Talk:Criticism of the war on terror/Archive 1

message: The counter argument is a bit silly - saying that the 9/11 hijackers can't have been motivated by poverty and desperation because they themselves did not come from poor backgrounds is a bit like saying WWII American soldiers can't have been motivated to join up by the attack on Pearl Harbor because they themselves were not bombed by the Japanese.  Are there any better responses we could include, perhaps along economic lines - i.e. a hypothesis that Western policies are not in fact responsible for poverty in the Middle East?
:Both the poverty hypothesis and the counter-argument are genuine arguments in the debate, and both are bullshit, or rather so simplistic that they completely misunderstand what's happening. Muslims, especially in the Middle East, have experienced Western interference and intervention for centuries. They are fed up having one dictator imposed on them after another (e.g. Shah, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, Iyad Allawi etc etc), having their countries invaded again and again, having their oil sold by Western companies with profits going to a very small group of people (like the Saudi monarchy) while they mostly live in conditions of abject poverty and state repression. Many leftist and/or nationalist popular movements have arisen in the region only to be brutally crushed , usually with very significant support of Western governments (e.g. the CIA helped Saddam kill thousands of Iraqi communists ; or at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the Shia uprising in the South and the Kurdish uprising in the North were encouraged by the US/Coalition, but when Saddam started to massacre them, they let him get on with the job when they could have done a lot to support the uprising, simply because they didn't want these popular movements from taking power). People in the Middle East want an end to this kind of oppression, but there are few political movements that give this sentiment a voice, except the Islamist type and al-Qaedaism. In these conditions, support for al-Qaeda (although their terrorist methods are widely condemned in the Muslim world) is slowly but steadily growing. If you want to know the political aims of al-Qaeda, have a look at Juan Cole's entry for September 11 2004. Basically, bin Laden wants to unite all Muslims into one big unified entity (the Caliphate), reject all Western influence and interference and install an extremely conservative form of Islam. They see this as the end of a struggle against foreign domination spanning centuries, and they want to throw the US out of Iraq just like they threw out the Soviet Empire from Afghanistan (the latter of course if US and British support). Western powers don't want to be "thrown out" of the Middle East because, for example, the world economy depends very heavily on the availability of cheap oil and it is therefore of enormous strategic importance to control/influence the Middle Eastern energy reserves, because that allows you to influence the world economy to work to your benefit. That conflict is what the "War on Terrorism" is all about. Criticism of and opposition to the "War on Terrorism" is politically quite broad, and objects to various things, including (a) that bombing and invading countries like Afghanistan and Iraq doesn't do anything to combat terrorism but that it strengthens it, and that al-Qaedaism needs to be defeated by different methods ; (b) that the framework of international laws and the UN needs to be preserved if we want to avoid global conflicts becoming global wars ; (c) that the whole system of Western domination is unjust and the root for conflict, and that it needs to be ended. But it's about much, much more than just "poverty". - pir 12:16, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Poverty hypothesis

message: I put "war" references in quotes and lowercase. It's a biased phrase and vague.
Maurreen 15:40, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "war on terrorism"

message: Its very regrettable that, most of the casualty counts are only limited to only what they see as ‘innocent people’. If they are presented by anti-war people, it ignores deaths of ‘coalition forces’, ‘Current Iraqi forces’, ‘insurgents’ and ‘formal Iraqi forces’. Formal Iraqi forces deaths, according to general Tommy franks is about 30,000. and when figures of ‘total  casualties so far’ are reported by U.S Media, they only include U.S. forces figures. These total figures even exclude other ‘coalition deaths’ and ‘Iraqi Forces deaths’. ‘Total civil deaths so far’ are not given any importance. In addition to that deaths of ‘formal Iraqi Forces’ and ‘insurgents’ are shown as ‘winning numbers’.
So I have posted a ‘total human death toll’ by giving breakup and sources. And also tried to clear the flawed impression which many have that “Iraqi Body Count Project” shows total deaths by war. It merely shows direct deaths covered by media alone, without considering indirect deaths and deaths caused by incidents not covered by media. Of course you can’t expect in the place like iraq, that journalists will be able to trace every single bullet fired, in a place where bullets have become more common then medicines. And It also excludes indirect deaths  caused by destruction of infrastructure, crime hikes due to war, lack of food and many others
Let’s count every ‘human death’ caused by this war, not to count deaths of only ‘good guys’. I strongly believe that, <B>every ‘human life’ is worth more respect then a ‘stem cell’</b>
:with regards
:Zain 22:32, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Total Human Death Toll, not limited to 'good guys' 

