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The use of "massacre" for this incident is hardly NPOV, especially in the page title. -- Visviva 02:39, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Not every incident involving civilian casulaties is a massacre -- the US Army does not admit that there was any deliberate slaughter of civilians. -- Visviva 04:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, which is why it was there. --TJive 08:16, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
First, my brother is in the US army, so I hope that everybody understands this is not targeted against the US fighting forces in any way. I am only concerned about the principle of NPOV, when we choose terms, such as massacre and incident. A massacre is a massacre whether it was deliberate or not. If we compare with the Armenian genocide most people agree that it was a genocide and nothing else. However, the Turkish government denies that it was a genocide so according to the logic provided by Visviva, he should rename that article the Armenian incident.--Wiglaf 08:28, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, a massacre normally denotes deliberate mass killing. See, for example, the article Massacre, which currently states that the word "most commonly refers to individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing, especially of noncombatant civilians or other innocents, that would often qualify as war crimes or atrocities." It seems that the mass-ness, the deliberateness, and the general atrociousness of the No Gun Ri shootings are all legitimately disputed. Therefore, calling this a massacre, although probably correct, is not consistent with a neutral point of view.
For my part, I hope that this is not misunderstood as supporting the US fighting forces, or US imperial government, in any way. -- Visviva 07:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

First of all, when the US Army is accused of a war crime it won't just say: ok we did it. If you want a lesson in how some, even in Western countries, non-neutral or even worse military (from the party that is accused!!!) investigation committees work, you should probably read the article about Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. Why would the British government have had any interest in admitting that the soldiers killed innocent civilians ? Same thing here: I don't know if you realize how ridiculous it is: imagine I accuse you of killing somebody and the person who is investigating the murder is YOU !!! I find it just funny once in a while to read and compare different wikipedia articles. In every other language, the "tragedy" or "incident" is called by what it is: a massacre. You are probably thinking, oh my god, here we go with the Europeans again. But seriously, if you speak just one European language other than English, take a look at any article, that talks about a negative fact in US history or even in the present. I sincerely believe in one truth. If Soviets or Chinese kill 400 civilians, it's a massacre and everybody quotes 100 American historians and say it's a fact, which is of course right. But then again, if the US Army does so, it's an accident, a tragedy, an incident, and then some people quote the US Army, some historians, and everything is of course only an "allegation" and "supposedly", or "according to" somebody the US Army commited a war crime. And I also find it funny what a climate of fear has been created in the English wikipedia: "Oh no, please don't get me wrong, I support the troops, please don't call me unpatriotic, oh no please, don't get me wrong, I love the Army." This is an encyclopedia. We're here to write about historic facts, free from political influences. Do you think a German would dare to say "according to X the German Army killed French Resistance" ??? The Swedish call it a massacre, are they lying ? No, and they don't call it a lie because they hate America and neither do I, but I just don't get why they keep doing stuff like that in the English Wikipedia. -- Chilloutmo 14:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The South Koreans have investigated No Gun Ri as well, not just the U.S. army. The claim that the U.S. killed 400 Koreans at NGR is a joke -- this number is from a North Korean newspaper! I think there are a few differences between No Gun Ri and Bloody Sunday: 1) No bodies found at NGR, no body count -- even though there is a detailed aerial photo of the area taken just a few days later 2) The principle witness, the guy who "confessed" to mowing down hundreds of Koreans at point blank range with his water-cooled machine gun, was in fact a mechanic in Japan at the time. This false confession is the main reason that an otherwise obscure tragedy obtained international attention. Yet his exposure as a fraud didn't stop the AP from winning the Pulitzer Prize 3) The North Koreans had a deliberate policy of committing atrocities so as to panic Korean civilians into charging U.S. lines. What usually happens when people charge a military line in the middle of a war? Kauffner 06:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

So all this was of course an accident and the higher authorities never actually authorized such actions ? What about this document from the main article Korean war? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Shootingkoreancivilians.jpg I quote: "The army has requested that we strafe all civilian refugee parties that are noted approaching our positions. To date, we have complied with the army request in this respect. Our operations involving the strafing of civilians is sure to receive wide publicity and may cause embarrassment to the U.S. Air Force and to the U.S. government in its relation with the United Nations." Apparently it doesn't embarass many people to call these actions tragedys and accidents when performed by American soldiers. -- Chilloutmo 23:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

And I don't get why this article isn't called massacre if in the introduction it says: "Besides the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, its one of the worst acknowledged proven war crimes by U.S. ground troups in the 20th century." -- Chilloutmo 11:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

"Worse proven"? If it's according to number of people dead, the casualty figures for No Gun Ri vary too widely to make such a claim.
I don't see any connection between the memo you quote and No Gun Ri. The memo sounds like it could be a response to an unfortunate incident of some kind, but it doesn't actually accuse anyone of strafing improper targets. If you read the whole document, it's clear that the guy who wrote it wanted to change policy so as prevent incidents in which civilians might be strafed. How can such a document be considered scandalous? Kauffner 09:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Many major newspapers used the word "massacre"

We are talking not talking about POV. Underneath the thin vener of "neutrality" we find we are really talking about jingoism, it is also called Americanism, the religion that binds Americans together.[1]

I find it ironic that in the editor of the AP story, who fought for this articles very exsistence, explains how the editors and managers of the AP had the same fear of using the word "massacre" :

"Boccardi, Ahearn, and Wolman had made clear the word "massacre" would be censored from all AP copy - though dozens of newspapers using the story, including the New York Times, instinctively turned to that word to write their front-page headlines. Even when government officials, such as Secretary of Defense William Cohen, uttered the word in the context of "massacre" being an allegation, as opposed to a proven fact, the word was banished from the AP wire in connection with No Gun Ri. Soldiers who were there and who called it a massacre saw their quotes left unused. And when the AP ultimately won its Pulitzer, in the wire service's own story announcing its award, Boccardi, a member of the Pulitzer committee himself, personally sat at a news terminal and deleted every occurrence of the word used by the story's writer, who had taken it from the language of the Pulitzer committee's official press release.[2]"


I think based on the historical record, that the No Gun Ri incident should be renamed for what it truly is: a massacre. If the Pulitzer committee itself can call it a massacre, and dozens of news papers including the New York Times call it a massacre, can't we the editors of wikipedia refuse to shrink from the peity justifications of a few apologists? Travb 07:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


Another excellent point from someone's talk page:


On Wikipedia: Soviet troops shooting Polish army officers is a massacre. US troops shooting Korean civilians is an incident.

Which led me to post this on the Katyń massacre page:

I suggest we rename this page the "Katyn incident". If American troops can gun down unarmed civilans and it be called an "incident", to pacify American jingoists , I think it is only fair that we rename this massacre, involving military POWs an incident too. Travb 08:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

We call what happened at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 the "Kent State shootings." Some people call it the "Kent State massacre" but we decided against that on the WP page. Four died at Kent State but more at No Gun Ri (and at My Lai, which does use the term "massacre"). So probably the two latter events do merit "massacre" in the title. Badagnani 04:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Use of the word "massacre" by the press

In fairness, Lexis Nexis has 109 hits with the phrase :"No Gun Ri incident" and 79 hits with the phrase "No Gun Ri massacre".

New York Times

  • Pentagon Says It Can Find No Proof of Massacre; Washington seems not to be inclined, 49 years later, to open a major inquiry. By ELIZABETH BECKER. New York Times Sep 30, 1999. p. A16 (1 page)
  • U.S. to Revisit Accusations Of a Massacre By G.I.'s in '50 By ELIZABETH BECKER. New York Times Oct 1, 1999. p. A3 (1 page)
  • Distant Rumbles of a Korean War Massacre DAVID B. HAYDEN. New York Times Oct 3, 1999. p. WK16 (1 page)
  • REPORT DISCLOSING MASSACRE BY G.I.'S IS UNDER QUESTION; A 1950 EPISODE IN KOREA Credibility of Two Ex-Soldiers' Accounts in Prize-Winning Article Is Challenged Questions Raised About 2 Accounts of Korean Massacre ELIZABETH BECKER and FELICITY BARRINGER. New York Times May 13, 2000. p. A1 (2 pages) Reporters and Editors Defend A.P. Report on Korea Massacre FELICITY BARRINGER. New York Times May 14, 2000. p. 6 (1 page)
  • A Press Divided: Disputed Accounts of a Korean War Massacre; News Analysis The Press Divided: Arguments Over Prize-Winning Report of a Korean War Massacre. The Events; Did G.I.'s Kill Civilians At No Gun Ri? The Witness; Was Daily Credible? Was He Even There? The Rules; Amid Fear, Were There Orders to Kill? FELICITY BARRINGER. New York Times May 22, 2000. p. C1 (2 pages)
  • The Story Behind a Soldier's Story; The Story Behind a Soldier's Story of Involvement in a Korean War Massacre Recalling the Service; Memories of War Grow in Importance Improving on History; Recollections Draw Skepticism and Praise Defending a Confession; Veterans Roiled, A Time to Move On ,MICHAEL MOSS. New York Times May 31, 2000. p. A1 (2 pages)
  • U.S. and Korean Officials Meet To Discuss Wartime Massacre; Separate views of refugee killings at No Gun Ri in 1950. New York Times Dec 7, 2000. p. A8 (1 page)
  • South Koreans Grow Impatient With U.S. Stand on '50 Massacre SAMUEL LEN. New York Times Dec 8, 2000. p. A5 (1 page)
  • The Story Behind a Soldier's Story The New York Times May 31, 2000 People familiar with the Army's inquiry into the purported massacre say investigators have obtained documents...

Sun-Sentinel

  • KOREA'S NO GUN RI: MASSACRE OR MYTH?, Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL), November 17, 2002

Charleston Gazette

  • Massacre in Korea Persistence uncovers the truth about a slaughter of civilians in wartime, Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), October 07, 2001, Sunday, Life; Pg. P3F, 951 words, Rusty Marks

Federal News Service

  • EVENT: NEWS CONFERENCE - NO GUN RI MASSACRE VICTIMS AND THEIR ATTORNEYS TIME: 12:00 noon , FNS DAYBOOK, December 19, 2000 , GENERAL NEWS EVENTS , 89 words, National Press Club, 14th and F Street NW, Washington, DC -- December 19, 2000
  • EVENT: NEWS CONFERENCE - NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHESTIME November 12, 1999 National Council of Churches presents a news conference with four survivors of the alleged No Gun Ri massacre of 400 South Korean civilians by U.S. military personnel during the Korean War...

