My Definitive(ish) View on Iraq

OK well this may take a while.
First things first, I did support the war on terror after 9/11, in may opinion removing the Taliban from Afghanistan was a pretty good piece of foreign policy for all countries involved, and while it's still not settled, there is a more open, free, and less oppressive society now in-place.
With the case for war in Iraq the objectives were quite different - however I supported a military intervention because at the time there was no way to verify WMD did (or did not) exist. Saddam, played it like a leader who had WMD and even the weapons inspectors didn't really know. I saw Saddam as a threat and to be honest I still considered this to be the case if no action was taken.
I was lead along the '45-minute' road as was everyone else however even at the time an intercontinental missile launch within 45 minutes was just plain preposterous and this didn't influence my decision one bit. Indeed I'm incredulous of people who state this was the reason they supported war. I had another motive in that the liberation of Iraq would enable a better and more free society to emerge. The west including France, Germany and others (including the UK and the USA) created the problem of oppression in Iraq by supporting Saddam in the war with Iran both from a political and corporate stand point and it was up to us to correct and clean up our mistakes. Don't get me wrong I do think that for 10 bucks George W Bush would support the regime again - but this is about why I supported the war not why George W. pursued it.
If all had gone well - probably if the US state department under Colin Powell had taken charge of the re-building and not the Department of Defence then we may have had a different scenario in Iraq. However, this was not the case but I'm sure if all had gone well no-one would be saying anything about Iraq or would even care about the 45 minute claim. In summary, the 45 minute claim only mislead people who wanted to be mislead - and these people need to grow up and take responsibility. The case for WMD is more complex however, as I've already affirmed, people want uncomplicated and simple answers when in reality life and issues are not simple but are very complex. Spin at this time just enables the complex arguments to be cut away otherwise your message doesn't get through to the target audience.
Did governments believe Saddam had WMD - factions did and factions didn't; some where not sure. Saying this would have produced no clear direction for the public and so governments erred on the side of WMD. This included my own (UK).
Iraq at this point (Jan 2005) is in chaos - not spiraling chaos but a more comfortable predictable chaos. The people in opposition to the coalition forces are not involved in a religious war (although some of the front line bombers may believe this to be the case) but are involved in a war for power and control. This is plainly evident as we see the targets for theses insurgence move from the coalition troops (as they are becoming 'harder') to the Iraqi general population as they are 'soft' targets and are therefore easy to 'address'.
The people to be considered here is every Iraqi civilian which I would estimate makes up about 90% of the population - the remaining 10% being involved in activity inconsistent with the term 'civilian'. But first lets consider the other factors. From the stand point of the UK then I think on balance (and of course we will never know how the unchecked threat would increase with time) looking at how we deal with the likes of Iran and North Korea for instance, that the cost in troops and financial outlay was too high; especially when the end is not yet in sight. We cannot (and should not) withdraw yet because in this scenario we would definitely create a vacuum in the middle east to be filled by a rouge regime and as a launch pad for terrorist activity. However, when it comes to the Iraqi people, the ones being blown up every day, the ones without power or clean water, the ones with a new hope and at least some freedom, I really do not know. In a war there are always casualties and these are often civilian women and children (the men are all conscripted into the army).
So knowing what we know now would I have gone into Iraq having my time again... probably not - I suppose I'm not quite so left wing as I thought - I'd sacrifice the Iraqi peoples freedom for my own self-centered reasons. If I'd got no hindsight - Yes I would support the war again - I suppose I'm not quite so left wing as I thought - I'd temporarily sacrifice the Iraqi peoples physical well-being for what I believed at the time to be a greater good.

Hypertext Summaries as Decision Points

Anecdotal evidence suggests that hypertext document summaries provide the reader with a basis for making decisions regarding the route to take within non-linear text. Theoretical work also exists on document summarisation however, this work normally ignores the user and focuses on the utilitarian. Work of this type is primarily concerned with proving algorithm 'a' better summarizes a document than algorithm 'b'. In this scenario the user is completely excluded from the process - probably because they give inconsistent results that often cannot be taken as definitive statements. Research shows that people use summaries as decision points within their browsing behaviour; in this case, we question the need for complicated algorithms which generate extensive document summaries. Here we investigate four simple summarisation algorithms against each other and a manually created summary. The question we ask is: "What do users want and like?" as opposed to "What gives the most complete summary?" We describe empirical evidence in the form of a formative evaluation which concludes that users prefer simple document summaries automatically generate thereby reducing cognitive overload and increasing awareness of the focus of the document under investigation.

Anti-Americanism

I find it strange that the liberal / left wing can be so vitriolic in their anti-Americanism. These sections of the political spectrum often put forth the viewpoint that discrimination on the grounds of race is abhorrent. However, it seems you only need an 'unjust' war for them to inhabit the traditional conservative ground of bigotry. Because Americans are perceived as both the aggressor and to be more powerful, then they become fare game. All the rules that normally apply seem to have been forgotten. This being the case, the proponents of anti-Americanism can no longer claim any anti-racism credentials. Racism is racism, its wrong in all its forms; period.

Left Field #2

Buzzing through the ACM's Digital Library I came up on the 'Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces'. Held from January 10 - 13, 2005 I thought there maybe a gem or two, and also very current. Well I have to say that I was not disappointed and stumbled upon SmartCanvas: a gesture-driven intelligent drawing desk system.
Now I'm not normally a drawing motivated person but this system put me in mind of Wobbrock, Myers, Aung, and LoPresti's paper at ASSETS 2004 So I got to thinking that there maybe some useful applications of gesturing on a desk to create sign language or simple letter constructs as an accessibility application. Well, maybe...

Abstract: This paper describes SmartCanvas, an intelligent desk system that allows a user to perform freehand drawing on a desk or similar surface with gestures. Our system requires one camera and no touch sensors. The key underlying technique is a vision-based method that distinguishes drawing gestures and transitional gestures in real time, avoiding the need for "artificial" gestures to mark the beginning and end of a drawing stroke. The method achieves an average classification accuracy of 92.17%. Pie-shaped menus and a "rotate-to-and-select" approach eliminate the need for a fixed menu display, resulting in an "invisible" interface.

Full Article: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1040830.1040881

Full Conference: Table of Contents

Politically Naive OR Just Plain Logical?

Often, well sometimes, I get labeled as politically naive - you know the kind of thing - because I don't agree with your viewpoint I must be stupid, dumb, or dumb and stupid - in general naive.

How did this all get started? Well, its all the fault of George W Bush.

I was discussing his recent visit to Europe and this voiced desire for some kind of peace settlement between Israel and Palestine - instigated with some little pushing from Tony Blair according to political reporters. I said I could believe it... and was promptly hooted down buy the anti-Americans crying 'how can you believe that? All he wants is oil, money, or oil and money' (No oil in the Palestinian territories, Doh).

Here's my argument - politicians love power (not money - otherwise they'd stay as lawyers, accountants, or economists) and the cult / trappings of power. Bush has been a war leader with some success (but not complete), now he wants the double; to be a leader of the peace as well. Big self credits, ego, and kudos for this! In this way he'll be remembered on both sides as a great statesman, his Presidential library will be better than other, recent, more accomplished Presidents; and in America at least he will outshine Clinton and Bush Senior (although this latter should not be very difficult). Does he need the money? NO, not according to Michael Moore who brings up the Saudi - Bush link in his film Fahrenheit 9/11. Surely, any move to accommodate their muslim brothers would be more than welcome by the house of Saud.

A Palestine / Israel solution is more politically valuable to the US at the moment than the current state of affairs, well thats my take, naive or not.