborhood can do this at the same time and not impinge on my ability to get this important information.
In order for me to get information from an Internet news site, I must form my own individual link with it, and in cases like Sept 11 it is quite likely that the site I want is/.ed and unavailable to me.
TV and Radio both enjoy a distribution methodology that makes the data available to the public in such a way that each person watching it doesn't affect anyone else. The same is sooooo not true of the net.
And I'm not sure fixing that problem is simple. Broadcast or Multicast for news? I don't even know if this is feasible without choking networks. Maybe it is... because you could remove the need for each person to tap into a particular site. But then who'd be allowed to broadcast? Big money! The networks or someone like them. They'd vie for the few available broadcast channels. Now, that could still leave a big part of the ever-widening pipes for people to go out to smaller sites and fetch news and perspective without worrying too much about/.ing because those sites would individually have less traffic than a large news agency.
Is this even a half way sane suggestion? I don't know. But if the net wants to overcome TV and Radio or supplant them as a news distribution medium, they'll have to either get such whopping big pipes and muy macho servers that no volume of traffic will choke them or else come up with some sort of broadcast method that is generally acceptable and useful.
The danger, as was outlined by David Hackworth (Col, Ret) in his book (name escapes me...), is that the Pentagon is developing an Institutional Amnesia (repressing the few remaining old warfighters who are kicking around with combat experience - obviously pre-Gulf War...).
Now, I like 10 Mtn. They're a good unit and well suited to operations (insofar as anyone is) in Afghanistan. And I hope they do make use of their Vets and unit histories - hopefully the lessons of the past are not lost. Institutional Amnesia gets people killed. But it is very easy to fall into because people die off or leave, and hearing stories second hand or reading old accounts is not the same as getting info first hand from someone with experience. Sometimes they don't record key facts because no one would think to ask the question - and then the source is gone.
This is one of the reason some special units like the SAS are ranked so highly in terms of competence despite not having quite as much wazoo tech as say Delta Force might... they have a base of experience and they continue to be operational worldwide on a regular basis which keeps the experience base refreshed. They are very good at knowledge transfer, though occasionally even the vaunted SAS screw things up royally (witness Bravo Two Zero's mission planning).
Esprit de Corps, a proud unit history, and Institutional Memory are powerful building blocks of a strong unit. Operational experience that is current is also quite a boon.
Hopefully we have improved some on prior times where lessons were lost and Generals prepared to fight "the last war" rather than "the next war".
And then the lessons were learned again... and paid for in blood again. Let us hope that isn't the case here.
You talk about people educating themselves. This is, I note, one of the freedoms those so called "sheep" are off defending - that and your freedom to be a conpiracy nut.
Those soldiers (marrionettes I believe you term them) at least understand the concept of public service and giving back to the community.
What, exactly, have you done for your community lately? You've ranted and raved, but so far as I can tell your paranoid polemic isn't based in any world of fact.
And you've made some pretty bold assertions about me for someone who has only seen a snapshot (and a small one at that) of what I think or who I am. You talk about others making uneducated decisions? That surely seems like one.
You call me a "happy Bingo" and a "yahoo" meanwhile blurting out unsubstantiated (and I am certain unsubstantiable) accusations that someone (the Gov't, the Military Brass, The Powers-That-Be, or maybe just "Them") is sitting on some sort of panacea of military technology which would instantly end this war (thus showing your own dubious level of education - the thought that technology of any stripe exists or can exist which would allow one to wave a magic wand and end a war is so delusional as to be positively entertaining).
I've worked with members of the allied special forces community as well as many conventional military persons. I've worked with members of our allied intelligence community. I've worked with law enforcement. And I've worked at defence contractors who would have developed, if it existed, this "Star Trek" technology you've suggested the military is sitting on.
Without a doubt, if technology was available to bring the war to a more rapid conclusion, which was reliable, affordable, and robust, it would be in the hands of the people who need it (intelligence and special operations troops).
They individually cost so stupidly much to train that risking them makes negative economic sense (not to mention your military handicap if you lose these trained and experienced men and women). These people are not fools... they know what technology can and can't do (and yes, they often know stuff John Q Public doesn't and have neat toys), but part of that is knowing that where the rubber meets the road, it is still a human being with training and talent that has to get the job done.
If you think they'd voluntarily endanger themselves, you're wrong. If you think that politicians, wary of how the future will treat them, would endanger them wilfully, you're also wrong. If you think a large scale technological development can be entirely concealed and that defense contractors have given the government wazoo StarTreknology (maybe from UFOs? You haven't suggested where you think it would come from, but that fits with your other crackpot ramblings), then you're not only wrong but wilfully obdurate and insensate.
Being thankful for the sacrifices made on your ungrateful behalf would be too much to ask. But some of us can at least recognize that it is the sacrifices of those "marionettes" that have preserved your freedom to think in a paranoid, immature, and ultimately ridiculous fashion.
Just because the freedoms so insured grant you the right to say whatever you want doesn't mean you should consistently excercise that prerogative....
Since World War II, the purpose of the American infantry is to bring the enemy within range of the artillery. This strategy accounts for the low number of American casualties compared to enemy soldiers. The core of the conflict is artillery and air power. Direct encounters between American soldiers and enemy soldiers, when it happens, is a kind of failure of strategy.
You apparently went to the same school of Cold War era tactical doctrine as I did.
However, in this instance, given that it is light infantry, special recce and intel units, and special operations forces of several nations most likely to be involved, I forsee less of this tactic. Yes, they will bring to bear superior firepower (tube artillery, MRLS, guiding in laser-seeking munitions, etc). That is one of their roles. So is direct action: attacking terrorist camps, executing sniper operations, ambushing terrorist cells on the move, etc. And so is the kind of "go and live there and get to know the locals" work that the US Special Forces A Teams are so good at (as are the SAS and other allied unconventional forces).
But when it comes to taking towns (and this will be necessary to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban), your arty won't do you much good because 1) infantry in rubble have pretty good cover as several armies over the centuries have found out and 2) civilians occupy the rubble and we don't want to kill them. So cordon and sweep operations will be the order of the day. Then provision of security on the ground while a new regime is establishing itself. These jobs involve taking and holding ground and the artillery will not facilitate these operations.