Congressional Schedules

  • No Gun Ri Massacre victims and their attorneys - hold a news conference to denounce U.S. Army negotiators authorized to issue a final report on the massacre after a meeting December 20 with Korean government officials., Congressional Schedules, December 19, 2000, 12 noon, National Press Club, 14th and F Street NW, Washington, DC

U.S. Newswire

  • Victims of the Massacre Question Good Faith of U.S. Army Negotiators, U.S. Newswire, December 15, 2000, Friday, ASSIGNMENT DESK, DAYBOOK EDITOR
  • Press Conference Dec. 10 to Detail New Revelations on U.S. Massacres During Korean War, U.S. Newswire, December 8, 1999
  • No Gun Ri Survivors to Hold Press Conference March 6 U.S. Newswire March 3, 2000 ...A press conference will be held Monday, March 6, at 11 a.m. in the Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C., in connection with the No Gun Ri massacre.

The Bulletin's Frontrunner

  • Pentagon Report Attributes No Gun Ri Massacre To Soldiers' Panic., The Bulletin's Frontrunner, December 6, 2000

The Commercial Appeal

  • PENTAGON SAYS NO GUN RI MASSACRE RESULT OF PANIC, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), December 6, 2000, WEDNESDAY,, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A4

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  • GIS PANICKED, FIRED INTO CROWD OF REFUGEES, PENTAGON REPORT SAYS St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri) December 8, 2000 "IN THE NEWS: NO GUN RI MASSACRE"

United Press International

  • No Gun Ri massacre blamed on panic, United Press International, December 6, 2000, Wednesday, GENERAL NEWS, 327 words, WASHINGTON, Dec. 5

Washington Post

  • No Gun Ri Massacre Blamed on Panic; Korean War Probe Finds No Proof of U.S. Orders to Shoot, The Washington Post, December 6, 2000, Wednesday, Final Edition, A SECTION; Pg. A01, 1094 words, Thomas E. Ricks , Washington Post Staff Writer
  • SHOOT THEM ALL; Half a century after the Korean War, members of the 7th Cavalry Regiment had hoped for recognition; instead they are having to account for what happened at No Gun Ri The Washington Post February 6, 2000 ...News of a massacre of civilians by U.S. troops at No Gun Ri, first reported by the Associated Press last fall...
  • Unhealed Wounds of Korean War; Survivors of Incident Meet With U.S. Vets The Washington Post November 11, 1999 Still bearing disfiguring wounds, three survivors of an alleged massacre of Korean refugees by American troops at No Gun Ri, South Korea...

The Guardian (London)

  • Bullied Koreans rage at US base: Villages in the South want to be rid of American troops whose presence has brought years of silent misery The Guardian (London) November 13, 2000 ...Last year, Koreans were horrified to learn of the No Gun Ri massacre, in which hundreds of civilian were reportedly gunned down by US troops during the Korean war. More recently, the US forces headquarters in Seoul was forced to apologise after admitting that it has been dumping formaldehyde into the Han river.
  • Korean war killing inquiry The Guardian (London) October 30, 1999 US investigators yesterday visited the scene of an alleged massacre of 400 South Korean civilians by American soldiers during the Korean war.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

  • Korean vet disputes No Gun Ri claims Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida) July 26, 2000 The AP reported that 50 years ago today, soldiers from McKown's regiment began a three-day massacre of about 300 South Korean refugees near the village of No Gun Ri. According to the story, most of the victims were women and children, who were herded under a bridge and machine-gunned.

International Herald Tribune

  • Anti-U.S. Sentiments Rise in Seoul ; 'Special Drama' Depicts American Soldiers Taking Part in Massacre, International Herald Tribune (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France), June 9, 2000, Friday, News; Pg. 6, 810 words, By Don Kirk; International Herald Tribune, SEOUL

Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

  • Keep No Gun Ri probe top priority Deseret News (Salt Lake City) June 12, 2000 ...Once that is done procedures need to be put in place to assure that there will be no more My Lai or No Gun Ri massacres.

Facts on File World News Digest

  • Media:Korean War Massacre Report Challenged, Facts on File World News Digest, May 13, 2000, Pg. 340C1

Los Angeles Times

  • Army extends inquiry into alleged No Gun Ri massacre; Some of the witnesses to reported atrocity may be unreliable, officials say, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin), May 13, 2000 Saturday, FINAL EDITION, Pg. 05A, 501 words, Los Angeles Times

Seattle Times

  • 'Witnesses' may not have been at alleged No Gun Ri massacre Investigators question men's accounts, The Seattle Times, May 13, 2000, Saturday, FINAL EDITION, NEWS;, Pg. A8, 682 words, Seattle Times news services
  • AROUND THE WORLD The Seattle Times October 17, 1999 About 1,000 students took part in the protest against the so-called No Gun Ri massacre...

Too International Herald Tribune

  • The Unsung Heroes Deserve to Be Remembered, Too International Herald Tribune (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) February 8, 2000...The North Koreans had infiltrated American positions with refugees so many times that orders were given that all should be turned back. That this caused the death of many innocent people was revealed in September by The Associated Press in its report on the No Gun Ri massacre.

The Washington Times

  • No Gun Ri revisited The Washington Times January 19, 2000 The living relatives and survivors of the No Gun Ri massacre are seeking compensation for their pain and suffering: $100,000 per victim.
  • The 'word' that transforms comes after God's silence The Washington Times December 06, 1999...I recently participated in a service of "recognition and remembrance" between South Koreans who survived the No Gun Ri massacre and American Korean War veterans...

The Christian Century

  • Endings and beginnings; results of the 1999 National Council of Churches conference The Christian Century December 1, 1999 The service "of reconciliation and remembrance" at the Old Stone Presbyterian Church brought together U.S. Korean War veterans and Korean survivors of the July 1950 No Gun Ri massacre in which hundreds of fleeing refugees were killed by U.S. troops.

Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio)

  • THE FALLOUT FROM NO GUN RI;SHOULD THE U.S.;APOLOGIZE FOR KOREAN WAR CASUALTIES? Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) November 21, 1999 Sunday On Sept. 30, the Associated Press released a well-documented report of the massacre of approximately 400 women, children and elderly by U.S. troops...

The Toronto Star

  • FINDING JOE WALL'S DOG TAGS AT DMZ The Toronto Star November 14, 1999 The story came to world attention on Sept. 30, after several ex-GIs confirmed survivors' stories of the massacre of 100-300 civilians under a railway bridge 160 km southeast of Seoul.

The New Republic

  • Wounded The New Republic OCTOBER 25, 1999 Horrible as it appears to have been, the No Gun Ri massacre does not invalidate the U.N.-sanctioned American effort to roll back a North Korean invasion...

The Australian

  • Pentagon dissects No Gun Ri The Australian October 22, 1999 THE US has started an investigation into the No Gun Ri massacre...

THE BALTIMORE SUN

  • THE BALTIMORE SUN October 17, 1999 ...About 1,000 students took part in the protest against the so-called No Gun Ri massacre'

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  • SOUTH KOREANS PROTEST REPORTS OF U.S. MASSACRE, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), October 17, 1999

Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)

  • Today's News Charleston Gazette (West Virginia) October 17, 1999 About 1,000 students took part in the protest against the No Gun Ri massacre...

Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL)

  • WORLD BRIEFING Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL) October 17, 1999 About 1,000 students took part in the protest against the so-called No Gun Ri massacre...

IPS-Inter Press Service

  • KOREA-RIGHTS: NO GUN RI MASSACRE CONDEMNED AT SEOUL NGO MEET, IPS-Inter Press Service, October 12, 1999

Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)

  • NATIONAL WORLD BRIEFS Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) October 17, 1999 About 1,000 students took part in the protest against the so-called No Gun Ri massacre...

The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

  • WAR BEGETS HORROR' The Record (Bergen County, NJ) October 15, 1999 Record Staff Writer Charles Yoo writes of the so-called"No Gun Ri massacre" even though an official inquiry has just begun

Hartford Courant (Connecticut)

  • FRIENDSHIP, BORN OF WAR, ENDURES Hartford Courant (Connecticut) October 11, 1999 Ro is concerned that the reports of a massacre at No Gun Ri may leave people with the wrong impression...
  • KILLING OF CIVILIANS DURING WAR IS AN OUTRAGE Hartford Courant (Connecticut) October 8, 1999 ...The massacre of civilians is an outrage and certainly should be a crime.

Newsweek

  • 'I've Tried to Repent' Newsweek October 11, 1999 ...South Korean villagers from the town of No Gun Ri have alleged for years that on July 26, 1950, early in the Korean War, American soldiers massacred hundreds of civilians in their hamlet...
  • 'I Still Hear Screams' Newsweek October 11, 1999, Now a 62-year-old farmer from Joo Gong Ri, Chung Goo Ho is one of about 20 people who lived through the massacre...

The New York Post

  • THE KOREAN MASSACRE, The New York Post, October 7, 1999

Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada)

  • PROBES OF NO GUN RI MASSACRE EASE THE SUFFERING OF SURVIVORS, Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada), October 5, 1999

Detroit Free Press

  • FOR ONE MICHIGANDER, THE NIGHTMARE IS BACK, Detroit Free Press, SEPTEMBER 30, 1999 Within a few days of the massacre, Flint said he and two other U.S. soldiers were captured and imprisoned by North Korean soldiers. He said they escaped and eventually found friendly troops.

The White House Bulletin

Google has 400 hits for "No Gun Ri Massacre" and 363 for "No Gun Ri Incident" The use of "Incident" to describe this seems like the euphemistic reference to the Civil War or the world wars as "The recent unpleasantness."Edison 14:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Requested move to "massacre"

No Gun Ri incident → No Gun Ri massacre - "incident" is a weasel description of the massacre, and plenty of evidence has been produced showing that the press now refers to it as a bona fide massacre. --James S. 00:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Voting

Add *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''' followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with --~~~~
  • Support as nominator --James S. 00:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The term "massacre" betrays a particular POV for an incident in which there is a serious dispute as to what happened and in what context, as the article and sources describe. This is similar to the case of the Kent State shootings, which are commonly (perhaps more often) referred to as the "Kent State massacre", and as opposed to cases of indisputable and outright slaughter, per My Lai massacre and Katyn massacre. There is nothing "apologist" about this position; it is simply necessitated by Wikipedia's own policies, which are neither the guidelines of the press, nor of Google searches. --TJive 02:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
"which are neither the guidelines of the press" Ummm...TJive, did you happen to miss the very, very long listing of newspaper headlines above, which call this a massacre?
Wikipedia's own policies Please tell me where the policy is located not allowing the killing of unarmed civilians to be called a massacre?
Google: "No Gun Ri massacre" 551 hits, "No Gun Ri incident" 426 hits. All three of your reasons are found to be falacious with minimal research.
If your reasoning is not "apologist" I don't know what the definition is. Travb 03:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The slightest thought attended to my remarks might show that I was arguing against the very premise of your "evidence", not setting you up for a vain rhetorical sweep. --TJive 06:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Since you disregard anything which does not support your own view, including Google searches and newspaper reports, I still await the "Wikipedia's policies" which you claim support your view.
Further, since you are in the minority here in regards to the use of the word "incident", I would suggest refraining from revert wars until the voting is over.Travb 08:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The most obvious policy supporting an NPOV term is WP:NPOV.--Visviva 09:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Since you disregard anything.... I'm sorry. I do not know you, but you seem to behave as if you know me. Why is this? --TJive 06:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

