Talk:Opposition to the Iraq War

message: Here are several examples of extreme POV pushing by user Trackerwiki:
Low casualty rates? Patently absurd. And considered a model of modern counterinsurgency by whom exactly? No source is provided. Dynablaster (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: When this first came up some time ago I also thought it ridiculous in light of the fashionable media consensus. But ever since I was trounced on the numbers in a recent debate I've been unable to easily dismiss this analysis. The media apparently have not conveyed to us the full picture. Dunnigan's site is one of the more accessible. (url=http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20090531.aspx) Trackerwiki (talk) 22:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

text: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3776765.stm)(http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/08/un.iraq/index.html) As the UNSC enthusiastically welcomed the removal of Saddam government and its abuses as well as approved the resolution reestablishing existing Coalition arrangements under the new MNF mandate, and as the holdout Permanents were expressing solidarity and standing with the Coalition leaders - as the favorable outcomes being lauded were contingent on the Coalition's actions then it seemed reasonable to assume that this entity was also being lauded for effecting these. No more and no less. I'm amenable to a change in wording, perhaps "welcomed" or "supported"?--Trackerwiki (talk) 22:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The BBC source quotes the office of the UN Human Rights commissioner welcoming the removal of Saddam's government, but also says that the coalition forces have committed human rights violations. Mentioning just one half gives a different impression. The CNN article is solely about the UN deciding what should be done in Iraq a year after the invasion - it doesn't contain any judgement either way of the initial invasion, as far as I can see. Olaf Davis (talk) 21:42, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Supported" then?--Trackerwiki (talk) 06:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that whether we use the word 'hail', 'welcome' or 'support' it would give a distinctly one-sided view of what the source is saying about human rights violations. Olaf Davis (talk) 07:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, I will add that this particular Coalition aim by extension is welcome and even commendable on its meritable outcome, but explicitly only on this merit, and that the other aims are subject to different conclusions (particularly if the outcomes are not fully achieved or different from that desired.)--Trackerwiki (talk) 18:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Ok, the most accurate description would be "consanguinous tribal culture of values". Might fall afoul of the PC police, though, and even if anthropologically acceptable it's too long a term. Perhaps "anti-modern" values?--Trackerwiki (talk) 22:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We should aim to use phrases which reliable sources use. The sentence in question is in the lede and uncited (which is fine) - the bit it seems to be summarising is the last paragraph of the "Support for Iraqi resistance and insurgency" section. This in turn is cited to this BBC article. That article doesn't say anything about disagreement within the anti-war movement, or explicitly refer to anti-Western, anti-modern or tribal values. It just says that Amnesty condemned the insurgents, which gives us no information about the anti-war movement in general. Let me know if I've missed another section of the article, though. Olaf Davis
(talk) 21:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: IIRC, the breakdown of support for the insurgency's aims and methods began once the consensus media story became one of the UN trying to modernize Iraq against the efforts of the insurgents to resist this unprecedented revolution in pan-Arabic affairs. Should have posted these links alongside as a record of the observed shaping of public responses against terrorist outrages, highlighting atrocities in contrast against political or security  milestones.(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3528905.stm, (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/feb/02/20050202-123527-1015r/?page=2), (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=16686)--Trackerwiki (talk) 18:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: But none of these sources is really about the insurgents' methods putting an end to the debate about supporting them in the anti-war movement. The BBC one is about the Middle-Eastern press, and the other two are mainly about the elections. I don't see that any of them really support the quoted passage from the lede, or the bit which it's summarising in the main article. Olaf Davis (talk) 07:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. The problem is that outside of opinion pieces and general surveys it is hard to locate articles which showcase a fall-off in oppositionist sympathy for the insurgency on the basis of its criminal behaviors and anti-modern aims. What we see instead is a historical fall-off in relevant article counts, a general lack of attention and deepening silence on this issue (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/business/media/15apee.html?ei=5090&en=4a4f32424faa6ab5&ex=1281758400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print), (http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/23/opinion/oe-boot23) - (Like McAllister-Linn, Boot's expertise is on small wars like the Phil-American war, its history is extremely enlightening for it exhibits many parallels in rationales, contingency, strategy, methods, public opposition, and outcomes). Domestic focus aside, the fall-off in coverage is likely due to lack of audience (in particular oppositionist audiences) and thus media interest in the nature of the fight in terms of identifying for against one side or the other. The default partisan takeaway was that given the legitimacy conferred by the U.N. mandate and Iraq's democratic electoral politics, and given how unpalatable the insurgency's aims and methods turned out to be in comparison to those of the Coalition forces, the opposition lost interest in finding ways to lend ideological cover to Iraq's insurgency as a means of politically countering the Coalition message in general, U.S. aims in particular, and specifically the credibility of the administration.--Trackerwiki (talk) 18:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: The closest on the transformative shifts in attitudes on the ground are found in articles which directly illustrate, on the ground, how so many insurgents have managed to alienate the majority of Iraqis with their indiscrimnate and predatory behavior to civilians (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_18_59/ai_n27386002/pg_2/?tag=content;col1).--Trackerwiki (talk) 18:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: From there it's possible to extrapolate that anyone who subscribes to Western norms of human rights and civility would have sympathy with the plight of Iraqis suffering in the hands of the more brutal insurgents. My POV is this should be the case, since to offer otherwise would slippery lead to the usual inaccurate partisan suspicion, that many in opposition are far too motivated by reflexive ideology to reserve some sympathy for the plight of preyed-on Iraqi civilians, to the point of ignoring instead of sharing their abhorrence for the insurgency's criminal behaviors. Such suspicions serve no purpose and will likely be unfair in most cases.--Trackerwiki (talk) 18:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Found some attribution on the souring of naysayer sentiments towards the isurgents' methods and aims although it's nowhere near in-depth.(http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010592) "...Here in the United States, the vast moral chasm that so clearly separates the combatants in Iraq is too rarely discussed. Disillusion with the entire effort has obscured and in some cases mutated the truth that small numbers of evil men tilt entire populations..." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3812411.stm)Evolving tactics of Islamic militants. Sites like Dunnigan have more in-depth analyses on the phenomenon from surveys drawn by independent media and the military.--Trackerwiki (talk) 18:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Given the dearth of stories on a souring of the professional anti-US/anti-war orgs on the methods and aims of Iraqi insurgents, I've come to conclusion that this argument should  point to the world publics' general rejection of the Iraq insurgency instead. The existing articles on disagreements in the hardcore regarding unacceptable recidivism in the Iraq insurgency stand on their own for now.--Trackerwiki (talk) 18:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Egregious POV pushing 1 

message: Progressives fear liberal-democratic modernization? Here is a tip: when attempting to smear people, it would help if you understood your target audience. Dynablaster (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia has a very diverse audience. If the stuff I posted appears as unfair or groundless commentary to any particular POV I'll review it accordingly.--Trackerwiki (talk) 00:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Syria has massive chemical WMD capability, and the final ISG report did not rule out the possibility that Iraqi WMDs were secreted there. Former Spy chief Pacepa was the highest-ranking communist intelligence officer to defect to the West and proved very valuable. For this reason alone he is worth listening to on comintern activities as he dealt in these things at the highest levels. Don't know what to believe about the Oliver Stone thingy, though.--Trackerwiki (talk) 23:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Autocrat may be a more apt description for Chavez instead of dictator. Unlike for the ailing Castro, who as incontestable "Presidente for Life" is literally just that.--Trackerwiki (talk) 23:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: This tidbit isn't salient, might as well remove it as anything-Obama is prone to be taken as POV anyway.--Trackerwiki (talk) 23:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: I'd also seen Tracerwiki's additions and found many of them somewhat questionable, though I hadn't done as detailed a review as Dynablaster. Tracerwiki, I too would be interested to see your responses to the points about verifiability above. Olaf Davis (talk) 22:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Can I make a request that if the above discussion is going to contain in-line replies, we put signatures at the end of each such reply? Otherwise it's likely to get very confusing who said what (and when). Olaf Davis (talk) 21:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More "Egregious POV pushing"