Second, the objective of battle is not to take ground but to destroy the enemy's army in the field. Use of superior mobility and airpower make actually occupying ground for any length of time a liability.
Welcome to the world of rebuilding a shattered nation, which is pretty much what the USA seems to be planning. That will require continued presence of security, intelligence, and police (military and civilian) forces.
It is a liability, to be sure, but it will be the price of trying to restructure and stabilize the region to avoid having to do this again 10 years down the road.
Further, even on the ground only about a tenth of soldiers are engaged in combat. The rest are involved in logistics or held in reserve.
I suspect the numbers are much higher in special operations forces, judging by the tempo of their operations and the few-enough men that are available with the high levels of training and skills required.
Soldies shoot and kill things: True. The primary role of the infantry is to close with and destroy the enemy.
However, to say that is the ONLY purpose of the infantry is ultimately wrong. That is confusing their tactical purpose with their strategic purpose. Their strategic purpose is to act as an extension of government and to enforce foreign policy decisions in one form or another.
Sometimes this does take the form of killing people. Often times, it takes the form of peacekeeping (preventing two groups from killing each other) or peacemaking (stopping two groups currently killing one another from doing so). Are these not soldiers who do this?
Sometimes it takes the form of disaster relief and recovery. And these too are soldiers.
And don't presume to suggest that this is entirely a result of the actions of one side (America). Long ago I learned that a man is responsible for his _own_ actions, and OBL has a lot to account for on that score. No one else authorized this action and had final authority.
And a lot of other people have been wronged (Japanese interned in Canada, the Canadian and American natives, etc.) and yet these peoples have not resorted to terrorism. And many Muslims who actually follow the Qu'ran will readily disavow the actions of OBL and other fanatics, so
you can't lay this solely at the foot of the Americans.
Sure, they could do something about applying more of their attention, political will, money, etc. to helping the Middle East sort itself out, but that does not free the Middle Eastern peoples from the responsibility to behave in a manner that is not consistent with barbarism. Most of them try to. It is the few that don't that we _all_ have a problem with, not just America. These zealots are as much of a danger to the moderate nations of the Middle East as they are to America.
Slashdot Mirror
In Canada, Income Tax was introduced sometime in the last century as a method of dealing with war debts if I don't miss my recollection. This "Temporary Measure" has proved to have remarkable staying power. Decades and decades later, and still going strong.
Hmmm. Kinda like the Liberals getting elected with a plan to repeal the GST (VAT-like tax). They never did. Hmmmm.
Temporary measures tend to not be. Governments tend not to repeal measures giving them more money or power.
The old RPG Traveller (by Marc Miller) captured this by pointing out (in the rules for generating worlds) the relationship between high population and oppressive government and between oppressive government and high levels of law and law enforcement.
It was only a game. But strangely reality seems to be following pretty much the pattern they mapped out....
Tomb
Nice try.
Divide by x-1 where x=1 is divide by zero. No can do Chief!
But it took me a moment or two to figure out where this was broken....
You should see the explanation of how 1 + 0 does not always equal 1. We had a professor examine this situation and I got lost after the first 5 minutes, but I got the impression it spawned its own type of space. Something very scary....
Our buddies at M$ aren't snoozin'. They've figured out that they can wrangle this case out for quite a while (given appeals etc) and they can protest and force enforcement (and object to that) even later yet.
.Net, Passports, etc. have all come into being and these aren't covered by existent proceedings AFAIK. So in order to address these, we need a whole OTHER cycle of litigation... and by then M$ will be off on some OTHER new things.
And when all is said and done, this is a remedy for a situation long gone by. There isn't really an OS war anymore. Linux hasn't got what it takes in the desktop market (*NO THIS WAS NOT A TROLL*) and OS/2 has went the way of the dodo. There will always be some variety in OS, but M$ has a good hold on the desktop market. And it has been denting the server market over the last few years. And I don't think anyone is gonna be going toe to toe with M$ - Corel tried and look what it bought them? Same with the Netscape crew.
So, the DoJ applies some remedies. Meanwhile XBox,
Those boys at M$... you can argue with their unsavory ways, but they are savvy to how to manipulate the law and the market. They make an okay product (not great, but not terrible) and they sell like the Devil himself. And when someone wants to butt heads with them, they play mean and dirty and they tend to win. Our free market (nominally) system has bred one tough-ass company in M$ and they continue to stay one step ahead of their many enemies.
Eventually, they'll probably stumble and fall and these cases and the costs have undoubtedly placed some drag-weight on them... but boy, you have to give them high marks for not waiting for this set of issues to settle out before investing in a whole new range of control tactics.
Gates of Borg may have never been a programmer except in his own mind, but he and his cadre sure know how to lay the hit on the opposition....
It sounds to me that you might not dislike CS as much as you dislike academia, or perhaps the fake nature of many school tasks. University and College do many things, but one of the things they do repeatedly is re-invent the wheel. There are some valid reasons for this, but it does get rather stale when you realize you're treading the same path 10K other people before you did. It's no fun to solve problems to which the answers are known.
I had a friend that did not so hot in school, not on account of any smarts problem - he's quite sharp - but a motivational one. Once he hit the job market, he became energized - real problems, real challenges, real solutions. He's now a PHB (trying not to forget all he learned in engineering) at a large Ottawa software company (Hi Deane!).
Point I'm making here is if I judged my current field (software development) by the worst jobs in it (wrote programming in awful languages) or by what I got clubbed with at University and College, I'd have never entered it. But the truth is, I knew there had to be more. But I had to get into the real world and hit some real challenges - pick your jobs carefully and this happens.
So far I have:
Learned wireless, client-server, the development cycle, and security while working on public safety software for Canada's major national police body. Learned a lot about communications protocols, TCP/IP, mainframes and UNIX systems.