message: I have added two new critisisms, I have also added responses. The responses are not very convincing, because i was not able to find more convincing reasons. so if you know any better please contribute.
:With regards
:Zain 22:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need of War to 'Liberate' and hiding casualities from public 

message: First thing is that this section is about criticism on the war on terrorism  so this tells What criticism different people have, on the war on terrorism, this article is not about telling readers which of these criticisms are correct and which are not, it is merely to tell them what opinion different people have . For example article starts from different kind of world opinions gallop poll results, number of people taking to streets etc. which is fundamentally about people opinion.
:with regards
:Zain 12:01, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requirement of quoting different people 

message: Now if this article says that ‘War on terrorism has done more bad then good’ or says ‘This war has done more good then bad’ these both are POV. But if you say that critics of war say ‘War on terrorism has done more bad then good’ or  proponent of war say  ‘This war has done more good then bad’. These both are NPOV. Giving information  on something disputed or incorrect doesn’t make thing itself disputed or incorrect. I’ll like to give you example of the article Conspiracy theory. In this article the ‘conspiracy theory’ is defined as 
:”common historical or current understanding of events, under the claim that those events are the result of manipulations by one or more secretive powers or conspiracies.” 
So the article is all about those theories which are incorrect or at very least disputed, but the article itself is not disputed at all (at least there is no banner on it which says this).
So as this article discusses different POV about ‘War on terrorism’ it can’t be called NPOV unless it supports one of these POV. A very interesting other example is Zionist conspiracy theories regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks, although this is totally incorrect in almost all POV and at very least disputed but the article it self is not disputed!. So this article is not disputed although it might inform readers about some opinions which are not agreed by all readers.
:with regards
:Zain 12:01, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV and this article 

message: I think changing into paragraph type article will have two fundamental problems
#It is not what this article is meant to be by original editors.
#It is impossible to make an statement which is agreed by all without saying this is claimed by this party or that party because
#*Dispute on whether that thing is good or bad. (how will you weight deaths of ‘Saddam Hussain’ soldiers, which according to ‘Tommy Franks’ are bout 30,000)
#*Even, if we can agree on how to call a thing good or bad. Factual disputes are too much to be accommodated  without mentioning the source, for example deaths of civilians range from some 3000-4000 by Iraqi ministry to ‘hundreds of thousands’ if ‘independent American public health researchers’ are to trusted then if we agree with these public health people we then have to agree on how much die due to sanctions.
So this article can’t be converted into paragraph type because of diversity of type of criticisms and diversity on opinions and interpretation of ‘factual evidences’.
:with regards
:Zain 12:01, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems in Paragraph Type  

message: The main purpose given for the need of cleanup is that it is too lengthy. If length should be a factor for calling cleanup. I see the page Wikipedia:Cleanup requiring cleanup the most :-D. it has almost 43 pages!. So now let me quote from the Wikipedia:Cleanup_process to see what actually needs to be fixed in any article and see whether it applied on this article or not
#Topic specific guidelines
#*As in light of my arguments given earlier I think this format is very suitable as far as topic is concerned (I browsed through all the possible guidelines but no guideline matched requirement of this article)
#Pages needing content work
##To do List.
##*Not required in this article
##Peer view
##*Feature article status is not an issue here
##Request for expansion
##*Well I think it is also not the case here
##Pages needing attention, from some body more familiar with the topic
##*Doesn’t apply here I think
#NPOV Problem
#*Can’t be done better then this by claim response manner for such a disputed topic.
#Duplicate articles
#*not this too
#Disambiguation
#* Nope
#Dictionary definition
#*Nope
#Non-English
#*No
#Deletion
#*No
#CopyRight
#*Nope
So seeing all the reason one by one I don’t think this article needs cleanup.
:with regards
:Zain 12:01, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this article qualifies for cleanup 

