Talk:Highway of Death

message: Various sources identify the road as 'Highway 80'; this link  in particular is handy, as it has a rough map of the road (it's the second red arrow from the left). The thing is, did the Iraqis call it Highway 80, the Kuwaitis, the Americans, or who? I assume that, one day, Wikipedia will have articles on every major road in the world, in which case this page will have to be renamed. -Ashley Pomeroy 01:43, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur. Besides, there is no consistent naming for other highways in that area, so it wouldn't make much sense to rename it, even if the battle itself never happened and it's just known as that. -- Eagleamn 06:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  80 

message: I think some mention of the highway's appearance in the movie Jarhead might be warranted, but I'm not certain how to go about doing it appropriately.  Are there any other mentions in popular culture or literature?  I imagine that scene is taken from the book Jarhead.
:Insert a "Fictional Depictions" section at the end of the article, before the references section, then devote a short (1 to 2 sentences) paragraph to each separate depiction. That would seem to be the standard. As for other references, I have no idea. You'd have to sniff around. TaintedMustard 15:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Movie Jarhead 

message: What does it say about armed looters trying to escape? That's about the Highway, becuause at Junkyard it was more like a military withdrawal. --HanzoHattori 15:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geneva Convention 

message: The "Historic Parallel" section shouldn't be here at all. First, it does not actually contribute to the understanding of what actually happened on Highway 80. I'm sure there are plenty of instances where retreating troops have been wiped out in grand fashion; those get their own articles, and if we want to make a list of them, sure, but not on this page. Also, this paragraph states that the attack on Highway 88 "mirrored" the attacks on the Falaise pocket; this claim is problematic because (a) it is unsourced, and (b) the article later states that the troops in the Falaise pocket attempted to surrender, and nowhere (in this article at least) is it established that the troops on Highway 88 made any attempt to surrender.Nosferatublue 14:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historic Parallel 

message: I tagged the Geneva Conventions for synth. It's possible that this is the case, but we need a reliable source who has made this allegation.  Dchall1 19:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synth 

message: :Army Medic- A grunts best friend says:  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.134.209 (talk) 20:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you tell me more about what you saw? My uncle was among those missing in this crime. I really miss him Laith coloniol (talk) 20:18, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  I was there 

message: It would be nice if any information can be found on what environmental impact the destroyed vehicles, equipment, and supplies may have, especially after sitting there for 18 years.  What steps has the Kuwait Government taken to clean up the remains?  Dpaanlka (talk) 01:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Environmental Situation? 

message: --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 18:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I presume you mean the Highway of Death vs Battle of the Junkyard?  In which case i say no, these should not be lumped together.  A signifigent portion of the controversies section is about the Battle of the Junkyard, but this is unclear from the article itself. In one instance, we have two quotes, one about junkyard and another about HoD with no indication that we are talking about different engagements.  I am going to cut out the March 2nd Junkyard stuff and paste it here, pending perhaps a new article on the topic. Bonewah (talk) 13:16, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with separating the two, and I've changed the link to this article in the Gulf War campaign infobox  as it was also referencing the two battles as one engagement. ViperNerd (talk) 18:54, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we keep both attacks in one article? 

message: The allegation of 10,000 civilian deaths is completely unsupported.  The only thing involving civilians would point to the escaping Iraqi looters who were trying to get away with civilian vehicles.  I was there in the aftermath and catalogued the military equipment.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davelax102 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nothing To Do With Civilians 

message: I've expanded the pop cult section to include mention of Tony Harrison's poem 'A Cold Coming', which was inspired by imagery from the Highway of Death. Although I've cited sources and provided links, I'm not sure how to make them appear correctly at the bottom of the page (they're there, but they look a little bare). Could someone more technologically-minded please assist with this? Thanks BlackMarlin (talk) 03:56, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additions to 'In Popular Culture' 

message: Just because almost everyone think it's wrong doesn't mean we have to say it's wrong in a encyclopedia, as it is unnecssary to make people who think it is correct feel bad. All this article is supposed to do is to sum up the event.
We also cannot make concludions about things without evidence:
There is no evidence that hostages held by Iraq were killed(maybe some of their bodies are fake hostages)
There is no evidence that Iraqi civilians were killed(maybe they're soldiers that abandoned their equpitment)
There is no evidence that many Iraqi soldiers were murderers/rapists/looters(maybe some are)
There is no evidence that American troops didn't shoot at people escaping from their vehicles(maybe the sources are making up infomation they don't know about)
114.240.126.200 (talk) 03:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Its a encyclopedia 

message: There were no allied personnel killed or planes shot down. --82.160.239.145 (talk) 12:35, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  False information 

message: I'm copy editing this article for a class, and I will return with my edits in roughly two weeks. If possible, please don't make any changes until then! Thanks! Dobsonsf (talk) 13:44, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copy Editing 

message: I flew one mission that attacked the convoy on the last night of the war.  I'm not aware of any antitank mines being used by Marine aviation or ground forces.  My squadron (and our partner Marine A-6 squadron, VMA(AW)-224) probably hit that highway harder than any other unit and I may have been one of the very first jets (if not the first) to attack the convoy.  We basically flew a teardrop pattern, first dropping 6 Mk-82 500 lb bombs on the rear of the convoy (as depicted by using the moving target indicator feature of the radar) and then proceeding north for a few miles turning about 30 deg left, then making a right-hand 150 deg turn to turn due south.  Again, using the moving target indicator mode, I targeted the north end of the convoy and dropped the remaining 6 500 lb Mk-82s.  These were typically dual-fused with an impact fuse in the tail and a VT fuse in the nose, dropped unguided using radar (augmented with laser ranging) from about 6,000 ft MSL.  A 37mm AAA gun opened up on us as we were watching our hits.  The bombs landed right at the front of the convoy and definitely started or added to a bad traffic jam.  My login isn't working but I'll try and keep an eye on this.
I've got to add that my logbook shows the flight occurring on the 25th, not the 26th or 27th.  It was a fairly early launch - probably around 2030 for our first flight (where we hit vehicles on the Hwy that runs E/W south of Kuwait City), then we returned to hot refuel and hot rearm before the flight I described above. 63.232.44.130 (talk)Michael K.  —Preceding undated comment added 20:46, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antitank Mines laid by Marines?  Where is the source? 

message: Considering I was flying the airplane that not only discovered the convoy of vehicles which had just started heading out of Kuwait City, we did not drop GATOR mines and THEN drop Rockeye.  When we flew missions we either carried one of the other, but not both.  There were no GATOR mines unless a later airplane dropped them because they ran our of Rockeye.
We started by dropping 12 Rockeye in chained sets of 2 at a 45 degree angle to the road to ensure coverage.  As we blocked the road, we bombed the rear vehicles as well as the vehicles trying to pass around the sides of the vehicles that were blocking the road.
We made 6 runs total and dropped 12 Rockeye, which was our loadout.  A british TV program titled "Panorama" interviewed us afterward when the USMC informed them who the pilot and BN was.  Not sure if it every aired or to what extent because I never saw it.
But it was not GATOR and then Rockeye.  It was done completely with Rockeye. 20:39, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  It was Rockeye not GATOR mines 

message: Not all agreed with this point of view, although many arguments against General Schwarzkopf's views are colored by their political biases
This is an editorial opinion, not a sourced fact.
Above pro-Saddam views have since been subject to various degrees of scrutiny, with many alleging it attempts to manipulate western values and sensitivities while casually dismissing any lack of supporting evidence and facts in favor of emotional, shallow, and selectively moralistic wordings to deceive the audience.
Blatantly biased. There's no place for editorializing here. Quoting verifiable sources that hold this point of view is fine; expressing it as an encyclopedic fact is not. 72.200.151.13 (talk) 08:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language added by 76.20.61.181 asserting bias is itself unabashedly biased 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It makes no mention of the war crimes accusations, but does say this:
:Many Iraqi forces, however, successfully escaped across the Euphrates river, and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that upwards of 70,000 to 80,000 troops from defeated divisions in Kuwait might have fled into Basra, evading capture.
According to the people accusing the United States of war crimes, retreating forces are supposed to be allowed to escape; they're not supposed to be bombed. Why isn't this mentioned? As far as I can see in the Controversy section, this is the only argument against the war crimes accusations:
:Journalist Georgie Anne Geyer criticized Hersh's article, saying that he offered "no real proof at all that such charges—which were aired, investigated and then dismissed by the military after the war—are true."
This has become somewhat of a cliche in recent years; the idea that militaries or police forces are capable of clearing themselves of wrongdoing has been widely panned for a good reason. The U.S. Military isn't qualified to write a Wikipedia article about the Highway of Death; that would be called a conflict of interest. How on Earth could they clear themselves of war crimes? Imagine if the Nazis had tried themselves. Or Saddam Hussein had tried himself.
The article is written in such a way that it not only downplays and trivializes the charges, but it actually portrays the U.S. Military as too weak for allowing some Iraqis to avoid capture. Which honestly seems like a shockingly far-right stance for anyone to take, and doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article. Finsternish (talk) 11:54, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lead seems biased 

