Talk:Winter Soldier Investigation/Archive 2

October 2004 protection

This article and Vietnam Veterans Against the War are the subject of an edit war between one or two logged-in users (I see User:TDC and User:SEWilco) and a series of anonymous IPs, which I have good reason to suspect are the same person or coordinated persons. User:165.247.204.75's second edit was a comment on my protection of the VVAW article. To see more of my reasoning and brief back and forth with -Rob see the bottom of User talk:Cecropia. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 06:41, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am still awaiting Cecropia's suggestion on how I am to procede with a user that refuses to enter discussion about his vandalism. -Rob

I have already given Rob suggestions on my talk page. Basically, appeal to other admins to get their input or possibly unprotect and/or explain what his changes should be here and request comment from other editors at RfC. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:22, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Addendum: Open-ended protection is against policy. If there is no movement here in 24 hours, and no one else has unprotected, I will and see what happens. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:24, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ceropia don't unprotect the page just yet. As a completely disinterested party who knows nothing about the subject, I can hopefully have a crack at reaching a compromise solution. I'd like to give it a go anyway, before we let the edit wars return. (I'm off to read the article now) Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 13:29, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK I've read it through quickly once. I have to say, that at a first read through parts of the article are not all that well written. For example I found the large number of TLA's confusing, plus I don't like the fact that the quotes are not clearly seperated from the main text, parts of the commentry are dull, parts are repeated, maybr I'm being too harsh, but if people spent more time in writing a good article and less in editwarring think how brilliant the article would be by now. What I propose to do is this:

1. The disputed tag stays on the article. It's clear that the factual accuracy of the article is disputed by someone at least, so we keep the tag in place until everyone is satisfied that the article is factually correct.
2. We go through the article paragraph by paragraph here on the talk page. Once we reach a compromise wording that everyone is happy with - (and only then) we correct that paragraph on the article. Everyone will need to agree not to edit the article in the meantime.
3. Once we have gone through the entire article, and everyone is happy with it, we remove the dispute tag.

Is the above idea acceptable? Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 14:23, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The above idea is not only acceptable, but appears to be very close to the standard procedure followed up until very recently. The only addition I would make to your suggestion is that we start with the most complete NPOV version, and work through paragraph by paragraph. Presently, over a third of the document appears to be missing. -Rob

Rob we can start with any version you like. Let's work on a temporary verion Winter Soldier Investigation (temp).I'll put you preferred version there. Then we can compare you preferred version with the current version, and we can hammer out the details on the temporary versions talk page. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 20:10, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK I've done it. Please check that the version I've put there is the one you wanted, then we can begin. This page is getting too long, we can iether archive this page and discuss the temporary version here or we can move the discussion over to talk:Winter Soldier Investigation (temp). I'm happy with either solution. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 20:16, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The version you put up as a temp looks OK, and we can use the Talk page associated with that version for now, since this page is indeed cluttered. But I have a hunch I'll be citing old discussions here from time to time. So what is the first editing issue on the agenda? -Rob

I started Talk:Winter Soldier Investigation (temp) with a comment about the Russell Tribunal discussion. Rob's preferred version has more detail than does TDC's preferred version (the one that received protection). I've muddied the waters by preferring less detail than either. JamesMLane 21:26, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reasoning behind TDC's deletions

TDC - can you tell me why you have deleted the "November" date from the portion of the article that references the Russell Tribunal? -Rob

Ed Poor's Additions

Ed, I believe the organizer's stated intent of showing the relationship between the cause of war crimes and the policies of the administration and military is more accurate than the shorter and more inflammatory statement that they intended to blame the leaders. Please let me know if you disagree. -Rob

I'm not going to revert - mostly because I'll do almost anything to head off an edit war. But I don't understand the difference between "showing the relationship" and "blaming". -Ed

Obviously you do see a difference, or you would not have deemed it necessary to replace the phrase "showing the relationship" with the similar but different word "blaming." Both phrases indicate the intent to indict the administration, but the word "blame" also carries with it a strong connotation of censure, and I seek to avoid such vehement POV words. -Rob