Learned something about 3D, state patterns, and CASE tools as well as a bunch about air navigation working on a project for the CF Air Navigation School. Big C++ project using code framework generation by Rose.
Learned more wireless, a bit of Java, some ASP, some more C++, WAV files and streaming Internet audio, cellular gateways, etc. while doing some work for cellular portal technology companies out of Boston.
Learned more Java, game programming, a lot about virtual environments, etc. working in my current job for a Quebec multimedia company doing 3D immersive world technologies for the Internet.
Learned a lot of TCP/IP and many application layer protocols while teaching TCP/IP network programming at our local college.
All of this in 6.5 years after work. I can't imagine more challenge, excitement (sometimes stress), more satisfaction in design and implemenation of real solutions and not-done-before problems, and I got paid fairly well along the way. Oh, and I met a damn fine bunch of people.
Don't give up on the field. Make a point to find out what it _really_ holds by talking to some people _in_ the field. Go to computer tradeshows and talk to the staffers. Go visit any local computer companies.
There is more under heaven and earth than NP completeness, re-implementing the linked list, or figuring out yacc and lex.
Tomb.
GRIP has a server and a client, and it runs an IRC like chat utility, has mapping (including a neat fog of war/visibility capability and maps that reveal as you move through them), GM to group and GM to player interactions, the ability of the GM or players to exchange media, the ability to make requests for die rolls from players, built in dice rolling, and lots of other neat stuff.
My only complaint was a little while back it had some limited capability re: firewalls, but that was being worked on.
Take a gander at Fantasy Realms - Look for the little links at the top to GRIP and iPC.
I recall the glory days of my Engineering school. There were two classes of engineers, those with an HP and those without. The thing ate matrix algebra (the kind used in RLC circuits) for breakfast. It did graphing of calculus functions. It calculated 253! faster than my 80286 did 49!.
My HP28S _STILL_ enjoys a place of respect, even if changing the batteries is a pain in the ass (and it uses an odd size too) and even if all I do with it now is basic math/trig/etc. I don't need the powertool for what I used it for since I'm now a software engineer, but I still can't use normal calculators - RPN has spoiled me.
RPN has got to be one of the most sensible ways to do things for anyone who ever understood computer systems - stack operations just make so much sense!
But alas, RPN hurts the heads of the mass of the uninitiated or the uninformable. And so, a legend of quality goes to the boneyard. People would rather have the sub-capable alleged "calculators" on the Palm100 (what a piece of crap) than have something that can _really_ do complicated math (even complex math and convolutions and all sorts of neat stuff) with brutal speed. I guess that's probably because math (the kind done by people, rather than expensive software packages) is largely a dying art.
Ah, the memories.... the first time I heard someone play all of Star Wars from the HP... the first time I aced a mid-term because my calculator reduced the mindless number crunching to a manageable task.... the first time I encountered complex numbers because the HP spit back an odd result (x,y) and the y part was the complex component.
Sad day indeed.
The U.N. and World Court are ineffective because the U.S. is constantly working against them. Look at the history with Nicaragua and Israel. The U.S. ignored international law in its war against Nicaragua (remember the Iran-Contra scandal?), and the U.S. and Israel have consistently stood alone in voting against peace resolutions in the Middle East.
Really? So, let me ask you this: If all your neighbours voted to tar and feather you, and only you and one of your friends voted against it, does that mean you are the problem? A peace enforced from without and without the consent of both parties is not a peace - it is an ultimatum.
And on the other hand, do you really think it is only US intransigence that hobbles the UN? Not the fact it represents 160+ interests, each with their own lobby groups, some led by some very unpleasant folk, and representing populations with some real questionable standards of education and free discourse? You don't think corruption, incompetence, and personal ambition have hobbled UN performance as much as US action? If you don't acknowedge the UN has far more wrong with it than the US's stance, then you're either poorly informed or intentionally misleading yourself.
So if the U.S. took actions that it knew would cause the deaths of thousands of Afghani civilians, then Afghanistan would be obliged to retaliate against the U.S.?
If the US were to INTENTIONALLY slaughter a large number of Afghans without having a provocation in the form of a massive attack on their population, then yes. You're attempting the moral equivalence ploy and it ignores key distinctions. The coalition is NOT intentionally targeting civilians. bin Laden (Taliban supported and funded) did and do in their continuing attrocities. The coalition didn't throw the first punch in this round. bin Laden and the Taliban did, striking without warning. These are rather important distinctions. Similar to why shooting someone trying to kill you is not murder... even if it is unfortunate and tragic in a human sense.
So Afghanistan should begin bombing Washington?
Hmmm. I thought the Pentagon was in Washington. As I recall, they crashed a plane into it. I'd say they started this round by bombing Washington.
For the record, I'm not sure you can use the corrollary consequences of this (ie the refugee tragedy of unknown and varyingly estimated extents) as a reason to not do this. If that was the case, are you saying all a murderer has to do is hide among a population of the downtrodden and starving in order to evade justice? If so... I see a new trend for terrorists. (Actually, it is an old one because these places look like they are good recruiting beds too). Without putting too fine a point on it: WHERE DO YOU THINK THE LARGEST AMOUNT OF THAT AID COMES FROM?
The United States. In terms of gross dollars, the US is the most generous nation on earth. Perhaps even per capita. And yes the flow of that aid is impeded. If they hadn't given it (to people who are willing to bomb their cities....), then it wouldn't be sitting there waiting to be shipped and those people would still be starving.
The Taliban have brought their people to this juncture and trying to place the blame on the heads of the US is like trying to blame society for the actions of a sociopath. It is misplaced blame. The US has a hard challenge in getting the Taliban and bin Laden fast enough to save the bulk of the refugees and avoid a major widening of the conflict. But that doesn't begin to suggest we shouldn't be doing it, just how we should be doing it and what the parameters of our operations are.
Please tell me the irony was deliberate. You cannot in one breath claim that there is a universal right to life, and that anyone who violates that right is evil, and in the next breath claim that innocent deaths are a reasonable means to an end. It is hypocrisy, plain and simple.
