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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sweeper~enwiki (talk | contribs) at 02:15, 3 May 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article was previously a featured article, but was removed after being listed on Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates

Given that the Shiites are the majority in Iraq and that the US doesn't want the Shiites in power, there is no way Bremer can bring legitimate democracy to the country, only "the trappings" thereof. It has nothing to do with the Shiites being "dictatorial" or "undemocratic"; it has to do with their nationalism and their ties to the regime in Iran. Rephrase it if you will but please acknowledge the reality. -- Viajero 23:02, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

You have your own opinion. We'll have to wait and see how it actually turns out. Until then, since you cannot see into the future, you cannot say whether or not true democracy will come to Iraq. A democratic government does not simply mean turning over an entire country into the hands of one ethnic group. Bremer's job is to establish a multi-ethnic government, currently reflected by the Iraqi council. user:J.J.

Bremer is faced with creating a multi-ethnic, democratic government in Iraq, while ensuring that a fundamentalist Islamic government or other dictatorial group or figure does not win control of the country.

This is simply made up out of propaganda. If he wanted to prevent dictatorship, he would start by retiring. If he wanted democracy, he wouldn't cancel elections. I don't know what his job really is, but it's neither of those things.

Should the "We got him!" thing go in? - Aparajit

In January 2005, an official report by the general inspector for the reconstruction of Iraq, Stuart Bowen, cited by Times, stated that 9 billion dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq might have disapeared in frauds, corruption and other misbehaviour. On one perticular salary register, only 602 names among 8206 could be verified. As another cited example, the Coallition Authority autorised Iraqi officials to postpone declaring the reception of 2,5 billions of dollars, which the provisiory government had recieved in spring through the Oil for Food program. Paul Bremer wrote a 8-page reply to deny the accusations. Rama

The information here comes from Le Monde, and is not linked to the article because Le Monde requires subscribtion for its articles. The article did not specify which Times, though by default, it might by the London Times. A quick google is not conclusive, though there is an AlJazeera [[1]] article which looks very similar (perhaps it will be possible to trace back the original article). Rama 17:25, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
...pointing out that the IG refused to interview his people during the inquiry and failed to mention that he and his people were working under extraordinary conditions trying to rebuild a nation while a war was ongoing; not to mention a high turnover rate and insufficient number of personnel to carry out some of these tasks. It's such a shame that Amb. Bremer has to be subjected to so much criticism for his extraordinary service. We should be grateful that Amb. Bremer agreed to take on the job (however thankless it appears to be). I and probably others am most anxious to read his book when he publishes it. Paradigmbuff 22:42, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
Paradigmbuff, do you have some personal connection to Ambassador Bremer? Why is your defense of him so dogged? Your repetition of his defense, "my staff was inexperienced!", provoked me to alternate between laughter and frustration. The classic example of someone illustrating chutzpah is the man who murdered his parents, and asked for leniency because he had just become an orphan. Bremer was responsible for setting the CPA's hiring policies. And the CPA chose absolutely disastrous hiring policies. -- Geo Swan 22:17, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
For those who don't know French, Paradigmbuff asked: "Are you insane by adding words which I did not say?"
I stand by my paraphrase of your words Paradigmbuff. Do you want me to go and cite the passages I am paraphrasing? Why do you follow an unconventional style in your responses. You do know that the convention is that your response should have one further indent than what you are responding to? Anything else is disrespectful to your readers, because it makes it much more difficult for them to follow the discussion. -- Geo Swan 11:52, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Gee Whiz. In response to your question Geo Swan, Do I have a personal connection with Amb. Bremer? I would have to say NO I do not. Do you?....When you wake up one morning and realized that half of your family members were executed because they stood [up] against tyranny, then come back and revisit your articles again and see if you still support your point of view. Hopefully this never happens to you. Paradigmbuff 22:19, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
Thank the gods you're not Dalia GEO SWAN or else it would appear your criticisms would seem a bit too hypocritical, don't you think? Paradigmbuff 20:36, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)


Geo Swan, What happened to you that provoked you to attack Paradigmbuff whom I am intimately acquainted with? His original intentions were to gather as many as possible, press releases and to link them to one place before they vanish in some inaccessible archive. Between you and Rama, hopefully, the two of you have concluded by now that there were no personal connections between this American legend and Paradigmbuff. There's an ancient Chinese school of thought taught by Confucius himself "...to think three times before opening the mouth...to listen reflectively first to others opinions before committing oneself to the conversation". However, if your words were to intend harm or to criticize, I and Paradigmbuff do not have a good answer for you. Sweeper 03:07, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)