My dim historical recollection of the event was that it was almost literally an indictment of the US goverment for intervening in Vietnam: an assertion that America did not have any good reason to support South Vietnam's government against a Communinist takeover, whether by invasion by the North or local insurrrection; and that the result of this misguided action inevitably caused all sorts of war crimes; an assertion that murder, rape, etc. were not a by-product of the US military campaign but an inevitable consequence: (not aberrations of individual soldiers committing crimes against military law but agents carrying out policy). -Ed

Your recollection of the event differs slightly from my recollection. The WSI was indeed an indictment of the U.S. government -- but not of its reasoning behind its interventions in Vietnam, whether on behalf of the French, or any of the subsequent competing factions of government. In fact, the reasoning behind America's participation in that conflict hardly rose to even secondary consideration status, as far as the objectives of the WSI was concerned. The primary focus was on the prosecution of that war, regardless of what brought the U.S. there in the first place. I do not see any correlation between the U.S. "misguided action" or reasoning and the "cause" of war crimes as you suggest, nor do I see an attempt by the Winter Soldier Investigation to establish that correlation. -Rob

I think that your bland phrasing sweeps the meat of the thing under the rug, where it can only rot. (Hope I'm not stating this too forcefully...). A former US soldier, --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 13:33, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. Perhaps you should define "the meat of the thing" in a little more detail. I get the feeling you may be referring to "meat" that I am simply not seeing. As for stating things too forcefully, set all your fears aside - I doubt there is much you can do to through the printed word to scare or offend me, and if forceful communication will serve to make your point, by all means use it. (Note: I can't speak for other viewers, however.) I see that you signed your comment with the indication that you have served - just like the participants and organizers of the WSI. Very well. I'll see your claim to military service, and raise you 1 degree in American History and 1 militantly strong conviction to fight revisionist history. -Rob

I fold ;-) I'm not a combat veteran. I served 1982-84 & 1986-89 in the "peacetime army", 85% of the time sitting at a desk.

Was the WSI really (a) ignoring America's motives and (b) only protesting its methods of fighting the war? Were they exposing atrocities only to stimulate the US military to clean up its act and battle the enemy more humanely? I find that hard to believe. My impression of the entire "anti-war" movement of the sixties and early seventies was that they had only one aim: make the US pull out of Vietnam, so that the Communists could win.

I talked to a lot of college students in Boston during 1967-1973, and I never found one who asserted both A & B points (as expressed above). Oh, I'd run into the occasional 'hawk' who wanted the US to conquer the "whole damn country" and didn't care how many civilians "had to die" for this. But I'm talking about those holding the VVAW mindset.

If we can clear this perspective thing up, I bet we can end the edit war. Most user conflicts I've mediated have been resolved once the different points of view (POV) were clarified and stated explicitly in the article. --user:Ed Poor (dope rouser) 14:13, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Your self-deprecating manner is a little disarming. Rather than brandish your military service as proof of the superiority of your perspective, you wave it off as a "desk job." Rather than bludgeon me with your opinion as if it were fact, you instead qualify it as merely "dim historical recollection." Even your nickname (El Dunce) is something less than strident. Good traits for a mediator. :^)

This WSI article has been a six-month long edit war, which isn't a bad thing in itself. Each edit was usually accompanied by discussion, agreement and disagreement, substantiation and ultimately concession. Until a few days ago, when a particular editor arrived and took it upon himself to do massive reverts coupled with obstinate refusal to discuss - that wasn't an edit war. That was just a juvenile attack against the Wikipedia way of doing things. The instigator appears to have lost interest and moved on, so now the normal give & take of article development can resume.

As I read your two paragraphs of perspective above, I think I see a major obstacle to the productivity of our little discussion here. Perhaps we can remove the obstacle. In those two paragraphs, you appear to mesh concepts together, when I clearly see them as seperate: The VVAW is not the Anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s. The WSI is not the VVAW. The reason of "so that the communists could win," is not the reason Americans desired an end to the war. Such blurring of distinctions could only hinder productive discourse. Do you honestly believe every one of the millions of Americans that protested the war during that decade "had only one aim" of a communist victory in a foreign country?

"(Disputes) resolved once the different points of view (POV) were clarified and stated explicitly in the article" is one method, I agree. However, sometimes it is better to just leave all points of view (POV) out of the article, and just stick with facts -- especially when one or more of the points of view directly controverts the facts. In answer to your specific questions posed above:

Yes, the WSI mostly ignored America's motives, and instead focused on its methods and policies regarding the war. In fact, some of the participants were multi-tour veterans that supported Americas war effort, yet still attended the WSI. This does not mean that the VVAW didn't question the motives of the administration, for they most certainly did, but this was not what they were doing through the Winter Soldier Investigation.

Was the WSI exposing war crimes only to make the U.S. clean up its act? Of course not - the time had already passed for that. The ultimate goal was to speed the U.S. extraction from Vietnam. (Important note: I said "speed the extraction" because by that time the U.S. had already conceded to end its participation in Vietnam, having already withdrawn more than half the troops, and continuing to withdraw the rest through "vietnamization" of the conflict.) It was hoped that by raising public awareness of the brutality and destruction of that war, additional public pressure would be put on the government to act more expediently.

During my research this week, I stumbled upon this point of view regarding the issue of war crime hearings like the WSI and the issue you raised about questioning the American government motives for being in Vietnam. I must admit that I find myself in agreement with the majority of that point of view, even if I disagree with much of the other content at that website. I am of the opinion that the United States is strong enough in its morals and ideals to withstand a little soul-searching and truth regarding a somewhat darker period in its history. -Rob

Thank you for your polite and thoughtful remarks. Next chance I get, I'll read the pnews.org article. I'm interested in facts AND points of view, so I hope you don't mind if I lobby for some explanation of motives to be added to the article. I know more about the military history than about the internal politics of the various "anti-war" groups. I even met a man who bribed his way out of Communist Vietnam after the end of the war: Doan Van Toai, author of Le Gulag Vietnamien.

I did a bit of editing of the My Lai massacre article as well, since William Calley and his crew were the subject of a very interesting TC (training circular) on ethics the army put out in the 1980s. --user:Ed Poor (porous reed) 22:44, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

I see on another page your comment: "...I think I'll leave the tropical heat of this issue and return to the relatively cooler Middle East." I don't envy you your preference -- you are a braver man than I. Regarding adding "explanation of motives" to the article, of course I don't mind such additions. The article does appear, however, to contain quite a few explanations already. At just a cursory glance, I see the following elaborations on the motives and intents behind the WSI and the testimony given there (please do add more to the list, along with sources):

Motives, Intents and Objectives

• ...intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, while showing their direct relationship to American administration and war policies.

• The purpose of the Winter Soldier Investigation was to show that American policies in Vietnam lead to war crimes.

• In the words of one participant veteran, Donald Dzagulones, "We gathered not to sensationalize our service but to decry the travesty that was Lt. William Calley's trial for the My Lai Massacre. The U.S. had established the principle of culpability with the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis. Following those principles, we held that if Calley were responsible, so were his superiors up the chain of command — even to the president. The causes of My Lai and the brutality of the Vietnam War were rooted in the policies of our government as executed by our military commanders."

• The veterans giving testimony were also instructed not to reveal the specific names of others involved in war crimes. The goal of these hearings was not to indict individual soldiers, but instead to expose the frequency of criminal behavior and its relationship to U.S. war policy.

• "...we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out." -- John Kerry

• "A recurrent theme running throughout the testimony is that of institutionalized racist attitudes of the military in their training of the men who are sent to Vietnam--training which has indoctrinated them to think of all Vietnamese as "gooks" and subhuman. Further, the thrust of the allegations made in the 3-day testimony is that such actions were the consequence of reasonable and known policy adopted by our military commanders and that the knowledge of incidents resulting from these policies was widely shared." -- Senator Hatfield

• "We as a Nation must find the proper way to honestly confront the moral consequences of our actions, and to corporately turn ourselves from the thinking and the policy that has degraded our moral posture and to recognize that out of contrition and self-examination can come a genuine rebirth of the ideas we hold as a people." -- Senator Hatfield