Calling it hypocrisy does not make it so. It is only hypocritical if you are utopian. Every human has (IMO) a right to life. So killing them isn't a good thing. However, part of ensuring the right to life of the greatest number of humans is pursuing those who violate that right. If the pursuit has bad side-effects, they must be weighted in the decision. But so must the consequences of not pursuing those who violate this right. This is a situation where I forsee no "winning" strategy, just losing and losing worse. Losing worse is doing nothing and letting slaughter go unattended. Letting murderous animals plan further attacks and execute them with the sponsorship of a corrupt and monstrous state. That is the worst case. Fighting a war that risks a small number of civilian deaths, while bad, is the "least bad" if it can bring the killers to account, remove the monstrous state from power, and in the long term offer options for the many survivors and refugees.
It is this kind of muddy thinking that perpetuates the cycles of revenge in the Middle East, in the Balkans and in Northern Ireland. Sadly, a new cycle of revenge is being created between America and the Muslim world. Do you think the deaths of innocent civilians will make Osama Bin Laden sorry for what he has done?
Did I ever suggest that it would? No. So what makes you think I am that out of touch? bin Laden is "broken". We can't rehabilitate him. He has chosen his path. I believe his "faith" (the maltreated and selective variant he espouses) will sustain him in any horrific action. Guilt won't be something he feels, or at least he'll be able to assuage his guilt with his other convictions. The best thing we can do with him is render him incapable (jail or otherwise) of doing any further harm. I leave it to his God and mine to sort out the status of his eternal soul.
Or will they attract more people to his cause? Do you think that killing the family of a potential terrorist will make him hate you less?
Anyone who has relatives killed in war will feel animosity. That is natural. BUT... if a murderer walks into a grocery store and starts gunning down schoolgirls, do the police shoot him or do they worry that his brother might hate cops after that? They shoot him. The risk he presents is such that the risks that _may_ follow are weighed less. Similarly, bin Laden before Sept 11 was a dangerous guy. But that wasn't enough to merit his hunting down. Now he's a mass murderer and an international icon of fundamentalist hate. Those deaths call out for an accounting, for justice.
The difference between justice and revenge is mostly a matter of perspective and motivation. A state imprisoning or killing someone can risk that person's relatives becoming villains out of rage and hurt. But that doesn't remove the need of a state to pursue crime. Similarly, the coalition community, acting in the abscence of a true international government (and any real effective international power group), are taking the steps to pursue a mass murderer and his associates. Is there a risk? Surely. Does that suggest we should not pursue this course? Nope.
I understand the dangers inherent in a cycle of violence. However, in our societies we define the murder of an individual as a very serious offense (perhaps even capital). How can the murder of 1000 people be less serious? Must we not pursue it with the maximum vigor possible?
Further, there is a quantifiable difference between:
1) attacking an unsuspecting civilian population with weapons of mass destruction
2) attacking an identified military force (enemy national or terrorist) with precision munitions and targeted strikes
In the first case, I don't care who I kill. The more the better. In the second, I try NOT to kill non-combatants. Sure, if they end up dead that is a bad thing and their relatives won't see it any way but that way.
But the difference is in part in the intention, in part in the degree. I cannot abide a logic that suggest we do nothing because in selecting a particular course of action we may have a small number of very unfortunate side effects. That argument would have you sit on your behind awaiting the perfect (ie never happen) solution with no sad collateral effects such as unintended civilian deaths. And that is basically saying that those 6K people who died don't matter because the fact we may kill a few hundred innocents in the pursuit of a longer term good has detered us from acting.
We have to try VERY hard not to kill those not involved, though identifying the "involved" in the Afghan situation is a little dicey. But for the good of that region, it must be liberated (and I do use that word deliberately, because you cannot call the Taliban government anything short of monstrous in terms of the way it treats dissidents, those of other faiths, and women). And rebuilt. Rebuilt with input from those who live there, but rebuilt to respect other nations right to exist, to respect the right to life of other nations populations, to respect the rule of international law and the rights of the individual Afghan to have some sort of security, opportunity, and freedom from oppression.
Is this a hard task? Hooo boooy. Yes. Japan and Germany are the scale we're talking here. This is not a weekend project. This is generational. But look at how successful we were in Japan and Germany. They are now among the most democratic and to a large extent non-aggressive nations in the civilized world. They have benefitted from the reconstruction and the increased education and economic opportunity, which have strengthened the cause of freedom and social justice. Are they perfect? Nope. But they're a lot better than they were. And they're a lot better than Afghanistan now. But it took decades.
Any death is a horror. But sometimes (as I said) life leaves you ten bad choices and one of them is just less awful than the others. That's the one I think we're trying to take here. Could it cost us badly if things don't pan out? Oh yeah. Could it cost us a lot even if it does pan out, given it wasn't a perfect option to start with, oh yeah! Don't get me wrong: This is a nasty little adult situation - no white knights, no cavalry to the rescue. The only way to get out of this with any redemption is by winning the military fight quickly, carefully, and getting to work saving the millions of innocents with a vengeance. And rebuilding something that can eventually join the international community as a worthwhile member. That's what we've got to do and it will be the Devil's own bit of work to accomplish.
But we don't seem to have too many good options, now do we?
I suspect part of my original thinking did not come through clearly enough.
Pursuit of someone who kills N people in a terrorist action isn't "retaliation". It's pursuit of a criminal to bring them to justice PERIOD. Not pursuing them is saying "you've killed people, but killing one person is a crime, killing 1000 is a statistic." You cannot set that precedent. You cannot so denigrate the value of a human life that you are not willing to stand up and say "someone who takes these lives must be hunted down and brought to account".
Yes, if this conflict is poorly spun (and bin Laden is a good infotruthspeak spinner), then we could have a lot of problems. But letting him go after he did this was never an option. And with a state to harbour him that itself is guilty of murder and oppression, I don't see as we had much choice but to act. The trial will come after the direct attack is done and when all that remains is the aftermath. Therein lies the real challenge.
Whereas I'd agree that the general approach is that it is okay to not understand the odd white box with the funny keys and the odd looking windows logo....
That's still a bit simplistic. There is a reason that some things are done the same way in almost all implementations. Certain things get red flashing lights. Some buttons are big red mushrooms, etc. Interface design hinges on understanding that certain types of operation should be obvious to anyone. And in general changing the interface for no better reason than "because we felt like it" or "because it gave the UI team some work" is rather silly.
If a UI standard was evolved that all the operating systems could draw from (one may exist, but it hasn't emerged as a defacto standard), is there any real reason that moving a file from directory A to B should be any different on two different OS platforms? Not really. The problem is everyone is playing to the beat of their own drum. So we have to learn new things about where things are.
For example, in going from NT to 2K, I've had a bit of a time (and I've been on Wintel platforms along with a bunch of Unix variants) finding where some of the stuff I was used to on NT was moved to (administrative progs, some other options). This frustration was made greater by the fact I could see no great reason to move them from where they were to where they ended up. So I wasted some time, for no reason I can think of.
Another example, outside the UI but along the same lines, is how the location of the etc\services has moved around in various windows versons over the years. I now just use "Find" to locate it rather than guessing. Why has this moved around (given that none of the locations it has been stored have been terribly sensible)? The only reason I can see is "because".
There is a reason a VCR has common controls that are recognizable on every VCR, DVD, and on most of our CD and DVD and MP3 and MPEG players.... because then you don't need to reprogram yourself to use the new piece of technology. Spend your time learning important distinctions between two systems when those distinctions have some real significance in terms of capability or efficiency. Don't spend your time learning differences when the only gain is.... unquantifiable or perhaps non-existent. We're all only here for a certain finite span of life... let's try not to waste it re-learning UIs to no great benefit. (This is similar to seeing coders re-write time and again things like linked list classes, string parsers, error handlers, buffer overflow checking routines - haven't we all done these enough times that someone should have been able to create one optimized and bug-free variant we can all use? I distinctly get the "Og invents wheel... again. Film at 11" feeling when I see this).
For the record, I don't consider people like this very smart. If you have no desire to learn the details of how something works, you shouldn't be using it. I know a guy who had no desire to learn how his car works
I will observe that there is a difference between having the interest in something and having the time to investigate it. For example, there was a time when a car was a fairly rudimentary thing to do most operations on. This was well before a dozen sensors controlled combustion, before vehicle engine control modules with arcane diagnostic codes that require a mechanic or a nasty piece of hardware to get at. This was before the level of complexity of those systems grew to the level it currently is.
I also don't know... you may have tremendous amounts of spare time. Most people don't. I'd love to know why my Doctor prescribes a certain medication, but at some level, I have to take his word for it as anything more than a beer n' pretzels explanation will exceed my university chemistry knowledge level. Similarly, I ask my mechanic why he's doing something, but once he moves off into bafflegab, I'm left with two choices: trust that he's a professional or don't.
I think I could probably walk around almost anyone's house or the environment they work in and identify at least some things about which they know little or nothing other than how to operate the item in question in a simple way. We humans now live in a complex world and not only is it infeasible for you to know something about everything you come in contact with, it is inefficient. Specialization is efficient. Knowing a little bit about a lot of things has some utility, but that isn't having real knowledge of those things. A veneer isn't in-depth knowledge. And if you spend your life trying to investigate all of the existing objects that you come in contact with, you won't be doing much else.
Reduction of complexity to usable levels is how humans cope with an increasingly complex world. Reducing formerly complex tasks which had to be understood in detail to black box technologies that anyone can get at least average utility out of is how we move on to dealing with higher level concerns. I for one am glad that I don't have to worry about what IRQ or DMA channel or I/O space address my various PC cards occupy now. There was a time when I did. I wasted hours friggin' around with these things because it was a necessity. It no longer is, and I can worry about new (and more worthwhile) concerns.
And, strictly as an aside, the snide down-the-nose look that most Geeks tend to give the untermensch that compose most of our world and who use M$ products doesn't exactly enhance the reputation of our caste nor encourage people to seek our help our to try our chosen solutions. In fact, it drives them deeper into the hands of those who offer them no pain and who pander to how the world is, not how we all wish it were.
SYN and ACK? Does that mean the conversation must be finished with FIN?
if this were true - that a terrorist holds a baby in front of themselves as a 'shield' -- then just WHO is the person who would continue to shoot their bombs there anyways? babies and children have died from these 'accidents'.
John, you'll pardon me for saying this, because it isn't a happy topic any way you look at it, but I'd at least consider it.
Here's why: If you allow a terrorist to leverage you by using a hostage (or by hiding behind his population), then you give him free license and all of them will adopt this tactic (since it works). If it doesn't work, then why bother? So in a sense, letting them use it succesfully once encourages its use again and again. Futhermore, if you are afraid of causing a single casualty in the war against these villains, then inevitably you will see greater death and destruction as they are allowed to continue (they hide behind their people, we don't strike, they plan more strikes against us by proxy and their agents carry them out). This is (unfortunately) very much a case where if we don't defend ourselves (ha ha, we're Canadian..... what I really mean is if the U.S. and Britain don't defend us...) and actively persecute those responsible, we end up showing ourselves as fine targets for further atrocities. If we believe in the value of life, we must stand up for the dead. That particularly applies to those in the WTC at the moment. It may also apply to Palistinians unjustly killed by the Israeli army (not all of them probably... but some) and Israelis bombed by Palistinian suicide bombers. And for every other living being struck in this type of crime. Only by standing up and saying "Yes, we really really really hate our options sometimes, but we have to pick the least bad" (and this sometimes means bombing targets near civilians... sadly) can we truly stand up for our convictions that a better world cannot be built on a foundation of ignoring mass murder.
a dead child is a tragedy both here and there
Yes. But sometimes the choice is a risk (or even a certainty) of one type of tragedy to prevent another. Sometimes life offers one precious few good options. I think this is one of those, to some extent. I don't like the idea of collateral damage, and we should never be casual about it or the prevention of it. But OTOH, we cannot allow mass murder to go unpunished, nor can the International community hold itself up as a champion of justice and freedom and all that if it does not strike against those who would kill, who would hold their people in bondage, who would murder their own in a genocidal fashion. These things we cannot abide, even if the cost of our action is a degree of tragedy, for the other alternative is to admit that these things have a place in our world and thus a far greater tragedy is accepted.....
