Talk:Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Archive

message: I don't like to take sides against people. It's the article which interests me. Let's strive for accuracy, and where we cannot agree on the facts let's "agree to disagree". --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 19:48, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: My role

message: This page has been unprotected then protected again. Might I suggest you try for a rewrite on this article at Vietnam Veterans Against the War /temp? -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:05, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since this appears to be a cut-n-paste suggestion from another page, I'll direct you to my response at Talk:Winter Soldier Investigation. -Rob 22:56, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We're still waiting for you to cite "all the copyright violations." I don't see any in the article, and I don't see you listing them as a reason for your repeated reverts.  If a CW violation does exist, please cite it so that the problem can be resolved. -Rob 18:45, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection 

message: I really do not know what to say on this subject other than there is no possible outcome for these articles other than another edit war. The Anon is unable to be negotiated with, and does not like people making edits to what he views are his articles. I would also remind you that these two articles are full of plagiarized material and past instances have shown me that this user is extremely uncooperative in removing such material. I think the only solution is that the article is blanked and started over again. Articles have been blanked in the past for large scale plagarism and dont see how this is an exception. TDC 13:45, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
:Perhaps I can help, TDC.  I'm going to follow AllyUnion's advice, and assume good faith.  Since you see no possibilities other than edit war, please allow me to offer some suggestions:
:*1) Please list your editing issues.  Problems can't be solved unless you cite them for everyone to see.  Claiming plagiarism without saying which text you think is plagiarized doesn't really do much good.  We're not mind-readers.  I've tried to discover just what text you are complaining about by looking at your edit, but your revert has wiped out 60% of the articles content from several editors.
:*2) Be willing to discuss changes and be willing to compromise.  If there is a verifiable instance of plagiarism or copyright violation, of course we should edit it or remove it immediately.  However, if you just find yourself disagreeing with the content or presentation of a passage of text -- try raising your concerns for discussion.  Perhaps common ground can be discovered and changes made that will be acceptable to all concerned.
:*3) Don't confuse one unregistered editor with another.  Your descriptions, "unable to be negotiated with," "does not like people making edits," and "extremely uncooperative" do not apply to me, (-Rob).  Just view the Discussion Pages for each article (including what you archived away) to see that I always encourage negotiation, editing and cooperation.
:*4) Don't fear the Discussion Page.  Rather than clutter up AllyUnion's talk page, we should move this discussion to the appropriate article discussion pages.  I'll start by pasting these comments there.  I look forward to your participation, TDC.
:Does this sound reasonable to you, AllyUnion?  Any other suggestions would be welcomed.  I'd also like to ask one favor of you: Can you help us with step 1 above to get us started?  TDC has resumed his reverts, claiming plagiarism in the edit summary, yet his reverts don't appear to remove suspected text.  Instead, his reverts trash edits from as far back as the middle of last year, and I can't make heads or tails out of what his edits are trying to accomplish.  Once we have identified the problem, we can work to correct it.  TDC won't cite the alleged problem.  I can't find the problem by looking at his revert.  Can you help? -Rob 19:06, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put in my two cents' worth, but, to try to keep all the discussion in one place, I'm commenting only at Talk:Winter Soldier Investigation#VVAW and WSI articles.  My comments on that article apply to this one as well. JamesMLane 20:18, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: VVAW and WSI articles