*Support Please read the way that the AP attempted to bury this story, and refused to use the word "massacre" although most other major papers picked up the word. One wikipedia user said it best: On Wikipedia: Soviet troops shooting Polish army officers is a massacre. US troops shooting Korean civilians is an incident. Travb 03:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for not being swayed in the least by the musings of a Stalinist who was involved in the initial effort to politicize this event--yes, I am quite aware of the quote and who uttered it.
Nor, might I add, am I intimidated in the slightest by the (typically anonymous) Chinese nationalist troll and vandal (who I'm sure will sign this farce without the slightest hesitation should he deign to look at the talk pages amidst his mass reverting) who has taken upon himself to carry this mantle further. --TJive 06:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The above absurdly irrelevant unsubstantiated personal attacks/blanket statments add nothing to the discussion at hand and only make your position weaker.Travb 08:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support In Korea, civilians were massacred, and we have written orders from that period regarding the orders to kill civilians. Compare this to Katyn, which at the time was denied in the West, in which officers were allegedly killed, and for which less evidence exists. Yet Katyn is called a massacre and No Gun Ri an "incident". It is clear what this is - if there is clear documentation and testimony that Americans kill civilians, that is an incident. If there is some evidence that a country killed officers, a country that was an ally so the US party line was it didn't happen, then became an enemy, after which the killings suddenly went from myth to indisputable fact, in that case it is called a massacre. Ruy Lopez 17:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I would have requested of Travb an inquiry as to the views of Ruy regarding Katyn were I not so certain he would oblige us in any case. And so we come full circle. --TJive 23:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, I would happily support moving other disputed "massacre" articles to more NPOV titles. Please note that I also still oppose this confrontational and non-wiki approach to the issue. At any rate, has anyone posted this on Current Polls, RfC or elsewhere? -- Visviva 09:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per wikipedia:naming conventions (common names): no escaping POV for naming armed conflicts, so failing any other indication, just use the most common, in this case I get 1.180 Google hits for "No Gun Ri incident", English pages, excluding Wikipedia. With the same parameters I get 955 for "No Gun Ri massacre" - the difference is only some 200 hits, I don't care: as there's no apparent other way to get out of this, just use the most common. I'm sure that for some other conflicts it will be "massacre", which might please some people more, and some other people less. --Francis Schonken 17:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Better would be putting under 'No Gun Ri'. -R. S. Shaw 22:29, 16 January 2006 (UT

Discussion

Add any additional comments
  • Oppose voting. I believe that we are good intelligent editors who can come to a reasoned agreement. I agree that "incident" is not satisfactory, but I don't find "massacre" to be a very satisfactory term either. We might do well to consider other options besides these two... for example, what about No Gun Ri shootings? -- Visviva 02:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The American media has either used the word "massacre" or "incident".Travb 03:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes there are good reasons to avoid common usage, for example see Liancourt Rocks.-- Visviva 09:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Excellent point. If it would stop the revert war, I would support it.Travb 14:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Another great point....would Tjive (right) and those on the left support this? I would.Travb 14:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I would be willing to agree to this as a compromise. Ruy Lopez 17:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Done. --James S. 23:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts James S.. I applaud your work.Travb 03:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Might someone explain to me how it was decided that this was a "consensus" move? I do not resist it [the material was only forked off to expand the content--length apparently not being a concern here] but the question was posed and fulfilled within a day and without any substantial discussion or a chance for disagreement.

Inserting the same phraseology within the article is not qualitatively different from doing so in the title. This can readily be avoided in such a fashion as I have attempted. --TJive 07:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

To avoid any revert wars and hard feelings, I personally wish that James S. would have waited for your approval first.Travb 10:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought everyone had weighed in. I put the hot-button phrases back in, but only because they are the redirect targets. I also renamed the section heading with "killings" which seems to be a decent compromise. Is everything okay now? --James S. 10:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think "killings" is unreasonable but I find it leaves a problematic impression for the reader in this context, as you would expect in the case of i.e. a serial murderer--namely systematic, repeated, deliberate infliction of death which is not even accurate in the harshest depiction of this particular incident, which pertains to a limited time frame and geographic approximation. It is quite common in wars to list casualties in such (when speaking in sum) as "deaths", which applies in any and every case of what happened in No Gun Ri and how, so I believe "killings" should be avoided where possible. --TJive 18:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
To be clear, even the most innocuous of accidents in war (not to say this is) could literally be described as a "killing", but this is not the extent of what is implied. --TJive 18:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
To this end, I changed the title of the section but left alone the original (pre-merge) phrasing of the passage itself. I actually find the naming of this incident to be redundant and useless. --TJive 18:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I put it back to "killings" -- because civilian "deaths" happen all the time. Civilian "killings", even in war, are theoretically supposed to be avoided. Sadly that seems to be lower on the priority list than it should be. Also, I put the quote said to be lacking context in. If it needs context, the proper solution is to add the context, right? --James S. 02:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  • "No Gun Ri incident" and "No Gun Ri massacre" both give you 1680 Google hits, whereas plain old "No Gun Ri" gives you 29,100 hits. I don't think people are discussing this village for a reason other than this incident. So there is a clear winner. "No Gun Ri" -- no modifier -- is common usage by an overwhelming 17-1 margin. Kauffner (talk) 15:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction: The crux of the matter

The article appears to contradict itself.
  1. "The Army has requested that we strafe all civilian refugee parties that are noted approaching our positions. To date, we have complied with the Army request in this respect." (1950)
  2. "There were no orders to fire on civilians" (2001)

--James S. 05:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

TJive: Please do not remove the contradict tag without resolving the contradiction. Thank you. --James S. 11:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This is not a contradiction. The document in question is the summary recollection of a USAF Colonel for which there was never found a source order (or any similar)--not either in the press or official investigation. In any case the second is a claim specifically attributable to the two governments, whether they are lying or not, so any possible "contradiction" is on their part, not the article itself, which does not stake a claim (nor should it). --TJive 17:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Why do you think that the Colonel isn't a source himself? Primary sources are sources for which no additional sources can be found; that's what makes them primary. This is surreal. --James S. 20:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, the document cited is quite clear on why there are requests to strafe refugee groups, North Korean infiltration, and that any if request to strafe these groups should be made, there should be a reasonable belief that NK infiltrators are using them as cover. If anything, the document lends credence to the belief that the 7th Cav was taking fire from elements within the refugee group. DTC 17:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
That "belief" doesn't even have a secondary source, from what I can tell; it is just the assumption of a military historian. --James S. 20:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
What in God's name are you talking about? Bateman goes into great detail about this. DTC 20:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I admit I have not read Bateman's book. What is his evidence for believing that the NK infiltrators were using civilians as cover? --James S. 20:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Bateman's interviewed individuals involved who believed that infiltrators had been in the refugee group. He makes several cases that they were, based on numerous past examples of the North Koreans using this tactic, and also raises the possibility that the 7th Cav members mistook the source of the fire they were taking. Also according to the document you continue to insert in the article:

ALCON: Bateman here: Again, I apologize for not having yet learned how to "sign" my name. Search elsewhere on this page and you can see all you like about how to contact and verify me. OK, on to the point. Turner memo is accurate, and I do *not* dispute it in any way. I merely point out that it's not relevent to No Gun Ri, specifically. It *is* relevent to the larger question of "were there orders" (for USAF in this case, but you can expand that), but that's not one that I dispute at all. So that all understand, I will restate again my position. At some points, there *were* orders to shoot at civilians. But none of these orders reached 2-7 CAV prior to No Gun Ri, and accordingly, for the narrow matter of NGR, are superflorous. Follow? I believe that US troops committed what I consider obscenities. Just not at NGR. That was, in my eyes, a stomach-turning tragedy of war, but not an atrocity. SIGNED: Robert L. Bateman. (The four tilde thing doesn't seem to be working for me, but I'll keep trying.) --RobertBateman 18:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

2.a.(2) U.S. soldiers were legitimately fearful of the possible infiltration of North Korean soldiers who routinely entered American lines in groups disguised as civilians in refugee columns and then attacked American positions from the rear. DTC 21:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. However, this proves the point that there were orders to fire on civillians. --James S. 22:32, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

No, from the report:

2.e.(2) All the veterans interviewed by the U.S. Army who fired at refugees stated that they did not receive any order to fire. Some other veterans, however, stated that they believed that such an order must have been given. While a comprehensive search of records and these veterans’ interviews did not disclose any evidence of the issuance of such an order, some other veterans, who themselves did not fire at refugees, assumed that there must have been an order to fire on refugees because they observed small arms, machine guns, mortar and artillery fire at refugees.
2.e.(3) The message log of the 8th Cavalry Regiment contains an entry of message from a regimental liaison officer on 24 July 1950 about guidelines on shooting refugees to prevent them passing through US front lines. But, whether an order to fire was made could not be determined because records of other regiments do not show such guidelines and thus discrepancy among interview accounts exists. DTC 22:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
So, we have an authenticated report that the Army requested strafing civilians and the Air Force was complying, and we have a documented guideline to shoot refugees local to the regiment but not other regiments, but we can't find anyone who admits to giving an actual order to fire. Ignorance is strength. --James S. 04:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
What we have is a report that the Army was requesting air support when refugee groups were infiltrated with DPKR troops. DTC 04:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I understand that, and the difficult ethical implications. I think it just says something about so-called courage in the military. Everyone involved agreed, and many still agree that there was a legitimate reason to fire on civilians because they were being used as cover. I question whether that is in fact legitimate under the traditional laws of war. But far more I question those involved who don't have the common sense of basic decency and backbone to take responsibility for the "request" and "guideline" involved. --James S. 05:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
“So called courage”; where exactly are you trying to take this debate? Not everyone does agree that there was a legitimate reason. It breaks into several categories: there were in fact DPKR infiltrators in the refugee group, it was only believed that DPKR infiltrators in the refugee group, the refugee group was misidentified as the source of DPKR incoming fire. It would appear that your lack of knowledge about standard rules of engagement as well as a poor understanding of the history of the Korean War are feeding your misconceptions.
The issue of orders being given, has also been covered: there is no evidence that orders had been given to fire upon the refugee group in this instance. An strafing runs made by USAF/USN/USMC close air support could not have been asked for by the 7th cav who were at the scene, as there were no ways to communicate with air assets. That would mean that no close air support was used on the refugees, or that an order for its use came from Bt HQ, and there is no record of this. 15:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)DTC

(back left) When is it appropriate to fire on civilians? How much evidence of infiltrators is sufficient to start shooting at refugees?

If we let soldiers break the law just for their safety, then what's left to keep them from deserting altogether? Where do you draw the line? When they signed up (or were drafted, excuse me) they knew that their safety would be compromised by their participation in the military. If we "request" that they follow a "guideline" to attack innocents just because they have suspicion of infiltration, then there remains no moral authority for them to respect any regulations, laws, or treaties.

As for "no record of orders," we have the record of the "request" and the record of the "guideline." I find the fact that nobody was willing to own up to those clearly documented orders and call them what they were to be pathetic, shameful, and a black mark on the U.S. military. Trying to downplay the significance is merely complicity with the weasels. --James S. 18:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Just the facts please, James, leave all undocumented speculation out of the article. Not only did anyone own up to ordering the refugee’s being fired on, but there is no record of it. I realize you might not understand the level of documentation that takes place in the armed forces, but an instance like this would have had several possible sources to verify if there had been an order to fire on the refugees. An after incident report, from the company Cmdr, an after incident report from the Bt Cmdr, a flight log from the pilot as well as the after incident report from the pilot and his Cmdr. None of these have been found, and I realize that in a time of hectic combat perhaps one or two of the parties may have not filed a report, but the likelihood that no one did is very low. The chance of the pilot not filing is almost nonexistent because the gun camera would have recorded everything. So, no, in this instance there is no record of an order givento fire on the refugees.
As far as the legality of any such action, that is tricky. I am not familiar with the rules of engagement as laid down in 1950, but had the members of the 7th cav who fired on the refugees had a reasonable belief that they were taking fire from infiltrators who were using the refugees as cover, they were most likely protected by law as well as by the UCMOJ and their rules of engagement, for you to believe otherwise shows your ignorance of the regulations that cover them. I am not here to “downplay the significance” or align myself with the “weasels”, just to write a fair and balanced article. You want to turn this into an indictment of war crimes against the Army and the “cowards” in it, I just don’t want a half assed smear comprised of poorly investigated emotional accounts like the AP did.

A new document has emerged per http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-No-Gun-Ri-Letter-LH1.html "If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot, wrote Ambassador John J. Muccio, in his message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk. The letter reported on decisions made at a high-level meeting in South Korea on July 25, 1950, the night before the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri." "With this additional piece of evidence, the Pentagon report's interpretation (of No Gun Ri) becomes difficult to sustain, Conway-Lanz argues in his book, Collateral Damage, published this spring by Routledge." "The Army report's own list of sources for the 1999-2001 investigation shows its researchers reviewed the microfilm containing the Muccio letter. But the 300-page report did not mention it." "Survivors said U.S. soldiers first forced them from nearby villages on July 25, 1950, and then stopped them in front of U.S. lines the next day, when they were attacked without warning by aircraft as hundreds sat atop a railroad embankment. Troops of the 7th Cavalry followed with ground fire as survivors took shelter under a railroad bridge." Sounds a lot like a massacre. Edison 14:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Tiananmen Square "events"

From our benighted [mostly] anon. [3] --TJive 05:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

What a surprise. He tried to delete it. --TJive 04:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Did I move the article to "Tiananmen Square Anti-government attacks"? No. Unlike you, I am at least capable of rationally analysing the actions of the Chinese government. I don't go around and post OR POV pro-American/anti-Cuban rubbish and delete factual evidence that embarass your government.

spelling of Korean place names

its not spelt No Gun Ri it should be Nogeun Ri or Nogeunri Luckyj 13:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

World War II experiences

I just want to drop a note here to remind myself to look up the incidents in WWII in which Japanese soldiers advanced on American positions using civilian refugees as shields. This would have been within the experience or shared knowledge of the senior officers and NCOs deployed in Korea. Assuredly, this would have an impact on their decision-making. I need to find the book in which that was noted so I can post it. --Habap 17:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter edits

You requested I bring the dispute to this page. Briefly:

There is not an over-emphasis on Bateman. As of now there are three main sources of information: the AP writers, Bateman, and the official report. You are free to bring in new accounts (which was not in contention here) but not at the expense of simply removing other arguments.

As for precedence, the subject (and authors) could be introduced better, but there is no reason for the memorandum to come at the top as its contents are not undisputed. Furthermore, the paragraph which I deleted does not provide any information which the article already contains. In fact it misinforms the reader by providing bare snippets of information out of context. --TJive 09:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yours is an inaccurate assessment: it is The Conclusion of the joint report. All sides should be reported accurately. You are substituting your POV for the wording in the joint report. Why is that?

It is your opinion that there is not an over emphasis on Bateman, and it is mine that it is.

  • 1. all the Bateman material should be in one place. At the moment, it is all over the article. Why is that?
  • 2. The IG report is more important to the narrative than critical comments, which is what Bateman's are.
  • 3. Where is the recent Conway-Lanz research, that turns this article on its head?

Bateman book

Robert Bateman, a former member of the 7th Cavalry Regiment and an academic historian at West Point, wrote No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, which is critical of the AP report and calls into question both evidence presented to the reporters as well as their interpretation of the findings.

The following point about Daily was first raised and reported by the US News & World Report, based on its own research. Is this an echo chamber? What is the point of repeating it here? Daily, while having falsely corroborated the AP story and providing colorful descriptions of the incident, was claimed by the AP to not be central to the case and merely one witness of sixty interviewed; he was not mentioned in the AP report until the 56th paragraph. Bateman asserts that not only did the AP reporters refuse to recognize the flaws in his testimony, at Bateman's prodding before its release, but that Daily was more important than they suggested. Bateman believes that Daily, as a prominent member of the 7th Cavalry regimental association, had strong influence over other witnesses and that by virtue of his claims he "contaminated" the views and recollections of other veterans. The following does not belong in an encyclopedic article. It is POV and a stretched one at that. Leaning upon academic research into memory modification, such as the works of psychiatrist Elizabeth Loftus, Bateman related the plasticity of memory and susceptibility of some "memories" to outside suggestions from influential figures such as Daily, who had written two books on the history of the unit. Is the next few sentences the POV of the Wiki editor who inserted this, or is it something factual someone said, and if it is the latter, why is not properly cited? Another AP witness inadvertently demonstrated Bateman's point in a front-page New York Times article.Did that NYT article happen to have a date? Whatever happened to verifiability? Veteran Eugene Hesselman denied the charge that Daily was not at No Gun Ri when confronted; "I know that Daily was there. I know that. I know that." Where is Bateman's proof of the following? He clearly has access to the records. This is not a matter for argument. It is a straight up fact. Did Bateman prove the point or didn't he? Why are the Wiki editors pushing this viewpoint and not treating views they like with the skepticism due all claims?Bateman is critical of Hesselman and Pfc. Delos Flint, for their recollections, and suggests they were not present at No Gun Ri.

  • suggests = weasel word of the day for POV pushers.

Bateman offers no original research, just his POV. This article needs to stick to facts and quit pushing POV. Skywriter 11:18, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Through the coures of his investigation, Batemann found records that Flint and Hesselman had been wounded and evacuated on the 24th of July, before the incident at No Gun Ri, this along with Edward Daily misreprestning himself knocks three of the biggest eyewitness legs out of the AP's story. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Bob Bateman corrects the record

You misrepresent the contributions of military writer Joseph L. Galloway, formerly of US News, and most recently retired from Knight-Ridder, and the contributions of stripes.com. You wrongly attribute their research to Bateman who was not the first to reveal the discrepancies in service of the three. Bateman merely copied what Galloway and stripes.com revealed. Also, you and Bateman got one of the other facts wrong concerning when one of the two soldiers left the No Gun Ri area, links which I will provide. Skywriter 19:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

FROM ROBERT BATEMAN: Uh, well, wow. I just learned about this whole wikipedia thing and, frankly, you all impress me, with your passion if not entirely with your knowledge. (Which, by the way, is not intended as an insult.) In this case, Skywriter, if you had read my book you would know that I was Joe Galloway's source for his original articles. I should explain, because I honestly don't expect you to have to buy my book, nor necessarily take my assertion at face value.

Long story short: Joe is one of my best friends, and indeed, we were housemates here in DC just two years after my book came out. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to know why/how that link exists. Joe (and LTG Moore) wrote the book We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, a book in which my unit (the one I commanded in decades later) figures prominantly. OK, well through that, while I was still a young captain and commanding a company in that unit (2nd Bn, 7th Cav), Joe and I became friends. Several years later, when I started my research into NGR, (initially done just to figure out *why* it happened, having no idea at the time that I would end up revising *what* happened) and stumbled on the fact that Daily had to be faking, I passed the archival material (photocopies anyway) from my own research to Joe and told him my suspicions. He ran with it in the articles you refer to. I also sent some of the same material to another journalist friend of mine, one who had written a chapter on the military-media relationship in my first book, Digital War, A View from the Front Lines, a guy named Ed Offley. Ed was at, you guessed it, Stripes.com at the time.

So, actually you see, you've gotten it backwards. It was not me copying Ed and Joe, it was the other way around.

I will try to clear some things up here for all of you now, so that nobody is confused, at least about what *my* positions are, since ya'll have been talking *about* me:

A. I believe people were killed at NGR. Nobody disputes that. I think that "NGR Killing" is just fine as a title. I used "Incident" in my book, but could have used "killing" if I'd thought of it. It is accurate, if a tad inflamatory.

B. I believe that (and documented in my book) in dozens of incidents, ranging from two weeks before to four weeks after, literally thousands of South Korean civilians were killed by US forces both on the ground and from the air. I believe that some of the memories of these incidents may have been combined when the oral history of NGR was assembled over the years. This means that nobody has to be "lying" per se, and that everyone's "truth" can be granted.

C. I believe that these acts were, initially, uncoordinated and generally accidental and/or the result of panic. Later acts (such as those which occurred following the 25 July meeting at EUSOK, which Muccio writes of) could be construed as more deliberate, but are irrelevant to events on the ground in a shattered unit on the 26th of July at NGR.

D. I wrote out the text of the same material cited recently by the diplomatic historian...in my 2002 book. It's not "news" that those orders went out, or even new. What is new is that previously we didn't know that *Muccio* knew of the orders that early. The original meeting notes from the EUSOK meeting (which are identical to the information contained in Muccio's letter to Rusk) are cited in my book, complete w/ footnoted reference.

E. As an academic historian, I believe in *reproducibility* of research, which is why 100% of my research is footnoted in standard academic format showing what archival sources I am using for each point of evidence, and why I donated the transcripts of my interviews with veterans to the archives at West Point. I really wish AP would release their material to an archive somewhere, but they continue to refuse to do so, contending (in effect) that "trust us, we're the AP" is sufficient. I don't like that, but there's nothing you or I or anyone else can do to get the AP to release the full context and transcripts of all of their interviews.