The point about Liberty being expensive in terms of suffering in certainly true. However, as far as I have understood, Wikipedia means to be an encyclopedia. Thusly, a careful and exact search for factual accuracy is more de rigueur than "support your own country" (providing the person is Unitedstatesofamerican). Rama 22:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Paradigmbuff, I don't think that your latest edits contribute very much to the readibility of this page. Also, I am not sure that I find your description of the arguments here very funny ("GEO SWAN's CHOIR" for instance). Similarly, I fail to understand why you took on writing French, which obviously doesn't contribute to the accessibility of this page, not is a language your a fluent in. Eventually, what you said was neither interesting nor polite to the other user. I think we would all appreciate if you could make some effort to be more understandable and constructed in your answers. Thanks in advance ! Rama 16:17, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Dear Paradigmbuff, you might perhaps be a little bit new here, so I assume you're not familiar with some written and unwritten rules.
You reformating to the talk page is certainly a good faith attempt to clarify the page; unfortunately, it turns out that moving blocks of text makes this talk page more difficult to read. The common standard is to indent the responses (as you can see on other talk pages). I (and methink my fellow editors as well) would appreciate that you'd use this way too. This is a mere custom, but it'd be nice if you could conform to it.
Also, please don't edit (even add formating) to other users' comments; you probably couldn't possibly know, but that's regarded as extremely rude.
I am not sure whether I fully understand you comment
"You write of being polite and yet, Geo Swan's and some of your contributions have not been indicative of what you "preach"".
I don't quite understand the connection between politeness and the "preaching"; most preachers I have known were quite polite. As for "preaching", we are not supposed to. Only factual information is supposed to be featured on Wikipedia. As far as I've seen, I have no reasons to think that anyone here is pushing blatantly unreasonable statements.
You also say
"I don't agree with you. More importantly, I don't appreciate non-citizens of the U.S. bashing our patriots"
I understand you have some concern, but could you formulate precise and factual points in the article which you think are not comforming to the best information available in the media ? Again, as far as I have seen, the critics of Mr Bremer which I have seen here seem to be quite factual, I think that it would be exagerated to call them "bashing".
You say also
nor do I appreciate your CRIMINAL means of obtaining personal information on me as you pointed out that I do not speak French fluently. So, what's it to you ?
I am sorry, I didn't realise that I could hurt your feelings by questioning your command of the French language. I just though that a native speaker would say something more like Où est-ce que tu as trouvé ça dans mon discours ?, or Qu'est-ce qui te prend de "citer" des choses que je n'ai pas dites ?; Êtes-vous fou en ajoutant des mots que je n'ai pas dits? just didn't not sound very natural to me, notably because of the word "mots", which is typically not used to refer to constructed sentences.
Perhaps you will excuse my infering you were not fluent by thinking of your own "I don't appreciate non-citizens of the U.S. bashing our patriots" -- you see that it is hard not to jump to conclusions about your interlocutors.
The point about this French sentance was mainly that there didn't seem to be a reason to include French on the talk page at the moment. Perhaps you could elaborate as to why you decided to switch languages -- but as you mentionned, it's not an important matter. Whatever, never mind.
On the other hand, there are written rules on Wikipedia, which you might not be aware of, but which might lead other users to frown at you. You might want to get familiar with Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Wikiquette and Wikipedia:No legal threats, notably.
In particular, I have to urge you to refrain from editing other's comments and call them "criminal". It would be nice if you could assume the good faith of you fellow editors -- as they do yours.
I hope that this will help bring more confidence here. Cheers ! Rama 07:28, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Paradigmbuff, I see that you have removed quite a lot of documented material from the article. There wasn't a consensus on this talk page about removing these texts (which motivated my first revert of these deletions). Your comment of this edit says "deletion to avoid libel actions". Could you perhaps elaborate on this, and explain for each point what motivates the removal ? I'm really puzzled, because besides allusions to the official report which criticises Brener, parts of discourses by Brener, and links, have been removed -- things which I cannot imagine could cause any problem in any case. Also, the whole edit seems quite one-sided, so it would really be a good thing if you could explain a little bit. Thanks in advance ! Rama 22:30, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I deleted only that portion which I contributed towards to avoid not only further criticisms but also the liklihood of Libel actions as it was so graciously explained to me by a Wikipedia Admin. So it is up to someone else to write in his/her own words. Paradigmbuff 22:50, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

I see. I think that David was refering to you calling me a "criminal", something which I do not intend to make a fuss about. Since the danger is now clear, and that other parts of the article written by other than you seem to have been inadvertantly deleted as well, I'm restoring the text. Can I please insist taht you refrain from deleting parts of the talk page in the future ? this is really not well considered, and is an annoyance to other users. Thank you ! Rama 23:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ensuring that fundamentalists do not win control?

The article currently reads that part of Ambassador Bremer's role was: "...ensuring that a fundamentalist Islamic government ... does not win control of the country..." I think this is a controversial assertion. Various Bush administration officials, starting with Colin Powell, assured everyone that the USA would leave Iraq the moment an Iraqi government requested it to do so. I would suggest that living up to this promise is inconsistent with preventing Iraqis from electing a fundamentalist regime. Geo Swan

Purpose

I am of the impression that the purpose of Wikipedia is not to establish a forum for political discussion nor is it a place to establish new ground rules for which neither one of us are responsible for. And as agreed upon a year ago, I supported the removal of this article when it was a candidate for removal as it was considered a "stub" at the time and possibly, the subject matter had the potential of creating much controversy as seen here in both the main article and in the discussion section. My recommendation is to leave this article as is in its shortened version for the time being.

Stop vandalising wikipedia. If you continue, you will be banned. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 21:41, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've reverted your vandalism of the Paul Bremer page three times now. Per WP:3RR, if you restore it again, you'll be blocked from editing. Why don't you have a discussion on the talkpage like a civilised human being, rather than your current unacceptable behavour. The choice is yours; be smart. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 22:10, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
John Fader? Hey baby, then my name is "Tulli Pavinen".Sweeper 15:37, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This is your last warning. The next time you vandalize a page you will be blocked from editing.-gadfium 23:46, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What happened to the human interest stories on Amb. Bremer listed under external links? The external link use to look something like this but has faded in and out:

For those Sci-Fi buffs, the new Star Wars movie is out, see for yourself.[2]

Sweeper 21:10, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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