message: Sorry I misunderstood you on some things specially quotes, now let me answer some things one by one
*In much of the muslim world it is written like "Saddam Hussain",let me quote from Saddam Hussein
:"Saddām Hussein 'Abd al-Majid al-Tikrītī (Hussein also spelled Husayn and Hussain ...) "
So spells were not wrong.
*Using quote is quite common in wikipedia (as far as I have seen) please see the examples of Porajmos with using 'final solution' , 'jewish problem', and also see 'jewish problem' in Discrimination. Similarly there are soo many articles which have such quotations like Final solution uses several times "final solution" withquotes and without quotes, and still there are no NPOV banner on any of these articles(I personally accept the quotes around these terms because they are very offensive if quotes are not used). it is quite normal in wikipedia and if using quotes like this qualify as NPOV banner then all these articles which I mention should also be given NPOV banner. 
**Here these quotes are not to signify what author wants to say but merely what critic wants to point to. if we put quotes around 'Response' that will be authors point of view but if we put quotes around 'reliable' this is critic point of view.
*well gramatical errors are not acceptable and of course they are worth cleanup but its not that much job I think maximum of 5,6 sentences will have bad grammar.
*Bullet lists were used to give breakup of deaths, like civilian deaths, miltary deaths, militant deaths, coalition deaths, and in civilian deaths further breakup of different sources. It was not breakup of argument it was simply breakup of figures.All the arguments were given in a paragraph order.
====Conclusions====
*Spell Errors are not as much as they might look
*Grammar errors need to be pointed and cleanedup
*if using quotes without saying make any article POV then all the articles using quotes without saying should have a banner of POV.
Steps
*Make the sentences free of grammatical errors(I'll like you to point to them).
*Remove the POV banner and if it needs to be put because of quotes all the article having quotes should also have a banner of POV.
I think using quotes don't make an article POV specially if we are showing it as a claim of a party. And having some gramatical mistakes don't qualify as a cleanup banner. i am removing NPOV banner because only reason which was sited was use of quotes. but leaving the cleanup banner for now. so please mention the sentences which have grammar error so we can correct them and then remove this cleanup banner.
:Zain 22:38, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to spell errors and NPOV 

message: *Spell Errors are not as much as they might look
*Grammar errors need to be pointed and cleanedup
*if using quotes without saying make any article POV then all the articles using quotes without saying should have a banner of POV.
Steps
*Make the sentences free of grammatical errors(I'll like you to point to them).
*Remove the POV banner and if it needs to be put because of quotes all the article having quotes should also have a banner of POV.
I think using quotes don't make an article POV specially if we are showing it as a claim of a party. And having some gramatical mistakes don't qualify as a cleanup banner. i am removing NPOV banner because only reason which was sited was use of quotes. but leaving the cleanup banner for now. so please mention the sentences which have grammar error so we can correct them and then remove this cleanup banner.
:Zain 22:38, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Conclusions

message: "Final Solution" gets quotes because that is a quote. It is not a fact. It was not factually the final solution. No one says that it was the final solution anymore, and stating it without quotes would be factually incorrect.
But, as many people believe that TWAT is a war and is against terrorism, it is concidered a fact, and thus no quotes are needed in The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly contentious.
It does not need to be purposely subjective (and thus non-NPOV), it needs to only be construed as a NPOV violation. From Wikipedia NPOV Dispute:
:There are many ways that an article can fail to be NPOV. Some examples are: The text and manner of writing can insinuate that one viewpoint is more correct than another.
I will put another example of a quote that can seem that way.
:George W. Bush was "democratically elected" in the year 2000.
Thus I'm re-adding the NPOV. Do not remove. I ask nicely.
:Well all the nazi and all neo-nazi will disagree with you on this, many still thing that it is 'final solution' and many believed it so much to kill about 6 million people to solve 'jewish problem'. So what u say about quoting 'jewish problem'(at least many palestinians will see it is) and what about other issues on cleanup. Please right in detail. specially please  mention that all articles using quotes without saying should be labeled as POV?
::Zain 23:21, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotes & POV