message: As the article badly needed an infusion of history and context,the effect of adding more explanations alongside verifiable cites from reliable sources will serve to bring a NPOV balance to what until recently appeared to be little more than a political screed for a 2003 audience. However, it has been pointed out that many of my explanatory additions may have overly relied on synthetic as opposed to summary conclusions which cannot be easily supported by the associated cites no matter how reliable or verifiable these cites and their sources may be. The remedy is a thorough review with eye the towards better formulation and referential support while following ever more strictly the Wikipedia guidelines governing important articles such as this. Thus I'm putting greater weight on finding and posting analyses and cites published by academic and governing institutions, starting with article on Iran.
With the slow but ongoing improvement of its content though significant historical updates, hopefully the information will increse in utility. --Trackerwiki (talk) 05:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues in updating the article 

message: My point is, a review of historical propositions when evaluated against succeeding actual events on the ground can result in a narrative unkind to the original underlying premises. In the most famous example, we all know that the initial political opposition of France against the Coalition mission in Iraq was later transformed into political acceptance of and support for its continuing mission to secure and uplift post-Saddam Iraq, under renewed UN Mandate.
A recounting of events along the timeline cannot but work to cycle this contrasting sub-narrative into prominence. Only a most selective, outside-context reinterpretation from an ideological or religious POV could present the full recounting as anything other than a history of France de facto obviating its past record of opposition in the course of realigning de jure its foreign policy into supporting the international mission. The result of course isn't pretty for those who had figured that France's original opposition would remain in the face of convincing Coalition efforts on the ground to stabilize and rebuild Iraq it into a more modern democracy. If you perceive an irrelevant polemic fashioned out of this narrative in support of something other than "Opposition to the Iraq War", well, that's vexing history for you.--Trackerwiki (talk) 05:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Again 

message: On unintentional obstruction of editing flow: If in case you didn't know, using convenient edit tools to wittle down from latest content to just the bare outline headers was my strategy for managing this 3rd review. It should be obvious from the log.--Trackerwiki (talk) 19:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proxy undos 

message: By now, this whole talk page is full of detailed examples (given by several editors) of edits by Trackerwiki violating several important Wikipedia policies and guidelines, such as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, and other quality issues, such as citing sources for statements that they do not support.
Trackerwiki, you have already been asked to to follow the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, meaning that since your changes have been proven to be very controversial, you should propose and discuss them here on the talk page first, and obtain consensus before reinserting them. You continue to ignore that advice, making massive changes without discussing them first (or, in case of the Iran statements, reinserting controversial parts without respecting detailed objections).
In light of the earlier comments by EvanHarper, Dynablaster and Olaf Davis, I suggest that from now on
*all edits by Trackerwiki which make substantial changes to the article and for which consensus has not been obtained previously, should be reverted on sight
This is a somewhat unusual suggestion, but given the hundreds of problematic edits by this user to the article during the past months, resulting in severe quality problems as demonstrated above, and his failure to cooperate in the ways suggested above ("slow additions" etc.), there seems to be no viable alternative.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded. This article needs a cordon sanitaire policy from here on, because Tracker just doesn't get it, and shows no signs of coming around. EvanHarper (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Mode of collaboration with Trackerwiki

message: One thing that's missing from the page is Iraqi opinion towards the war. It would be nice if someone could add what the stance of the Iraqi anti-Saddam opposition organizations was/is, and that of other Iraqi political groups, and opinion polls of Iraqis, etc, etc.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.247.85.103 (talk) 15:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. I thought Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq might shed some light but the most relevant link there is disappointingly red. I'm not too sure where to find the answer but I'll keep an eye out. Olaf Davis (talk) 20:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iraqi opposition? 

message: How's about a list of Senators and Congressman that voted against it? RicoRichmond (talk) 16:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congress 

message: Please add to Draft:Pacifism in the United States. Thanks. M2545 (talk) 14:42, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  New draft: Pacifism in the United States ‎ 

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