message: There is currently an edit war going on between me and  over their attempt to change the word "victims" to "dead," under the assumption that "victims" is a value-laden word. My issue with this is that "victims" contains the information that they died because someone killed them, rather than simply dying. "Dead" contains no information as to how they died. I think Scoundr3l is equivocating with the word "victim," confusing the subjective sense of "person who was wronged" with the objective sense of "object of a destructive act."
Calling them "dead" sounds Orwellian to me, an attempt at false balance; neutral point of view doesn't mean eliminating facts to make the situation seem more neutral than it really is. With that said, is there a better word than "dead" or "victim" which continues to contain the sense of how they died?
Finally, Scroundr3l, in the edit history, you misunderstood the concept of "conservative correctness"; it is political correctness as applied by conservatives, not conservative bias as such. Finsternish (talk) 12:52, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, I wouldn't exactly call it an edit war. I reverted you once on an issue of verifiability, which I believe is justifiable. Second, since the source uses the word "dead", any issue you have with that word is your own and not representative of the source. If you, as an editor, think it's important to change the language used by the source because it introduces more information, that's the definition of editorialization. You're introducing information that isn't in the cited piece. See WP:V. I understand the use of the word "victim" and I'm not even disagreeing with it, but it must be asked why you insist of using this word. You yourself seem to realize how it's ambiguous, so why should we not prefer the language used in the source? What, if not value, is added by changing the language? Finally, I don't see any practical difference between "politicial correctness applied by conservatives" and "conservative bias", but let's not split hairs on that. I'm not a conservative and the (quite liberal) source uses "dead". You're welcome to disagree with the source's language, but that doesn't really apply to the application of policy. Scoundr3l (talk) 16:05, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think 'dead' is the correct wording.  There is basically no question how they died as the rest of the article makes clear so im not persuaded by the argument that "Dead" contains no information as to how they died.  Further, the quote itself uses the word dead so i think we should just for consistency sake. Bonewah (talk) 16:43, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  False balance 

message: The article does include the fact that a Call of Duty game depicts this war crime but shifts the blame to Russia instead - since the US Military works to help develop the Call of Duty games, that makes the shift of responsibility something worth mentioning in a way more direct than the casual parenthetical it currently has.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.28.196.172 (talk) 04:35, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: "The US military work to help develop the Call of Duty games" seems a nebulous, documentable claim unless we are counting retirees acting as advisors as proof of an institutional, material effort to "help develop". I cannot find any sources on the US military actually funding the franchise, let alone providing technical assistance. 2601:640:C000:6490:2179:205F:BD67:FC64 (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video Game Propaganda? 

message: Under the "In Popular Culture" section, I would like to include a reference in the 2019 game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4. The reference includes a false statement that the Russian Federation bombed the retreating Iraqi forces on the highway when it was really coalition forces led by the United States. Atoledo29 (talk) 19:03, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Sceptre (talk) 01:01, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 8 November 2019 

message: Don't think we should use John Pilger as a source and quote such a large body of text for the article for a couple reasons. First and foremost, he wasn't there despite the article reading like he was. He watched it on TV in Australia and typed up an article from there. Second, he's got a heckuva anti-US bias, which might be fine normally, but strays into incredulity when he makes claims like "Hillary Clinton started ISIS," assertions of a deep state, Anti-Russian coup to oust Trump, and that the US government was actually behind chemical attacks in Syria, as well as the downing of MH17, and the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the UK.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.186.101.151 (talk) 22:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If the IP editor is correct, that would be a good reason to remove the material to which he is referring.  Anyone have access to the book used as a source here?  If so, can you confirm that Pilger was simply describing what he saw on television? Bonewah (talk) 12:13, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the latest edit summary diff Pilger *did not* witness the events.  As such, i think removal of this material is correct.  Bonewah (talk) 14:17, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Pilger as a source? 

message: What is the shape of Highway 80 today? Are the vehicles and T-54 tanks still there or are they cleared up?
73.230.178.114 (talk) 15:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  I have a question 

message: I think civilian casualties should be included in the infobox like in many articles on Wikipedia, It would save the reader reading time. Mordanist (talk) 20:34, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Civilian casualties in the infobox?