• "In effect, the veterans were asking America to listen to its own much-touted morality, and to begin to practice what it had spent two centuries preaching. At the same time, though, the veterans were careful to point out that the war crimes the United States was committing in Vietnam did not stem from the misconduct of individual soldiers -- which the government had tried to establish by scapegoating Calley and a handful of his fellow officers -- but resulted rather "from conscious military policies... designed by the military brass, National Security Council, and major universities and corporate institutions, and passed down through the chain of command for conversion into Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) in the field." -- Gerald Nicosia

From the opening statement given prior to the WSI procedings, describing the intent and objectives of the event:

• We went to preserve the peace and our testimony will show that we have set all of Indochina aflame.
• We went to defend the Vietnamese people and our testimony will show that we are committing genocide against them.
• We went to fight for freedom and our testimony will show that we have turned Vietnam into a series of concentration camps.
• We went to guarantee the right of self-determination to the people of South Vietnam and our testimony will show that we are forcing a corrupt and dictatorial government upon them.
• We went to work toward the brotherhood of man and our testimony will show that our strategy and tactics are permeated with racism.
• We went to protect America and our testimony will show why our country is being torn apart by what we are doing in Vietnam...

• But we intend to tell more. We intend to tell who it was that gave us those orders; that created that policy; that set that standard of war bordering on full and final genocide.
• We intend to demonstrate that My Lai was no unusual occurrence, other than, perhaps, the number of victims killed all in one place, all at one time, all by one platoon of us.
• We intend to show that the policies of Americal Division which inevitably resulted in My Lai were the policies of other Army and Marine Divisions as well.
• We intend to show that war crimes in Vietnam did not start in March 1968, or in the village of Son My or with one Lt. William Calley.
• We intend to indict those really responsible for My Lai, for Vietnam, for attempted genocide ... You who hear or read our testimony will be able to conclude for yourselves who is responsible.
• We are here to bear witness not against America, but against those policy makers who are perverting America.

Page protection

Allegations have been made that plagiarised material has been entered into the article. I see nothing recent on this talk page about this, and now the page is locked. Please provide a source for the allegations. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:56, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for a source as well. It will be interesting to see if the sources warrant the trashing of several pages of content that resulted from anonymous user TDC's reverts. -Rob

Source for plagarism allegations: [1] TDC 23:19, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

I have reviewed your source material. You list four instances of alleged plagiarism, and further infer that more plagiarism may exist from the book, The New Soldier. I've checked each of the 4 suspect sentences and found similarities, not plagerism. One sentence appears to be a direct quote from author Nicosia, who is quoted elsewhere in the article, but missing a quotation attribution. That is easily fixed.

As for material from The New Soldier, you should be aware that over 90% of the content of that book also exists in the public domain as part of the Congressional Record. Transcripts of the testimony given by the veterans; transcripts of John Kerrys speech before the Senate Committee; etc., are all part of the Congressional Record, even though you will see the same material both in this article as well as in The New Soldier.'

When I review your edits and deletions, TDC, I see no fewer than 47 unrelated major changes - in fact, 2/3 of the articles content has mysteriously vanished. Spelling and typo corrections have been undone; formatting, grammar fixes, link maintenance, images have disappeared. Yet you offer up a mere four sentences of alleged plagiarism to support your wholesale slaughter of the rest of the article? -Rob

• Please note that the "wholesale deletion" problem with TDC is not new. You'll notice the discussion earlier on this page (unless TDC continues to try to bury it in an archive) here [2] concering TDCs previous attempts at sabotaging this article. Several months ago, he attempted to delete the very same material, spelling corrections, formatting, etc., by claiming it was all POV content. -Rob

Are there any other comments or additional info you'd like to provide, TDC? -Rob

Page protection, again

This page has been unprotected then protected again. Might I suggest you try for a rewrite on this article at Winter Soldier Investigation/temp? -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:05, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That would be a good idea, this way I could check to see if Anon is placing more cw material into the article. But I would have to insist that all current info be erased due to all the cw violations. TDC 16:44, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)