message: (moved here from main article for review)
Ion Mihai Pacepa, former Romanian Intelligence Chief, now an author and occasional writer in the conservative press, stated in the National Review that, to him, the allegations of the soldiers at the Winter Soldier Investigation sounded exactly like the disinformation generated by the KGB.
:KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment, and credibility. One of its favorite tools was the fabrication of such evidence as photographs and "news reports" about invented American war atrocities. These tales were purveyed in KGB-operated magazines that would then flack them to reputable news organizations. Often enough, they would be picked up. News organizations are notoriously sloppy about verifying their sources. All in all, it was amazingly easy for Soviet-bloc spy organizations to fake many such reports and spread them around the free world.
:::I have several issues with the insertion of the above op-ed exerpt.  1) It's under a header about alleged collaboration between NV and VVAW leaders -- yet says nothing about this topic.  2) It's inserted into an article about the VVAW, yet makes no mention anywhere in the National Review article about this organization.  3) Not only is it exerpted from an opinion piece (apparently from the 2004 pre-election mud slinging era), but an ill informed one at that, filled with such silly rhetoric as:
:::*The exact sources of that assertion (of various war crimes) should be tracked down. Kerry also ought to be asked who, exactly, told him any such thing, and what it was, exactly, that they said they did in Vietnam.  Anyone with more than a "Swiftboat TV Ad" knowledge of the issue knows that the exact sources and exactly what was said is all part of public record.
:::*As far as I'm concerned, the KGB gave birth to the antiwar movement in America. Uh-huh.
:::*The quote from Senator Kerry (about atrocities alleged by vetrans at WSI) is unmistakable Soviet-style sloganeering from this period. I believe it is very like a direct quote from one of these organizations' propaganda sheets. Someone obviously hasn't read the testimony of those vetrans, from which Kerry's statement is directly derived.  What a loon.
:::Perhaps this op-ed could find a home in a War Crimes article, but, in my opinion, has no relevance here.
I realize that you are going to argue at length about the relevance of the KGB’s involvement with the North Vietnamese propaganda front, but save it. Pacepa was the highest ranking defector from a Soviet satellite, and his firsthand knowledge of Soviet disinformation campaigns, including those used during the Vietnam War are directly relevant to, as Pacepa emphasizes, to the actions of VVAW and its affiliated organizations. 
Once again you puzzling misrepresentation of a source so easily found, leaves much out of context. 
Other passages of interest from the article that you neglected to mention:
: As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements throughout Europe. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and built a credibility gap between America and European public opinion through our disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once told me, "our most significant success."
: The KGB organized a vitriolic conference in Stockholm to condemn America's aggression, on March 8, 1965, as the first American troops arrived in south Vietnam. On Andropov's orders, one of the KGB's paid agents, Romesh Chandra, the chairman of the KGB-financed World Peace Council, created the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam as a permanent international organization to aid or to conduct operations to help Americans dodge the draft or defect, to demoralize its army with anti-American propaganda, to conduct protests, demonstrations, and boycotts, and to sanction anyone connected with the war. It was staffed by Soviet-bloc undercover intelligence officers and received about $15 million annually from the Communist Party's international department — on top of the WPC's $50 million a year, all delivered in laundered cash dollars. Both groups had Soviet-style secretariats to manage their general activities, Soviet-style working committees to conduct their day-to-day operations, and Soviet-style bureaucratic paperwork. The quote from Senator Kerry is unmistakable Soviet-style sloganeering from this period. I believe it is very like a direct quote from one of these organizations' propaganda sheets.
: The KGB campaign to assault the U.S. and Europe by means of disinformation was more than just a few Cold War dirty tricks. The whole foreign policy of the Soviet-bloc states, indeed its whole economic and military might, revolved around the larger Soviet objective of destroying America from within through the use of lies. The Soviets saw disinformation as a vital tool in the dialectical advance of world Communism.
And of course there is the quote you deliberately truncated to try and make it sound bad. 
: As far as I'm concerned, the KGB gave birth to the antiwar movement in America. In 1976, Andropov gave my own Romanian DIE credit for helping his KGB do so.
We should reclassify the section then and reinsert the material. TDC 18:31, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
::Once again you puzzling misrepresentation of a source so easily found, leaves much out of context.
::Nothing you have added above changes the context of what I presented.  Pacepa still comes off as ill-informed, with no clue where the allegations made at WSI came from, what the allegations were, or who made them.  I have no doubt the KGB (or any Intel org from any major country) participates in disimformation and propaganda.  I'm not disputing "To me, this assertion sounds exactly like the disinformation line that the Soviets were sowing worldwide throughout the Vietnam era."  I'm sure the allegations do sound similar, TDC, but you and I both know exactly where Kerry's "assertion" came from, whereas poor Pacepa shows he is clueless.  
::As I suggested before, find a home for that thinly veiled opinion piece on Kerry in a more appropriate article.  Just because propagandists can generate disinformation about war crimes does not mean all war crimes are really just propaganda.  165.247.221.166 21:11, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Relevancy of the following content

message: This has been protected for weeks and nobody is discussing anything here, so I've unprotected. --Tony SidawayTalk 08:44, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotected