User talk:Pir/archive1

Hello Pir, welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian.

Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

If you have any questions, see the help pages or add a question to the village pump. Angela 22:56, Sep 14, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your message on the Butler Inquiry/Iraq Intelligence Commission (UK). I agree that these pages should be merged (under Butler Inquiry - check Google, and you will see that it is being referred to by this name). When they announced the Hutton Inquiry they didn't give it a name either, and the BBC called their section the "Kelly Inquiry" for quite a while. So far as I can see there's no way to guess what will end up being the name of an Inquiry (the "Shipman Inquiry" is named after Shipman, not the Judge; the "Bloody Sunday Inquiry" is named after the incident. I guess it will be the Soham Inquiry.) I think these names are just coined by the media, and end up being used by everybody. Washington irving 19:42, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Washington. I agree with you on nomenclature, 'Butler inquiry' is best. Won't be around for a few days, but I will probably have time to help merge both articles after that. pir 20:03, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Good work on attempting to remove bias. From the owner, down through his chain of command - the developers, beneath them the admins and then the typical American white collar reactionary user, it is quite a battle to remove the heavy right wing bias from all of this. But if you don't get flustered or angry and, unlike them, stick to the rules, and work together with saner people here like secretlondon, Wik, Viajero and so forth, you can get somewhere. One of their old tricks is one of them will provoke you, you'll respond, and then they will hold that against you. Just join together with the sane ones, follow the rules and keep a cool head, we'll win by attrition eventually. The efforts of the sane people collectively can't be scattershot, so I would suggest focusing on the larger pages, such as some you have, Hugo Chavez, war on terrorism, U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. It is possible to maintain NPOV there if a group of the sane people concentrate on it. It's less easy to do this on less popular pages, you can give it a try, but if it becomes an edit war it's not really worth the time. You can let other people worry about that. Venceremos 07:43, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am not necessarily on a mission to remove right-wing views. In fact I find it much better if they stay in the encyclopedia, they just need to be marked clearly for what they are, and we need to add facts, as well as other balancing views. Everyone should have their say, facts and views need to be seperated, and it is always very revealing to see who holds particular views. I am an optimist, in the sense that I believe the truth will always win. That is why I love Wikipedia. pir 13:53, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Venceremos: here's an example of what I mean. VV didn't like the paragraphe about Torture and murder in Iraq committed by British and US troops (In fact initially the whole article, esp. the title, seems to be inspired by right-wing Iraq war propaganda, but now that the situation in Iraq has changed, it's returning on them.). So he added a sentence to weaken it : However, such misdeeds on the part of individual soldiers violate the US and Britain's policies on combat and occupation, and soldiers who break the rules have been subject to court martial. Of course this is not NPOV, because it is simply his own interpretation that these are acts committed only by "individuals", and of course these are just the "official" USUK policies. So I changed these. Then Rei pointed out that no court martials have taken place (so far nobody has provided any evidence to the contrary). What we end up with is a NPOV sentence which makes the whole paragraphe much, much stronger: Such misdeeds violate the US and Britain's official policies on combat and occupation, and soldiers who break the rules are theoretically subject to court martial.

The observant reader will compare official policy and effective practice and deduce that the incidents of torture are in fact likely to be have the backing from superiors. The article has made a step towards NPOV at the same time a step towards the truth.pir 03:20, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Uups ... yes, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is the prime minister in waiting. My mistake on the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq page. -- chris_73 11:37, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think the new version needs work, but it's clearly getting there. I was more than willing to work with Rei's version. 172 was out of line protecting the page, and "Venceremos" is simply a recurring troublemaker who was not going to work with anyone. I am curious, though, about the view you favor. Are you really trying to push the idea that there is a moral equivalency between Saddam's medieval torture chambers and rape rooms and the small number of instances of misconduct by coalition troops? This strikes me as almost inhuman, and suggests you (or whoever favors this view) want it to be true, and will try to make it seem or try to believe that it is. -- V V 19:49, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your notes on my user talk page and on Talk:Torture and murder in Iraq; it seems to me you're taking a very constructive approach to writing this article and communicating with other users, and I look forward to working with you on these difficult and potentially combustive issues. I agree with you that all information should be presented and in a proportionate/balanced manner, including reports regardless of the perpetrators; what bothers me balance-wise is that the article goes on at length about coalition misdeeds, but only gives passing reference to torture by Saddam's regime. Of course, this can be corrected with more detail, but at present it leaves I think a very wrong impression, an impression which, I believe, some users would like to leave readers with. I see from your comments on talk that you recognize that I have this concern. As for your point about official policy, well, call me naive, but I don't believe for a second George Bush would ever authorize soldiers to engage in "sexual misconduct" with prisoners, while I am fairly convinced Saddam countenanced such behavior regularly. I believe this is a hugely important difference which needs to be emphasized. As for the claim that torture is a tool of control, I think that is a controversial assertion. Some would contend that torture is of little use in this regard and is more the result of runaway sadism and cruelty/vengeance by people with power. The torture article or its offshoots is probably the right place for these debates, which is why I think splitting the article into one on the "Dirty Dozen" and one on post-Saddam Iraq does not take away anything; the general subject of torture is too broad anyway for an article focusing only on Iraq. Well, these are just a few of many of the issues to deal with. Since I think each of us understand where the other is coming from, I am optimistic we will find common ground for creating good articles. -- V V 22:41, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)