Here we are talking about various nutters with guns who we happen to like. Lets not kid ourselves that the currently popular "Northern Alliance" are not a bunch of murdering thugs as well.
Has it occurred to you that the US has been remarkably slow to engage front line Taliban units to open up a path to Kabul for the Alliance? This they could have done weeks ago. They do not. Why, do you think?
Because they probably realize the problem of having the Alliance take-over. But there really are not 1000 good choices and having Abdul Haq hung wasn't a real good thing either.
I'm not sure the doddery old king is the answer, I'm not sure the Northern Alliance or a Pakistan puppet government is the answer. I'm not sure weeding out even moderate Taliban supporters is wise. I think the answer is very complex.
I suspect it involves some moderate Taliban members, some of the Northern Alliance, maybe the King, the UN (UNMOs and Nato troops too), and a lot of outside attention. Media, Education, funds to rebuild but with strings attached on the human-rights/democracy front.
The Afghans (tribes anyway) are a rowdy lot. They have a militant tradition, like their guns and a good fight. But they also love their families and no one really wants to be killed and most people would like a chance at security, stability and a future for their children. If a rebuilt Afghanistan can offer these opportunities, even if it takes 10 years to get rolling, then its worth it. For us in the West and for the Afghanis themselves. It won't be easy, and it can't be exactly another "America in the East" (not that you'd necessarily want that anyway), it will have to be something that combines the interest groups and binds them into a framework that gaurantees a few social changes and some basic human rights. But if we can at least get that, or a start towards that, some peace and stability, then we can probably rob the bin Laden's of the world of a fertile recruiting ground.
Knowledge, wisdom, education - these are the weapons which can be used to change the world. Guns, planes, and bombs are only a (sadly necessary) first stage. The real trick lies in the rebuilding. And that requires architects, builders, and leaders of the community - not soldiers and airmen.
violence begets more violence - he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword
John, did you notice that a lot of people who don't live by the sword get killed by those with swords? I hate to suggest you might be a bit naive, because I suspect that perhaps you understand this truth but if all of us sheep were to disarm, you think the wolves would disarm too? Sorry, but I have to think not.
I am in agreement that we must understand the nature of the problem on a deeper level than most people seem interested in thinking about it. Only then can we address some of the issues that give the bin Laden's of the world a fertile ground to recruit terrorists from - the dispossessed, the downtrodden, the hopeless. I also agree that certain parts of this 'war on terrorism' could lead to a widening of the conflict... up to and including a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan.
But to suggest that we can allow 6000 murders to go unpunished or unprosecuted is equally reprehensible. I don't (frankly) care what excuse bin Laden has (or the hijackers) - 6000 murders is still 6000 people slaughtered with malice of forethought. The kind of individuals that could do this won't hesitate to do it again and they're far enough gone that attempts at "understanding" will only give them time to work more of their evil. Similarly, waiting for the UN to accomplish anything (ha ha, World Court, good joke...) is pretty utopian and also allows these villains to work their evils.
It boils down to this: If you are a human being, you have some right to life. Those who would abbrogate your right to life for whatever cause are probably evil. They need to be brought to account. Is that all that needs done? Not by half. Afghanistan and a few other places need rebuilt. They need rebuilt not to make them anti-Islamic or to make them capitalist, but rather to make them a place where the women are not oppressed and where reasonless fundamentalism doesn't reign and where terrorists are made unwelcome. That is why we must dismantle their government and their terrorist networks and seek to bag bin Laden.
Innocents will get killed. Some new bad feelings will be created. But appeasement or ignoring the problem because the solution might be costly (as we saw clearly in several historical periods) has lead to more death and destruction than a lot of forthright actions. The horror of war is a universal constant, but the horror of the Taliban and Al-Queda is greater.
And instead of focusing on the few civilian deaths (yes, they are rotten...), try to focus on this: This is probably one of the few wars in history where anyone has TRIED to distinguish between civilian and military targets. No firebombings of Hamburg/Mecca. No Nuclear bombings of Hiroshima/Kabul. There is a conscious effort NOT to hurt those already brutalized by war. Will some be hurt or killed? Probably. But not all that many and the Americans should be lauded (along with their allies) for at least making a firm attempt not to kill those who aren't involved. Ask the Taliban to stop parking military vehicles and HQ inside of civilian neighbourhoods if they value their people. And if they don't, this is further evidence they need removing. I notice Al-Queda and the hijackers don't distinguish between civilian and non-civilian targets. Bin Laden himself said all Americans (and by extension, the rest of us in the civilized capitalist democracies) are his enemies, whether we carry a gun or pay taxes.
I don't know about you... but when a man declares me his enemy without ever meeting me just based on his assumptions about me, and is willing to kill me for that, I'm more than willing to see him prevented (permanently) from doing harm to me or others like me. He is willing to assign my life and the lives of those he uses as pawns a value of zero or less... so I am forced to consider him a fundamentally broken mind and an evil the world can do without.
Thomas B. Canada
What's an idiot?
Well, if you used a product other than the one in question, you might have some other alternatives by which to contextualize and understand what an idiot was....
:)
Your comments on slashdot and group moderation are interesting but fairly obvious. Isn't democratic form of any kind essentially subject to hijacking by a special interest group? And when you have something like slashdot which essentially is entirely a special interest group, should you be surprised? Moderation is a way for a community to express its opinion. When most of the community shares an opinion, that is reflected.
Democracy - dictatorship of the mediocre masses.
However, I will note that good technical information does tend to get moderated up. Yes, you have to ignore some of the rah! rah! Open-Source! Down with M$! propaganda that gets modded high positive, but OTOH is that any worse than ignoring the corporatist slant at many other sites that claim unbiased journalistic integrity? I think not.
One thing you can say about slashdot, you know what you get, bad or good. When its bad, its bad. When its good, it can be pretty impressive.
Like most things in life, it boils down to panning for gold and trying to sort out truth from lies. If you think you'll get away from this anywhere and that journalistic integrity is much more than an oxymoron, then you're kind of naive. At the end of the day, it costs money to keep a site hosted and capable of handling heavy traffic. Someone pays those bills. People have to eat. So we see the creeping onset of the true capitalist revenue stream in the open-source world (since all the too-stupid-to-live VCs have washed away and the remaining survivors are wily enough to know mixing any three buzzwords is not a business model worthy of note...).
Slashdot at least still lets people vent. If you don't like the moderation scheme, you certainly can adjust your reader prefs accordingly and read even downmod'd comments.
But if you want to leave, you can. That's the one good thing about a democratic forum. To quote Morpheus "I can only show you the door. You must go through it yourself." (roughly).
Tomb
Want to improve as a programming in terms of how you handle errors? Be assigned to 7/24/365 support of your product. When it tips over, deal with the irate user. When its most minor function doesn't work, get paged out of bed at 3 am. Have it do something important with lives at stake and then just _try_ to walk away from a half-fixed problem or say SEP.
Once you've been on this hook, you look direly askance at poorly documented code (even code you wrote three years ago), code that doesn't do required error checking, needlessly convoluted code, and code which isn't easy to read at 3 am when the live system takes a hemorrage repeatedly and someone might not get a 911 call through...
Once you've had to put yourself in the pressure cooker some clients have to deal with, you develop either a) sympathy for their situation or b) a great desire to never ever ever hear from them again. That's a good motivation to quit or to do the damn thing right in the first place.
Too many coders are allowed to write crap, churn it out as a release, and then not worry about support, either doing none or passing it off to some other poor bugger. If core developers got stuck supporting what they wrote and their own laziness or poor planning came back to bite them on the ass, they'd learn rather rapidly to improve their code quality and handle the errors in a robust manner the first time!
Been there, learnt the lessons, DESIGNED the T-shirt....
Tomb.
An Engineering Approach to the whole software development process is more useful than exceptions. The problem with most programming is we (programmers) tend to let something loose then see if it has problems. We don't know in advance where the failure points lie. Most proper engineering tends to know to a very high degree of confidence what can fail in a system and under what circumstances even before the system is constructed.
The use of robust tools is key in software development, that much I will say. But I hardly think exceptions are a requirement. In what sort of sensible object model are you going to be tossing exceptions upstack anyway? Most exception handling should be done at point of occurrence for context reasons and for efficiency. If you throw exceptions up half a dozen levels, you've really taken a performance hit to do so and the code level that is addressing the exception probably has only a fragment of the context the error occured in left to work with.
Exception generation, while interesting in concept, is useless (or problematic at least) in the real-time world. Returning with an error code is much faster and handling that error code where it occurs is usually advantageous anyway.
If you don't care about speed, then exception handling is wonderful. I'm sure as processors continue to produce greater MIPS and BOPS counts that we will see more use of exception handling. But you can program badly with exceptions just as easily as without them. Good programming can be somewhat impeded by a lacking toolset, or by a lacking language which is inefficient or semantically poor, but it can't be totally defeated. Similarly, bad programming is not alleviated by the presence of these tools. You _can_ program well in assembler. You can program badly in Perl (God knows...) and Python.
It all boils down to the discipline of your approach, the level of effort at rigorous error handling and disaster recovery, and the dedication and competence of your programming team. If any of these aspects is lacking, your project will suffer.
One of the problems with the Net as a news medium is exactly its nature. To wit, if I wish to get news from Radio... I turn it on and tap into the broadcast radio waves. Everyone in my neighborhood can do this at the same time and not impinge on my ability to get this important information.
/.ed and unavailable to me.
/.ing because those sites would individually have less traffic than a large news agency.
In order for me to get information from an Internet news site, I must form my own individual link with it, and in cases like Sept 11 it is quite likely that the site I want is
TV and Radio both enjoy a distribution methodology that makes the data available to the public in such a way that each person watching it doesn't affect anyone else. The same is sooooo not true of the net.
And I'm not sure fixing that problem is simple. Broadcast or Multicast for news? I don't even know if this is feasible without choking networks. Maybe it is... because you could remove the need for each person to tap into a particular site. But then who'd be allowed to broadcast? Big money! The networks or someone like them. They'd vie for the few available broadcast channels. Now, that could still leave a big part of the ever-widening pipes for people to go out to smaller sites and fetch news and perspective without worrying too much about
Is this even a half way sane suggestion? I don't know. But if the net wants to overcome TV and Radio or supplant them as a news distribution medium, they'll have to either get such whopping big pipes and muy macho servers that no volume of traffic will choke them or else come up with some sort of broadcast method that is generally acceptable and useful.
Just my 0.02.
Tomb
The danger, as was outlined by David Hackworth (Col, Ret) in his book (name escapes me...), is that the Pentagon is developing an Institutional Amnesia (repressing the few remaining old warfighters who are kicking around with combat experience - obviously pre-Gulf War...).
Now, I like 10 Mtn. They're a good unit and well suited to operations (insofar as anyone is) in Afghanistan. And I hope they do make use of their Vets and unit histories - hopefully the lessons of the past are not lost. Institutional Amnesia gets people killed. But it is very easy to fall into because people die off or leave, and hearing stories second hand or reading old accounts is not the same as getting info first hand from someone with experience. Sometimes they don't record key facts because no one would think to ask the question - and then the source is gone.
This is one of the reason some special units like the SAS are ranked so highly in terms of competence despite not having quite as much wazoo tech as say Delta Force might... they have a base of experience and they continue to be operational worldwide on a regular basis which keeps the experience base refreshed. They are very good at knowledge transfer, though occasionally even the vaunted SAS screw things up royally (witness Bravo Two Zero's mission planning).
Esprit de Corps, a proud unit history, and Institutional Memory are powerful building blocks of a strong unit. Operational experience that is current is also quite a boon.