F. I don't consider myself an "apologist", particularly since in my book I document the deaths of so many thousands of civilians at the hands of US forces. My sole point was that while hundreds of people from the three villages involved may have died during the war, particularly in the last weeks of July 1950, they didn't all die at NGR in a mass killing of 400 people all at once. It's entirely possible that, over the next two-six week, all those people were killed, but the evidence (forensic, photographic, and historical documentary as well as testimony) is that they weren't killed at NGR on 26-29 July 1950. That's different.

I think that about covers it. If anyone would like to contact me I can be reached at Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com . I guess I'll pop in here now and again to see what you're all up to, but I don't plan on getting involved in your "edit-war," though I am willing to help answer any questions which might help all of you resolve this.

With regards, 

            Bob Bateman

The above comment was added by * (cur) (last) 14:18, June 19, 2006 RobertBateman


Thanks for dropping by, Bob. You've cleared up *a lot* because it seems that folks here have misrepresented your findings, while adding their own interpretations of what they think you have written. Thanks especially for the clarification on the Muccio chronology, and for correcting me on Joe Galloway's role. Thanks also for summarizing your findings. This Wikipedia article has tended to play up Daily's role in an attempt to minimize the killing of civilians, and that is the point at which I depart from some others. That Daily lied does not, I believe, take away from the story as you present it here, or that the AP reporters wrote.

Perhaps AP will make its research available some day soon. I support your request for that. Perhaps they believe it continues to be a competitive story, and that spilling their raw research would make "their" story less their own. I don't know what your disagreements are with the AP, or they with you. From what you have written here, I suspect more agreement than not. Sahr Cinway-Lanz's book is due out next month. Time will tell if he has more to add to the basic story, particularly with regard to policy. Your very helpful summary here has clarified your position and your contributions, and I am sorry for being overly critical on this page. (I should have read your book rather than trust that your research was faithfully represented in this article, which it apparently was not.) I look forward to reading your book. Best wishes, Skywriter 21:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

FROM BATEMAN: Skywriter, great, that'll be another $1.73 in my kids college education funds! (Nobody writes serious academic history and expects to actually make money at it.) But as for different people's interpretations of my work, I'm not sure which ones you're talking about. Some points:

Daily did, indeed, play a large part in my book. In fact, so large that I ended up splitting it into two halves. The first half is what happened, as I reconstructed it. But here is my Bottom Line: Unit had disintegrated the night before, NOT in contact, basically "bugged out" in their first night on the line. Dropped more than a hundred weapons, and lost almost all men. Reconstructing itself the next morning. No NCOs to speak of, most having been siphoned off a month before. Lousy leadership, lousy training before war, recipe for disaster. Killing: 8-35 killed, and probably 2-3x that wounded, in 60-90 seconds of direct fire from US troops, fire which was INITIATED by US troops not "under orders", because of a screw-up. Mortars were probably [nobody can tell now] supposed to land in FRONT of approaching crowd, but incompetence (again, no NCOs, and more particularly, no mortar "plotting boards" or much training at all) had them land IN the crowd, which set off the troops, and it took that long before officers got control again. During shooting, it seems that at least two SOUTH KOREANs shot back w/ old weapons they'd had since SK on SK guerilla war in this area over the preceding three years. To decide for yourself, well, it took me 150 pages to support what I say in this paragraph, and 400 footnotes. So I'd point you in the direction of my book if you want to judge my competence as a historian.

But the second half of the book was about the process of history (ie how do you do research, how does an historian approach sources vice a journalist, and what are the problems when journalists apply journalistic techniques to an historical issue). This, in turn, segued into the "Tale of Ed Daily", because he was, indeed, central to how the AP (at first) and the world press (soon after) told the story of AP. In fact, were it not for Daily, I don't think the AP's story would have floated. And explaining that, how he became central not just to the material they gathered, but who they talked to while researching the events/killings/incident/whateveryouwant, was important, because the AP got it really wrong. So I guess you could say that I too think that it's important to include stuff about Daily. (I'd be happy to supply the text of the AP's Charles Hanley, who dismissed my doubts about Daily completely, when I offered it all to him first. [I didn't know at the time that he was up for a Pulitzer.])

This might be fun, because there are several things that I did not include in the book, for various reasons (such as not wanting to add pain). One such is the calculations which show how many tons of human remains there would have to be, were the AP's version of "up to 400" correct (quite a few tons), but which doesn't show up at all in photos taken three days later, nor does the mass of overturned dirt it would take to conceal all of those tons, etc. Even if you drop it to 100, assuming the same mix of male, female, and child, you're talking about a huge biomass. The villagers, in the APs ORIGINAL reporting, said the bodies were there for weeks...when the photos came out, that line was dropped, or conspiracy theory set in. Gruesome, but that's an issue that you can't just "wish" away, as the AP does.

But no matter what happened, A. It was wrong, and B. We (I am an Army officer) have to try to understand it, so we can prevent it from ever happening again. Indeed, that's why I started this whole thing. I originally thought the AP was on the up and up, and was just trying to understand *how* and *why*, so that I could work to prevent it in the future. It was a couple months into my reseach before I realized that the sources were not lining up in any way that would support the AP version, so I'd have to start from scratch.

One strange thing on this page though: Some of the text looks like it was lifted, verbatim (or nearly so) right out of my book. Now I don't mind, but some of what I read here looks to me like, well, me. Is that normal? I'd also be happy to supply pdfs or images of some of the archival documents (of which I have photocopies). I'll be gone for about a week, but again, anyone who would like to contact me is welcome to hit me up on my e-mail.


The above comment was added by 02:22, June 21, 2006 RobertBateman

Hi Bob, If you'd like to sign your posts, press the tilde four times. Mine is next to the number one on the keyboard. While the back story is of course interesting, we can't use it because Wikipedia has a rule against original research. So yeah, there's a contradiction between what we can use from your book or article and what you post on the Talk page. Our job, if we do it honestly, is to present the various sides, your side, the Korean people's side-- those who are asking for an apology and who put the number of dead at 400, and compare that to the lower number. This is an article, not a book or original research. We have to rely on secondary sources and present it fairly.

I have the AP articles and their book. Journalism, as you know is the first draft of history. What you wrote is likely the second. Every generation puts a new spin on events as new information is revealed. In the last 35 years for example, a number of historians have turned up primary documents on post-Civil War Reconstruction, essentially turning the stories told by turn of the 20th century historians on their heads. How'd that happen? Easy. Pro-segregation white historians left out the role of black people. Seventy-five years later, anti-segregation historians corrected the record.

Now your view is colored from a military stance. While I deeply understand the meaning of scoop, and congratulate you for outing a liar, that still does not change the basic facts. For whatever reason-- and none of us knows whether it was policy although there is evidence suggestive of that-- U.S. soldiers killed a large number of civilians. The U.S. soldiers may have been scared. They may have been ordered. Either way, the families of the Korean civilians who died in the thousands, as you say, of killings of civilians don't feel a whole lot better because the motive was one thing or another. So, again our story is to tell the story straight. If the military wants to offer excuses, as it did, then fine, we can use that. But, I think the quarrel continues on this page as to whether the story will be told from all viewpoints or whether an account most sympathetic to the U.S. government will dominate.

Whether bodies piled up, or people came to take away and bury their dead, does that change what happened there and in thousands of other instances? I bet it doesn't to the affected families. Could the AP have gotten some of it wrong? Sure. Did you get some of it wrong, or was some of your account biased in favor of the military? It sure sounds like it. There is nothing written without a point of view attached to it, even if only by the choice of subject matter. I look forward to reading your version of this story, and making up my own mind on that. Did the AP bring to light an important story that had been buried for more than half a century, at least in the West. Yes, they did. Did you react to what they wrote? Yes, you did. Would you have written your book if the AP had not picked up what people in Korea have been saying all these years, if it were not in reaction to the AP catalyst? I wonder.

Again, thanks for visiting.

Skywriter 03:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

--RobertBateman 18:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC) Hey look, I'm learning about "signing"! OK. Clarification.

No, I don't believe I am "biased" about the military. You can check to see my PhD dissertation draft, which is all about massacres (and being massacered) within the 7th Cavalry. (Which now reminds me, I probably need to go visit the Wounded Knee site on wikipedia. I often write, professionally, about really bad sh*t that has been done, because it is an absolute professional requirement that I try to figure out how to prevent it in the present/future. Intellectual dishonesty (cited by you as "pro military") is an abomination. But, of course, because I *am* an officer, people make gross assumptions...particularly misunderstanding our culture of, well, if not "self flagellation", at least honesty. Stark, idealistic, searing, honesty. And finally, no, I don't believe that the AP brought something to light which was not recorded in the historical records. But (sorry, really) you need to read my book and see the foundation secondary sources cited there, to see why I believe that. Your mileage may vary.

With all regards,

Bateman

--RobertBateman 18:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Bob Bateman should be quoted accurately

My comment below was written before the author visited this page, and before I read the book. It appears that his research has been misrepresented in the article. This should be corrected and his research should be fairly represented, sans the POV pushing. Skywriter 21:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Why does his opinion count more than everyone else's including the US Army and IG?

This smells an awful lot like POV pushing.

It is unfair to the families of the people killed --and to readers-- to interrupt the narrative with this guy's opinion of what's dumb from a military analyst's POV. Killing civilians is a lot more than "dumb". The Army doesn't contest that civilians were killed. Why does this article accept Bateman's intimation (not stated clearly or out loud) that large numbers of civilians were not killed?

Wikipedia is not supposed to be a propaganda machine but this article sure does make it look like one.

To compel the refugees to halt their advance from the line, U.S. soldiers fired mortar rounds. West Point historian Robert Bateman describes this as "the dumbest possible action that could have been taken."

Pictures taken on August 6 reveal possible recent strafing damage; Hanley, et al, contend the U.S. forces called in strikes. Bateman contends this was impossible because of the incompatibility between army and air force radios (AM vs. FM) and the fact that the same unit could not stop a USAF strafing of their own position the very next day due to the lack of such radios; he claims the witnesses may have confused the mortars for bombs, and that the strafing shown in the photographs could have been from that period, or could have been from a later period days or weeks after the events.

Stop the arrogance. Quit pimping POV. Stick with presentation of facts, and who said what. The Army's version is a lot more honest than this article because the Army admits civilians were gunned down. With the introduction of the policy memo by the Nixon archivist, Bateman's speculation is even less to the point. Not every vet the AP quoted lied. There were witnesses to this thing, both Korean and American. The US acknowledges civlians were killed. Why is Wikipedia pimping apologies and weasel words?