message: *I do not see the point for so many quotations. The term war against terrorism is widely used and should be accepted as such. Let the readers make up their minds, they do not need our help. --Zappaz 02:54, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is the the "Cleanup" tag is at least partially intended to more strongly encourage others to help edit the article. In that way, it can benefit the article. Maurreen 15:10, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC replies

message: Silverback, you reverted my editing with the comment: "substituting rebel for insurgent is incorrect due to the foreign and anti-democratic elements."
Regardless of whether "rebel" or "insurgent" is used, I don't see how a reversion was needed just to change a few words. Your reversion also erased the rest of my editing, for no apparent reason. Maurreen 05:49, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you are not familiar with the Iraq and terrorism pages, but the rebel vs insurgent battle has been fought many times and the rebel term was not defensible, you are not going to find a much more neutral term than insurgent to compromise on.  You did not make it easy to revert just the controversial change.  There is a lot wrong with this page, not just wordsmithing, and it doesn't really have much reason for existance.  It is duplicative of errors and POVs that have already been hashed out on other pages.  There is a lot of hyperbole that could not survive requests for documentation.  Perhaps the page should be nominated for deletion. --Silverback 07:03, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Does anyone else think Silverback's reversion was appropriate? Maurreen 07:40, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to go with Silverback. There were grammar mistakes ("Ariel" and improperly replacing "fewer" with "lesser"), NPOV issues introduced, and ye ol' problematic quotation marks, among other things. T2X
T2X, are we talking about the same thing? The difference between my edit and Silverback's reversion are here. Both versions misspell "aerial". I used "fewer" in "Similar but fewer deaths". I took out POV and unneeded quotation marks. Maurreen 05:12, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: OK, no problem. Maurreen 17:20, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reversion

message: This article is supposed to be about criticisms of the war on terror.  Saying a protest occurred, does not contribute a criticism.  How did this article get off track?--Silverback 10:28, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is the littany of protests being recited? 

message: I don't understand this section. Maurreen 17:39, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Intelligence authenticity of Need of 'War'

message: This doesn't make sense to me: "Deaths of Current 'Iraqi Police' and 'Iraqi Security Forces'. According to the U.S. Vice president Dick Cheney, in vice president election debate, they took the biggest share of death toll, in the war. A share which is continuously increasing, at a rate higher than before." Maurreen 18:35, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Deaths

message: "Partly left" is confusing here: "The leadership of the German Green Party, known for its pacifist principles that were already partly left during the war in Yugoslavia ..." Maurreen 07:49, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Partly left?

message: About Some have referred to the war as a Christian crusade versus an Islamic jihad, even though both Jesus and Muhammad preached peace, nonviolence and nonresistance
As far as I am aware, Mohammed did not preach those things.
:Both Christianity and Islam a thousand years ago had the exact same tendency to spread like wildfire, exponentially gain converts, and rouse people into zealous religious wars because of fundamental religious values.  Today this fundamentalist strain has disappeared for the most part, but is still very evident in places where Islamic extremism can appeal to those who think they have been wronged  such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran, and now Iraq. This gripping effect of down trodden people to an extremist policy is evident in Post WW1 Germany's conversion to Nazism and the Russian Communist Revolution.  Christianity's extremist element is now somewhat hidden, and some can say it still exists in certain places such as the United States, where religion still is a potent force; others may even claim it what's driving the United State's foreign and domestic policy.
:Bottom line is that Jesus and Mohammed preached peace, but did not preach total nonviolence and nonresistance as Ghandi did.  Some early Christians accepted being massacred and thrown to the lions and others fought to the death in rebellions during the Roman Empire.  The followers of Islam when it was brand new instantly formed a vast empire through conquest and conversion.  The stronger, more potent force is how the followers choose to follow their religion.  The official stance of the religion itself is a statement that can be altered, ignored, or interpreted however you like.--Exander 08:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand what this have to do with anything. The point of contention is that Mohammed did not at any point actually preach "peace, nonviolence and nonresistance". Furthermore, I am not aware of any prominent Islamic scholars that claim this, nor does this seem to be what most Muslims believe, and the ones who do are probably considered heretics.
Mohammad said that Islam should be spread by the sword, but NOT to harm Jews, Christians, etc. because they are "Brothers of the Book". Kang227 15:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muhammad preached peace? 

message: This article includes criticisms, no matter how obscure, untrue, or inane, and is basically a ranting ground of anti-war criticism.  Sure, there's a lot of reasonable criticism, but do one sentence sections need to be included simply because it's anti WOT?  Does every outlandish conspiracy theorist need to be entertained?  Aren't ANY of these criticisms answered by the Administration or its apologists? -- Wistless 03:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Why isn't Criticism of the War on Terrorism an integral part of the War on Terrorism article?  Isn't the whole point of having a NPOV to be that you try to capture both support and dissent regarding a controversial topic within the article on that topic? Patiwat 03:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The War on Terrorism article is about a list of military campaigns and other operations claimed to be under the "umbrella" of the WOT. Therefore the term is less vague than it once was. I believe only part of the criticisms in this article belong in the other. Namely criticisms of the shortcomings or failures of specific War on Terror operations. Pendragon39 16:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why isn't this merged with [[War on Terrorism]]? 

message: Removed war-for-oil & money claim in the 'wot as pretext' section because it is covered in the 'Pax Americana' section. Pendragon39 18:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes 

message: Shouldn't there be both positive and negative criticism? I'm sure pro-war rhetoric is miniscule and illogical by comparison, especially given the word choice of the concept itself, but it seems relevant to include some arguments for the "war on terror". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepstratagem (talk • contribs) 
:Yes, there is place for advocacy (rather than positive criticism). For example, Libya's reaction to the WOT. However, since the two main campaigns appear to be going not well, supportive viewpoints are vanishing or no longer apply. Pendragon39 21:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good to know. As a reader I would find any supportive viewpoints interesting. Deepstratagem 21:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  We hear positive things about the so called "War on Terror" everytime we turn on CNN or Fox News. There doesn't really need to be any in an article about criticism of the "War on Terror." --Jml4000 04:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is a countering argument to a criticism, I believe it should be included. I don't watch Fox News or CNN so I guess that makes me unbiased . . . Pendragon39 15:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have personally never heard a single positive thing on CNN or other news networks-could you provide an example? If your argument is valid, Jml4000, then the negative things we hear on the television should eliminate the need for this article, too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.177.59.95 (talk) 18:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism? 

message: I really hope that no one brings up the "Bush lied" topic, and please don't add that to the criticism page, because we actually did find WMDs. We found massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, which are defined by wikipedia as WMDs. Plus, no one ever made a specific statement that Saddam HAD nukes, politicians only said he had a nuclear program, which he did. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.177.59.95 (talk) 18:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Those WMD's were left over from the war with Iran and were not the WMD's alluded to by the White House. As for "lying", the spinmeisters have already dumped that responsibility onto the intelligence community - ie. Bush and White House officials did not lie, they were honestly passing along information that was given to them at the time. Not that the lead up to this debacle was anything more than a sales pitch to the American people. Pendragon39 22:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The criticisms of what weapons he had, or did not have, are to be cited. Where refutations or defenses against such claims exist, they should be noted. However, remain NPOV, please. --Petercorless 23:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the issue of WMD's is more appropriate for Opposition_to_the_Iraq_War article. Pendragon39 01:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: WMDs

message: Why is this section tagged? Pendragon39 00:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The section I was referring to has since had the tag removed. I was referring to the 'seen as pretext' section, not the entire article. Pendragon39 16:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality tag: "War on Terrorism" seen as pretext 

message: the alleged use of chemical weapons against residents of Fallujah 
If you actually read this article you will find that there is no signature of the author and that even further you find out that these are just postings to the websit and not actual news reports.  I am going to remove this part untill a real citation of the allegations are found. The Drew 06:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of a non-signed "news" report 

message: 1. The lack of action against Saudi Arabia needs to be mentioned.
2. I propose to rename this section to simply Political Double-Standards. Allowing the Saudi's a free pass is long-standing policy carried out by successive US administrations. Pendragon39 16:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political Double-Standards of the Bush Administration 

message: Please add. Thanks.  205.228.74.11 07:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest reports 

message: This categorization seems highly POV to me. I personally does not agree, that the criticism is mass hysteria. --Morten Barklund  [ talk / contribs ] 14:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mass hysteria?