Hopefully we have improved some on prior times where lessons were lost and Generals prepared to fight "the last war" rather than "the next war".
And then the lessons were learned again... and paid for in blood again. Let us hope that isn't the case here.
You talk about people educating themselves. This is, I note, one of the freedoms those so called "sheep" are off defending - that and your freedom to be a conpiracy nut.
Those soldiers (marrionettes I believe you term them) at least understand the concept of public service and giving back to the community.
What, exactly, have you done for your community lately? You've ranted and raved, but so far as I can tell your paranoid polemic isn't based in any world of fact.
And you've made some pretty bold assertions about me for someone who has only seen a snapshot (and a small one at that) of what I think or who I am. You talk about others making uneducated decisions? That surely seems like one.
You call me a "happy Bingo" and a "yahoo" meanwhile blurting out unsubstantiated (and I am certain unsubstantiable) accusations that someone (the Gov't, the Military Brass, The Powers-That-Be, or maybe just "Them") is sitting on some sort of panacea of military technology which would instantly end this war (thus showing your own dubious level of education - the thought that technology of any stripe exists or can exist which would allow one to wave a magic wand and end a war is so delusional as to be positively entertaining).
I've worked with members of the allied special forces community as well as many conventional military persons. I've worked with members of our allied intelligence community. I've worked with law enforcement. And I've worked at defence contractors who would have developed, if it existed, this "Star Trek" technology you've suggested the military is sitting on.
Without a doubt, if technology was available to bring the war to a more rapid conclusion, which was reliable, affordable, and robust, it would be in the hands of the people who need it (intelligence and special operations troops).
They individually cost so stupidly much to train that risking them makes negative economic sense (not to mention your military handicap if you lose these trained and experienced men and women). These people are not fools... they know what technology can and can't do (and yes, they often know stuff John Q Public doesn't and have neat toys), but part of that is knowing that where the rubber meets the road, it is still a human being with training and talent that has to get the job done.
If you think they'd voluntarily endanger themselves, you're wrong. If you think that politicians, wary of how the future will treat them, would endanger them wilfully, you're also wrong. If you think a large scale technological development can be entirely concealed and that defense contractors have given the government wazoo StarTreknology (maybe from UFOs? You haven't suggested where you think it would come from, but that fits with your other crackpot ramblings), then you're not only wrong but wilfully obdurate and insensate.
Being thankful for the sacrifices made on your ungrateful behalf would be too much to ask. But some of us can at least recognize that it is the sacrifices of those "marionettes" that have preserved your freedom to think in a paranoid, immature, and ultimately ridiculous fashion.
Just because the freedoms so insured grant you the right to say whatever you want doesn't mean you should consistently excercise that prerogative....
Since World War II, the purpose of the American infantry is to bring the enemy within range of the artillery. This strategy accounts for the low number of American casualties compared to enemy soldiers. The core of the conflict is artillery and air power. Direct encounters between American soldiers and enemy soldiers, when it happens, is a kind of failure of strategy.
You apparently went to the same school of Cold War era tactical doctrine as I did.
However, in this instance, given that it is light infantry, special recce and intel units, and special operations forces of several nations most likely to be involved, I forsee less of this tactic. Yes, they will bring to bear superior firepower (tube artillery, MRLS, guiding in laser-seeking munitions, etc). That is one of their roles. So is direct action: attacking terrorist camps, executing sniper operations, ambushing terrorist cells on the move, etc. And so is the kind of "go and live there and get to know the locals" work that the US Special Forces A Teams are so good at (as are the SAS and other allied unconventional forces).
But when it comes to taking towns (and this will be necessary to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban), your arty won't do you much good because 1) infantry in rubble have pretty good cover as several armies over the centuries have found out and 2) civilians occupy the rubble and we don't want to kill them. So cordon and sweep operations will be the order of the day. Then provision of security on the ground while a new regime is establishing itself. These jobs involve taking and holding ground and the artillery will not facilitate these operations.
Second, the objective of battle is not to take ground but to destroy the enemy's army in the field. Use of superior mobility and airpower make actually occupying ground for any length of time a liability.
Welcome to the world of rebuilding a shattered nation, which is pretty much what the USA seems to be planning. That will require continued presence of security, intelligence, and police (military and civilian) forces.
It is a liability, to be sure, but it will be the price of trying to restructure and stabilize the region to avoid having to do this again 10 years down the road.
Further, even on the ground only about a tenth of soldiers are engaged in combat. The rest are involved in logistics or held in reserve.
I suspect the numbers are much higher in special operations forces, judging by the tempo of their operations and the few-enough men that are available with the high levels of training and skills required.
Soldies shoot and kill things: True. The primary role of the infantry is to close with and destroy the enemy.
However, to say that is the ONLY purpose of the infantry is ultimately wrong. That is confusing their tactical purpose with their strategic purpose. Their strategic purpose is to act as an extension of government and to enforce foreign policy decisions in one form or another.
Sometimes this does take the form of killing people. Often times, it takes the form of peacekeeping (preventing two groups from killing each other) or peacemaking (stopping two groups currently killing one another from doing so). Are these not soldiers who do this?
Sometimes it takes the form of disaster relief and recovery. And these too are soldiers.
And don't presume to suggest that this is entirely a result of the actions of one side (America). Long ago I learned that a man is responsible for his _own_ actions, and OBL has a lot to account for on that score. No one else authorized this action and had final authority.
And a lot of other people have been wronged (Japanese interned in Canada, the Canadian and American natives, etc.) and yet these peoples have not resorted to terrorism. And many Muslims who actually follow the Qu'ran will readily disavow the actions of OBL and other fanatics, so
you can't lay this solely at the foot of the Americans.
Sure, they could do something about applying more of their attention, political will, money, etc. to helping the Middle East sort itself out, but that does not free the Middle Eastern peoples from the responsibility to behave in a manner that is not consistent with barbarism. Most of them try to. It is the few that don't that we _all_ have a problem with, not just America. These zealots are as much of a danger to the moderate nations of the Middle East as they are to America.