The nth War of the Decade

This is a blog where I talk mostly about programming in the workplace. These past few years the subject has often been AI, because it affects everything. From the hiring process to the very code we type. AI might just replace me mid-sentence... So when a subject that affects us all dominates the world, I want to give you my perspective. I may not be your source of political perspective, but here goes.

Right now, we are at war. At least the United States of America is. It turns out, congressional rules are a lot like HTML standards: they are merely a suggestion you can choose to adopt or ignore.

First, I want to say this firmly: you don't need to be an expert to talk about war. It affects us all on some level. That trope, that only experts should weigh in, is often used by people who want to control a narrative. But this time, the layman of every corner of the world will get involved in shaping the story.

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One of my earliest memories of what was called "the news" was footage of children throwing rocks at tanks rumbling through buildings. I didn't understand if it was courage, or just a game. I was just a kid after all. In hindsight, those were Palestinian children in a devastated city, throwing rocks at their unmatched adversary, the Israeli army.

Some years later, I remember my brothers fitting me with an oversized gas mask while we played tag. I had to constantly readjust it, so I could see what was in front of me, and also breathe! Those masks, along with other supplies, had been provided by the Saudi government to all diplomats in embassies in case of a chemical attack. This was during the Gulf War.

The wars in Kosovo and Chechnya became background noise in our diplomatic household. My parents would rush us to our room, unplug our Famicom to make space for the news again. I didn't understand much about what we saw on TV. Who were the good guys? Who were the bad guys? It was nothing like the Rambo or Commando movies we watched.

I remember learning in school that Yugoslavia was no longer a country. In that same history book was a photograph of people waving the Yugoslav flag. That made no sense to me. Imagine carrying national pride, waving your flag, especially during a war, and then turning around to find a different country in its place. Whatever you thought you were had been swept out from under you.

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We had moved to Egypt when the attacks of September 11th occurred. Every channel, local and international, interrupted its programming to show footage of the towers being hit. My brother told me those were the towers from the Home Alone movie. I was more surprised that buildings that tall could even exist.

We were all shocked to hear that the US was going to war with Iraq, especially since they had blamed the attacks on Saudi. After basketball games, dozens of us would sit on the court and debate. Some said it had something to do with Kuwait, others said it was about oil. I remember one guy insisting that the WMDs were real. His reasoning? Well the US had the receipts, they sold them in the first place.

While we were having our little debates, it is estimated that the US caused the deaths of at least one million people in Iraq.

Are we supposed to ignore the war? Is it only relevant when we are economically affected? Or do we only take it seriously when American lives are lost? Do we yell "stop the war" or "we want lower gas prices"? How do we even follow along with what is happening when AI and realistic video game footage is flooding social media feeds. Which is true? Which is misinformation?

Is this an illegal war, as opposed to legal? Was the Iraq War legal? If its premise was the existence of WMDs that were never found (despite the insistence from that boy), does that make it illegal?

Is war legal for one party but not the other? How do we classify the war in Ukraine? Legal on Ukraine's side, illegal on Russia's? Is war legal when it is retaliatory? The US retaliated against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Is Iran's retaliation against the US similarly justified?

And what role does the UN play in a war? The International Court of Justice? Who do they hold accountable? If they were founded earlier, I imagine they would have sent Hitler a strongly worded letter.

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Not a single decade of my life has been free of conflict. Millions have suffered around the world; many have been killed. But never did I think that the killing of women and children would be normalized.

War is chaos. We pretend there are rules to it, but every new conflict reveals how blurred the edges become. Killing is acceptable when it is "precise" or "targeted", until your own group is killed the same way. War is acceptable when it happens in a faraway land, until you realize your land is faraway from someone else.

Are we living in our 200 year war? Is the result inevitable? Do we have to destroy everything and then lose all the material to learn anything from it? Do we become the One State? A regime based on absolute mathematical logic and the suppression of individuality, designed to prevent such a war by brutally oppressing each other.

In movies, to end the war you kill the top villain. But it has never worked that way in our world. The only way to stop war is to stop it. Stop bombing. Stop killing. It's not like the movies. The UN is not gonna do anything, or can't even do anything about it. War, in its nature, cannot resolve a conflict. It only creates the fuel for the next one.

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