This article should have a straight forward account presenting the facts, with analysis following. Right now, POV pushed in the middle of the narrative tries to bias the account. The more than a thousand Koreans who lost family members at No Gun Ri are still talking about it. Have some respect for them. Nobody presses an issue for more than 50 years when it is flat out not true, as this biased article tries to claim. Skywriter 13:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

This article was written after severalmonths of deliberations on content and wording. If you are going to make changes to it at as sweeping as you are indicating that bring all of them up here before hand, and stop accusing others of acting with an agenda. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
You are currently making a mess of this article and it appears that you are going to personally lord over it for several days, making edit conflicts for anyone who tries to clean it up. The NYT articles are largely retreads and there is absolutely no reason for them, or your personal characterizations of the incident, to be plastered at the top of the article. Chronological sanity must be maintained to reflect the ongoing nature of the debate over this. I am going to watch carefully to make sure you do not attempt to delete Bateman material which your present posturing appears set to justify. --TJive 22:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, do be observant. I added Bateman links, which you deleted. Why did you do so? Skywriter 23:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

You said, "Tjive removed one helluva lot of sourced facts. revert". Please point to them. I removed a NYT reference which retreads, once again, over the DOD inquiry. Completely unnecessary, especially given all the other NYT cites already in the article. The rest of the content you added was merely reorganized for clarity and/or reworded for neutrality. --TJive 23:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

To be precise, TJive, you removed the link to an evaluation of the AP story by the media reporter for The New York Times. I am not impressed with that edit. I would like to reinstate it in this article as I believe it sheds light. What are your specific objections to the wording that was added and to that link? I conclude that you have substituted your personal viewpoint for a secondary source. Taking that action does not seem to be justified. Please explain in more detail -- showing exactly why you think new material evaluating the AP series-- is a "retread" as you put it. Thansk. Skywriter 21:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Mistakes were made, others will be blamed

This is the school of bad writing that pumps out the following: During the early days of the Korean War, an alleged massacre took place in which a group of Korean refugees, and possibly North Korean infiltrators, were killed by elements of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.

When culprits are caught in corruption scandals, they make use of passive voice in order not to take responsibility for their actions. In much the same way, the phrase above, were killed by elements sounds like the innards of an air conditioner, the back of a refrigerator, or an electric stove did something that resulted in a bunch of people dying.

Or to isolate the fractured logic of passive voice on display here-- people "were killed by elements".

Here's news: elements don't kill people. People do.

For background, see http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/passivevoice.html --particularly the section on lazy, sloppy thinking.

Poll: Of the following, which sentence tells the story in the shortest number of words? Which is unclear and uses weasel words?

35 words

  • During the early days of the Korean War, an alleged massacre took place in which a group of Korean refugees, and possibly North Korean infiltrators, were killed by elements of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.

23 words

  • During the early days of the Korean War, members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment shot groups of civilians who approached their lines.

Defend your choice of phrasing.

Bonus point: show what in the article supports this phrase: "and possibly North Korean infiltrators"--not as speculation or excuse for what transpired but with factual proof, citing sources from secondary research. Skywriter 02:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You are treading on thin ice with your thinly veiled insults. Please moderate your behavior and stop insulting the intelligence and motives of fellow contributors. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 02:29, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Defend you logic, mister, if you can. Skywriter 02:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about? This article was debate with multiple users for several months, and this was the final compromised, much debated version. If you are going to provoke an edit war, its up to you to explain why, not me. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 02:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

No article on Wikipedia is the final version, ever. New developments such as were introduced in the last week call for new edits. The second part is --- bad writing is bad writing. Prove it is not.

What part of that makes you feel insult to either your intelligence or motive? Skywriter 04:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Desite Mr. TDC's protestation that he is feeling sensitive by seeing "thinly veiled insults" when none are apparent or were intended, I notice that no one has tackled the question of bad writing head on.

Is there no one reading this list who took a course in English grammar who wishes to persuasively defend use of passive voice in the lead, or of the use of the word "elements of"? In the absence of arguments to the contrary, I will ask one last time, what is the objection to rewriting the sentence in active voice?

In the absence of a substantive reply addressing the issue of active vs. passive voice, and given that I did provide a link to one writing cite (there are many) arguing the case for active voice, I will consider this part of this discussion settled-- and that the lead will be written in active voice. Skywriter 21:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


Weasel words

Hey TDC, we have had this converstation before about Weasel words:

During the early days of the Korean War, an alleged massacre took place in which a group of Korean refugees, and possibly North Korean infiltrators, were killed by elements of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.

As per Weasel_words#Generalization_using_weasel_words:

There are some forms of generalization which are considered unacceptable in standard writing. This category embraces what is termed a semantic cop-out, represented by the term allegedly. This phrase, which became something of a catch-phrase on the weekly satirical BBC television show, Have I Got News For You, implies an absence of ownership of opinion which casts a limited doubt on the opinion being articulated.

And for the record, I just reverted and then argued at Talk:Philippine-American_War#Allegedly_and_POV today that Filipino attrocities against Americans should not be labeled as "alleged".

signed:Travb (talk) 04:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Travb-- the word "alleged" is used when there has been no conviction in a court of law. I am not arguing one way or the other whether or when alleged should be used, just pointing out that in the United States at least there is a presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. In the case of the fellows picked up yesterday in Florida, alleged is correctly used. All media use the word "alleged" until the facts are proven, or are so persuasive that only outliers or conspiracy theorists argue otherwise.

OTOH, passive voice fits the caricature of 'weasel word.' TDC took personal offense to my arguing that point at length earlier in this thread but I think his response is emotional and not rational in that he offered no facts to back up his outburst.Skywriter 21:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter 21:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

As to the claim that chronology drives reverts

A missing piece of this story was revealed in the nation's press this week, and it was added. The AP reported and the Washington Post and other media published the news that an historian has found evidence that what happened at No Gun Ri was not the activity of a few renegade soldiers acting on their own. The very important news is that soldiers were carrying out policy to kill civilians who approached areas they controlled. This brings new light to this tale. Now one editor has tried, several times even, to place this new development at the very end of the article, claiming it fits the chronology. In fact, it does not fit the chronology. First there was policy, and then there was action, resulting in many deaths. The chronology is clearly revealed by the newly revealed letter-- that was sent the night before the three day killing spree began at No Gun Ri-- on July 25. The story begins on July 25 (or earlier, if more evidence turns up.). It is chronologically mistaken to place what transpired on July 25 after all of the other events and commentary. That is the basis of placing it in the lead. It happened before all else.

If you dispute that, please discuss it here. There have been too many unexplained reverts. Skywriter 04:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter: Reference my point above, it's not "new". It was in my book in 2002, but Charles Hanley and Martha Mendoza (who don't exactly like me) didn't acknowledge that fact, though Charlie did e-mail me the document and his story on the day that it ran. If you'd like to see a pdf of the original document, e-mail me. (This note was added by Robert Bateman)

Edit war.

Are we in the midst of an Edit War, or vanadalism? - Dr. Zaret 02:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The following users appear to be intimately familiar with the discussion of this article, yet seem not to have much of a history on Wikipedia. Each is signed in anonymously, and at least three knew to revert no more than 3 times.

  • 70.216.147.41
  • 151.205.8.146
  • 65.33.167.138
  • 72.65.77.79

Their activities reflect agreement with the activities of two users who were signed in when doing the same reverts.

Each of the four of you, if there are four of you among the anonymous users, and hoping you are not merely sockpuppets, are invited to come to the Talk Page and talk this out. The reasons for the changes are carefully discussed earlier on this page. So far, you have chosen to ignore the discussion. The bottom line is three-fold.

  • the new structure fits the story chronology.
  • a new document sheds broad new light on this story. earlier version of this story did not include new document.
  • earlier version reflects bad writing, as any English teacher will attest, or it reflects deliberate point of view.

I encourage you to come out of hiding to talk. Skywriter 02:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I used two IPs (on separate days); the others are not mine. I fully intend to comment in due course. For the moment, let's allow the protection to cool the edit war and hopefully moderate personal insinuations. Thanks. --TJive 07:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
A possible solution to the edit war is to identify the main IDEAS involved in the dispute. I daresay idea which is disputed most is:
  • that the US as a matter of policy deliberately and indiscriminately attacked groups of civilians, in defiance of the usual, civilized laws of war
This idea is opposed by those saying variously:
  1. that it was not a matter of policy, because retreating groups were not to be attacked; or,
  2. that it was neither deliberate nor indiscriminate, but depended on local estimation of the probability of disguised enemies joining the groups (itself a defiance of the laws of war)
If this analysis has any bearing on the current situation, then I propose that we ensure that both advocacy of the idea itself and advocacy against the idea be given a full hearing. Let's not try to draw any conclusions endorsing or condemning this idea, or any other idea in dispute.
I am a member of the Wikipedia:Mediation Committee and have experience in resolving disputes like this. Please let me know if you would like my help. Thank you. --Uncle Ed 13:10, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for taking an interest in, and giving some thought to this dispute. I don't disagree with your descriptor. I would add the following. The disagreement is two-fold.

1. The disagreement centers on placement of a fair summary of the new research at the very bottom or very top of the article. (Currently a truncated version that fails to explain the import of the new finding appears as the very last item on the page. Meanwhile, an inordinate amount of space is given to promoting Bateman, his book, and his views.) Meanwhile, the report of the previously unpublicized U.S. policy letter has been widely published, and its implications discussed. e.g.:

2. The wording of the lead obfuscates what the story is about, (as previously described on Talk page). Skywriter 14:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent Edits

It would appear to me that the locus of the debate over the recent edits revolves around several points.

1. Was there an order given to fire upon the civilians in this particular case as claimed by the AP reporters?
2. The inclusion of the Times summary of the DOD investigation
3. The introduction
4. Was there a general policy, not specific to but including the events of No Gun Ri, that allowed refugee groups to be fired upon?

On point 1: Was there a direct order to fire on the refugees at No Gun Ri as claimed by the AP report? I suppose that would depend on what we mean when we use the term “order”. An order could be any of the following: A standing protocol regarding the rules of engagement, as alluded to in John Muccio letter, a command over the radio from HQ, as Edward Daily has claimed, or an order from a CO or NCO, as Hesselman has claimed.

The AP’s claim that an order was given to Daley to “kill them all” from Major Omar Hitchner (via a runner) has been found to be sorely lacking, as it has been pretty well documented that Daley was not there. Aside from this there is no evidence that an order was given from battalion HQ. Nothing appeared in any of the com logs, and aside from Daley, no one has claimed that an order came down from battalion HQ.

There was a standing protocol dealing with refugees, but that will be addressed later.

As for a command to fire on the refugees from an NCO or CO, as Hesselman claimed, it would appear that Hesselman was not present either, as records indicate he had been medivaced for injuries.

On point 2: The Army investigation is presented in great length in the article. There is no good reason that we need to add the NY Times article and comments on it, as the conclusions of the inquiry currently comprise a large subsection of the article.

On point 3: Not much here, except that I prefer the wording of it, and dropping the inclusion of NK infiltrators is unacceptable. As Bateman relays in his books, several members of the 7th Cav who were there have recalled that they were taking fire. Some claim that the fire was coming directly from the refugee column, and others claiming it was coming from on top of the bridge. For this information to be removed from the article would be unacceptable.

On point 4: Did John Muccio letter lay out a policy with relation to the events at No Gun Ri: unlikely. The letter was written on July 26, 1950, and relayed portions of a conversation he had on the 25th of July. Even if this was an official policy position that was going to be enacted immediately, I find it highly unlikely given the communications available in 1950, that it could be relayed down to the squad level in a few days. It is my impression that what is relayed in the letter is derived from ad hoc rules of engagement that were laid out prior to the meeting. The letter, and its relevant sections, not just those clipped by Hanley to bolster his weak case, are as follows:

Dear Dean: The refugee problem has developed aspects of a serious and even critical military nature, aside from the welfare aspects. Necessarily, decisions are being made by the military in regard to it, and in view of the possibility of repercussions in the United States from the effectuation of these decisions, I have thought it desirable to inform you of them.
The enemy has used the refugees to his advantage in many ways: by forcing them south and so clogging the roads as to interfere with military movements; by using them as a channel for infiltration of agents; and most dangerous of all by disguising their own troops as refugees, who after passing through our lines proceed, after dark, to produce hidden weapons, and then attack our units from the rear. Too often such attacks have been devastatingly successful. Such infiltrations had a considerable part in the defeat of the 24th Division at Taejon.
Naturally, the Army is determined to end this threat. Yesterday evening a meeting was arranged, by 8th Army HQ request, at the office of the Home Minister at the temporary Capitol. G-1, G-2, Provost Marshall, CIC, the Embassy, the Home and Social Affairs Ministries, and the Director National Police. The following decisions were made:
1. Leaflet drops will be made north of US lines banning the people not to proceed south, that they risk being fired upon if they do so. If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot.
2. Leaflet drops and oral warning by police within US combat zone will be made to the effect that no one can move south unless ordered, and then only under police control, that all movement of Korean civilians must end at sunset or those moving will risk being shot when dark comes.

Infiltration of refugee columns was a real concern during the opening days of the Korean War, as Muccio points to with the defeat of the 24th Division at Taejon. But this was a proposed, not active, structure for a rules of engagement policy regarding refugees, and taken in context, orders refugees to be shot as a last resort. These rules of engagement was also proposed for South Korean forces as well as US forces in the region, and are consistent (although more specific) with current routine rules of engagement: an unknown group of individuals approaches a position in a combat zone and if after firing warning shots continues on the position they may be shot. As presented in the article, this information is highly deceptive.

And for the record, I do not use sockpuppets, and if you disagree than please file a check user request, or do not make the allegation again. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 18:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Mr. TDC, again you seem to be taking dialogue personally. Nothing on this page suggests you use sockpuppets. I realize you are a sensitive person who becomes quite emotional but please do not read into text what is not there. Thanks. Skywriter 21:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Mixture of enemy soldiers and civilian refugees

I think the issue hinges on proper military policy and Western military ethics. If people wearing civilian clothing approach a U.S. position, and local commanders believe them to be actual civilians, it is unlikely that they would order them killed. If they did, they would almost certainly courtmartialed and found guilty.

If local commanders believed that the entire group were enemy soldiers, policy is less clear. We need to do some research on US military policy concerning enemy spies and infiltrators. How certain must a commander be that people who look like civilians are actually enemy soldiers? Did US or ROK forces kill non-uniformed people but find guns, documents or other evidence of their being enemy soldiers prior to the No Gun Ri incident?

By the way, there's a very well done movie (Rules of Engagement) about an incident in Iraq in which a crowd assembles outside a US-occupied building. One side says that US troops spontaneously opened fire, i.e., without any provocation; thus, classing all the Iraqi deaths which followed as unjustified. The other side says that several members of the crowd took weapons out from under their clothing and opened fire; thus, classing the US fire as "return fire", a defensive action which US military ethics regards as justified. There was an investigation and a court-martial, and everything hinged on one disputed point: who began the exchange of gunfire? --Uncle Ed 17:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no information in any of the articles or the book published about No Gun Ri factually asserting that the people who were killed by U.S. soldiers were anything but unarmed civilians.

That’s not true, Bateman’s book provides evidence to that effect. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It is not Wikipedia policy to do original research beyond citing or fairly summarizing what secondary sources say about these events. To suppose that all or even most of these people were either armed or at war with the United States belies all that has been reported about these events. If they had been armed, the U.S. would have cited that in the first line of its moral defense. It is the U.S. forces that is subject to the No Gun Ri accusations, not ROK. The joint statement clearly admits that unarmed civilians were killed. The question is -- to what extent was it policy, as now one book, one scholarly article, and numerous news accounts based on AP reporting and the book and article allege. It is not for us to judge whether it was policy. It is for us to point out the evidence presented and what is said about it. The U.S. account has said that open fire commenced because the people were wearing white, based on an assumption that people wearing white were not friendly. There is also allegation that people were shot while under the railroad bridge at No Gun Ri. The rail line is and was the major method of transportation. Skywriter 18:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The bulk of the matrial on No Gun Ri comes from the AP report and follow up book, but as demonstrated by Bateman, Hanley and his AP team’s version of events is not without its issues. It was, at best, a sensationalistic story, with extremely poor verification. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Changed edits

Original found at No Gun Ri incident:

The three reporters were awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and their investigation later served as the basis for a book on the incident entitled, The Bridge of No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War.
The AP editor of the story, J. Robert Port was demoted to chief computer repairman after arguing for more than a year over whether or how to publish the story. The entire AP special assignment division was dissolved at the same time. Not sure if the AP would ever run the story, Port resigned in June 1999. In September 1999, seventeen months after the story was first found, the AP finally published the story. The Pulitzer Prize was the only investigative Pulitzer in AP’s history.[4]


Deleted:

The full statement, 2250 words, is at the U.S. DoD website.


Signed:Travb (talk) 05:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Travb-- this is not a soap opera. J. Robert Port's role is not central to this story. He in fact was not demoted to computer repairman-- that was his metaphor. His loss of role is a mere footnote that detracts from this story, if it belongs at all. He couldn't convince his bosses that this was a story worth pursuing. They got cold feet, or he was not a persuasive salesman. That happens every day in newsrooms all over the world. There are countless pissed off reporters and editors everywhere but trust this: they get over it. Port is a casualty of newsroom heirarchy. While this is of interest to the journalism trade, it is of no great interest to readers wanting to know more about the subject of No Gun Ri and what took place there more than 50 years ago. Do you disagree? Skywriter 22:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions about stopping the revert war

Bateman's comments should be in their own section. Neutral, non-weasel word facts should be explained in the first section, which no one argues about: Korean civilians were killed.

"Korean War incident" is a weasel word, and the original "killing of civilians" should be restored. As per weasel word:

A weasel word is a word that is intended to, or has the effect of, softening the force of a potentially loaded or otherwise controversial statement, or avoids forming a clear position on a particular issue.

Bateman does not argue that civilians died. No one debates this.

The body count section should be completly in its own section. In the first section the only sentence should be: The most contested claim concerns the body count. Travb (talk) 05:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

No Weasel words

Can we all agree to not use the words "claimed" or "alleged".

Bateman contends this was impossible because of the incompatibility between army and air force radios (AM vs. FM) and the fact that the same unit could not stop a USAF strafing of their own position the very next day due to the lack of such radios; he claims the witnesses may have confused the mortars for bombs, and that the strafing shown in the photographs could have been from that period, or could have been from a later period days or weeks after the events.
The most contested claim concerns the body count.
A report of the Yeongdong County Office in South Korea claimed the total number of civilian casualties (injured, missing, or killed) to be 248. Some Korean victims have claimed numbers in the hundreds. It's not entirely clear what happened to all the bodies in any case.
During the early days of the Korean War, an alleged massacre took place in which a group of Korean refugees, and possibly North Korean infiltrators, were killed by elements of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.
Etc...

This may help with the edit war.Travb (talk) 05:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


Can we agree on these paragraphs as the intro?

I suggest this as the intro:

No Gun Ri is a village in South Korea, located in Hwanggan-myeon, Yeongdong County, North Chungcheong province. During the early days of the Korean War, several Korean refugees were killed by elements members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.
During the early stages of the Korean War, the village of No Gun Ri was a site of conflict at which the U.S. armed forces killed a number of civilians, although the circumstances of the killings, and the precise number of dead, are disputed. The incident, which occurred between July 26 to July 29, 1950, was investigated in the well-publicized 1999 Associated Press report, later expanded into The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War by Charles J. Hanley, Sang-Hun Choe and Martha Mendoza. Their book won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2000. [1] The subject was addressed in a report released in January 2001 by the United States Department of Defense and the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
On the day before the incident, hundreds of Korean civilians were evacuated in the vicinity, southward from Im Gae Ri and Joo Gok Ri, fleeing a North Korean advance. They were stopped by a roadblock at No Gun Ri and set on the railroad track which eventually led to a bridge, where American forces were. To compel the refugees to halt their advance from the line, U.S. soldiers fired mortar rounds.
The most contested claim concerns the body count.


What do you think?

Signed:Travb (talk) 05:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Travb 1. several Korean refugees were killed by elements -- who says several? can't we cite a source using precise numbers, or two sources citing a range? 2. killed by elements continues to make no sense. 3. Instead of going directly to the AP story, it makes more sense to tell the story of what transpired, including claim and counter claim. The AP is not the story. What happened at No Gun Ri is. 4. Robert Bateman should be accurately quoted. That apparently has not happened. His own summary on this page is a good place to start.

Skywriter 22:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Claimed and alleged are not weasel words. They are attributive and are used all the time to establish who said what. If a fact is in doubt or disputed, then it is alleged.
OTOH, "killed by elements" is weasel, imprecise, passive voice, and discussed in detail earlier on this page. Failure to include the information that a historian has found evidence that this was policy is what is at issue, and I have argued, should be in the lead. Otherwise, Wikipedia is taking the position, especially by using the phrase "killed by elements of" that it was a few rotten soldiers that did the killing, rather than tracing it to US policy, which take it to an entirely new level. Why blame soldiers when higher-ups apparently set policy? Personally I am sick of pinning this kind of thing on soldiers. At what point will policy makers be held responsible? Skywriter 22:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
At No Gun ri, there has yet to be a definitive cause and effect between policy and what happened. As Bateman's book as well as the the ROK/US investigation demonstrates, some these men opened fire on the refugees in panic after taking fire. The issue of the letter from Muccio is not a policy, and was written the day before, and as such it would have been imposible to disseminate that to a company in that short of a timeframe. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 00:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
User TDC continues to super-impose his personal point of view on this event. It would be productive to state in a neutral tone, using neutral words what the secondary authors have written. TDC tries to interpret the research and that is the source of the discord. It should not be interpreted. It should be stated, and when there is conflict, the conflict should be stated fairly and accurately.Skywriter 22:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


The Muccio letter is what it is, an original source, and should be reported factually and directly. Bateman is pure interpretation: spin. He has no original source knowledge. Skywriter 06:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried. The introduction should simply state the known facts. Later in the article we can cover the controversial aspects. I am trying to make a comprimise, to avoid another revert war.Travb (talk) 12:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The entire event is clearly controversial, with some of the editors here trying to minimize what happened, and making excuses. The South Koreans have asked for an apology and compensation. The facts should be reported in as direct and straight forward a manner as is possible, without taking sides. Plenty of people outside the U.S. read the English version of this article. Wikipedia can take the position of downplaying the viewpoint of the affected people or take the high road and report it fairly, and without favor. That's what's at issue. Skywriter 06:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Claimed and alleged are not weasel words I disagree. Using "argued" or "stated" is much better. Travb (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter, I am suggesting comprimise, and you are playing the definition game.

Elements --> Members. Would this satisfy you? Could Tjive and TDC agree?

Wikipedia is taking the position, especially by using the phrase "killed by elements of" that it was a few rotten soldiers that did the killing, rather than tracing it to US policy, which take it to an entirely new level.

Wikipedia is not the only entity which takes that position. I suggest that all controversial aspects of the story be religated to subsections, not to the intro paragraph.

It should be stated, and when there is conflict, the conflict should be stated fairly and accurately.

The problem that we are having is, what is accurate?

I agree with you Skywriter, I have your same POV. What we are disagree about is how you are pushing your POV.

I was in a protracted revert war with user:TDC. It went to arbitration. user:TDC was willing to comprimise then, and I think he is willing to comprimise now. But as I just mentioned on another page, comprimise means giving up something that you want. What are you willing to comprimise Skywriter? Thus far I have seen no comprimise on your part especially. You seem the most ideologically set. Not that Tjive and TDC are not POV warriors, lord knows they are, and so am I. I just think that you are the least willing to comprimise here.

Again, we share the same POV. I think Batemen is an apologist and hypocrite (just like TDC and Tjive maybe sometimes are). He minimalizes the murders of civilians just like TDC and Tjive do. Bateman plays the numbers game with the number of Koreans who really died to try and obsificate the issue. That is morally repugnant, and ethically unsound, whether Rush Limbagh on the mainstream right does this, or Naom Chomsky on the far left.

I wrote scathing comments on the Amazon page about him, for example: To Mr. Bateman, and apologists of his ilk, it truly doesn't matter whether one or one million civilians are killed by America: America can do no wrong. [5]

What are you willing to comprimise Skywriter?

I am not saying that you, or TDC, or Tjive should not have everything you want in the article, I am simply asking that we change the wording around and move certain things to specific sections.

I respect TDC for his ability to research his side. He has valid arguments (no matter how I personally find them).

Anyway, please let me know what you are willing to comprimise. Travb (talk) 12:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


Travb-- you and I do not share a viewpoint on this. For example, I do not share your opinion of Robert Bateman. Not at all. He has explained the chronology of how this story was reported, after the AP series was published, and I accept what he has said. Do you? Bateman has explained on this page how his scoop on Daily's lies evolved, first given to Joe Galloway and then to stripes.com, both of which I read at the time they ran and clipped for my records. Joe Galloway, now retired, is the gold standard among military reporters. Like Ernie Pyle in WWII, Galloway takes the soldier's viewpoint, never the bureaucrat. Also, although I still have not yet read his book, judging from what he has written here, I do not think Bateman claims "America can do no wrong." No, he said he wanted to figure out why it happened. That is different. The challenge as I see it, is not to draw conclusions, but to faithfully record what others have reported without adding what we personally think or trying to sway the writing by our personal viewpoints. While I deeply appreciate scoops, and tip my hat to Bateman for outing Daily, it is but a footnote to this article. This article is not about flawed first drafts in journalism-- we could have an article about that and I guarantee it would be hideously long-- but the point of this article is to record honestly what is known about No Gun Ri, and perhaps begin another article on the many other similar events that both Bateman and the AP and South Korea all agree have been reported concerning the killing of large numbers of unarmed Koreans by U.S. soldiers. I pesonally would include that information in this article, as it is included in the articles, and the books, both Bateman's and the AP's. The AP book that evolved from this series does not rely on Daley to tell the story, and points out what was uncovered about him. So, the gray area of this article is going to be the differences among the accounts in the three books, the one that is coming out in July by Sahr Cinway-Lanz, and the Bateman and AP books. Bateman and AP get into the nitty gritty details. Cinway-Lanz will be more focused on policy. I am still not sure where Bateman differs from the AP, as I've not yet read his book but I've read the AP book.

As to compromise, what do you suggest? So far I have advocated "no passive voice." You apparently do not agree with using active voice as your suggested formulation above is in passive voice was killed by. Concerning the rest, look at my comments in the preceding paragraph. An honest article is not so much a question of "getting what one wants" as accurately and verifiably summarizing the position of each reporter. From what Bateman has written on this page, I am not convinced Bateman's reporting is accurately reflected in the existing article. I am arguing strongly for verifiability, no more, no less. Skywriter 21:27, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

TO TRAVB: Just noticed your review of my book on Amazon.com which you linked to with the footnote here (didn't know about following links like that, either.) I have only one question though, based upon your "review." Trav...have you ever actually *read* my book? Did you read it before you wrote that review (as it doesn't seem to deal with my book at all, but instead talks about everything but, up to and including the Iraq war.) Just honestly curious.

--68.187.182.0 13:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC) 

Ooops, forgot to log on. Above comment from me.

--RobertBateman 13:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Who exactly backs this lead?

No Gun Ri is a village in South Korea, located in Hwanggan-myeon, Yeongdong County, North Chungcheong province. During the early days of the Korean War, an alleged massacre took place in which a group of Korean refugees, and possibly North Korean infiltrators, were killed by elements of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.

My objection to the wording has been made clear throughout this talk page.

Who demands that this wording stay the way it is?

Who continues to insist that the Muccio document not appear high up in the story?

Who continues to insist that Bob Bateman's research be misrepresented in the matter that it is in this article?

Skywriter 21:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No Gun Ri is a village in South Korea, located in Hwanggan-myeon, Yeongdong County, North Chungcheong province. During the early days of the Korean War, several Korean refugees were killed by members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.
Is this okay? You have criticized my suggestions for comprimise, but have come up with none yourself.
Signed:Travb (talk) 12:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Travb-- it is inaccurate to say several Korean refugees... because it is many, many more than several. Please see Robert Bateman's informative comments on this page. His research shows that U.S. soldiers may have killed several thousand Korean civilians, not just at No Gun Ri but elsewhere. His difference with the AP book appears to be whether or not all of the thousands of civilians killed by U.S. soldiers were killed at No Gun Ri, or elsewhere in Korea. However, the recent article carried in the Washington Post and other news media also seems to suggest apparent AP agreement with Bateman on this point -- there appears to have been numerous incidents other than No Gun Ri in which U.S. soldiers killed thousands of unarmed Korean civilians. That is at the end of the AP article still carried at the WP link. [U.S. Policy Was to Shoot Korean Refugees
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and MARTHA MENDOZA
The Associated Press
Monday, May 29, 2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052900485.html]

It is not our place to decide whether or not the headline is accurate. Our job is to report what it says, and if there is conflicting evidence to show that too. Do you disagree with that? Skywriter 20:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Apart from contradicting your comments immediately after this, where you were "still not sure" what the contradictions are between the AP and Bateman, this is a continued distortion of the debate which reveals that you are being either careless or are willfully diregarding the facts and arguments. Nobody has seriously suggested that "thousands" died at No Gun Ri; that you imply this is stunning. Similarly, no one has contested that people were killed at No Gun Ri; it is the circumstances of the incident which remain disputed, including the role of policy. That other Koreans were killed in other zones of the conflict is not in dispute, is quite normal, and is distinct from this issue. If you insist on conflating these issues then you have little business in attempting to write on them. Furthermore, while you have taken it upon yourself to insist that Bateman is here misrepresented (whereas the only thing he has argued is that he has been plagiarized) your edits demonstrate that if it were up to you the material concerning him would be excised. Your latest comments on Daily, who Bateman has argued to be of much significance in this matter, only strengthen that point. --TJive 20:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

General comments

Skywriter has been ranting at length, accusing other editors of superimposing their interpretation of events on the article. This is precisely what he is guilty of, in giving the Muccio letter absolute prominence and writing with the AP narrative in mind. Strangely he has gone from blasting Bateman and accusing him of ripping off Galloway to claiming that others are misrepresenting his work - work that he was attempting to excise from the article in the first place.

Documents provided by Bateman would not be original research, but they must be properly supplied. If he is interested in uploading document images, he is welcome, but they must be sourced and tagged properly. He can also choose to release text documents he has authored to Wikisource, and they may even be helpful here. Published sources by notable authors who happen upon a Wikipedia page are not instances of original research. What is original research is the introduction of new ideas, theories, etc. by Wikipedia editors themselves.

To Mr. Bateman: please let us know what documents you have in mind to provide for this article and how they are relevant. If you wish to release text documents pertaining to your correspondence with AP editors, please see Wikisource on how to do this, here. Also, if you are concerned that some passages constitute effective plagiarism of your work, please provide instances in comparative text, and it will be dealt with. Thank you very much for your interest. --TJive 04:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

User:TJive Has Bateman shown an interest in this page? If so, what is Bateman's user name? I am confused, really. Travb (talk) 12:19, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Robert Bateman used his own nameRobertBateman to sign in and summarize his book on this Talk page. What he said is quite valuable and informative. It also demonstrates that the summary of his views in the article have been misrepresented. Look through the history. I referenced his comments at the points where he wrote them because he apparently does not yet know how to sign his comments. Skywriter 20:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

You'd have to look through the talk history. I'm only assuming it really is him. --TJive 04:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

ALCON: Uh, yes, I don't know how to "sign" my name here yet. I considered the "validation" issue, and thought to include my "civilian" e-mail address first time around, for those who wanted to validate who I am. (Write to me at that address and I would send you my military e-mail address, which is unique. Also, for those who care to, it's easy enough to google me and confirm that's my address.)

I'm just back from some TDY, so give me a few days to think about which archival documents I think might be useful for the page. Perhaps a scan of some of the battle-map graphics used by 2/7 CAV at the time, as well as Muccio's letter, and maybe some other archival materials.

I'm not worried about copyright from my book. The damned thing only sold a couple of thousand copies, and is of interest mostly to academic military historians, and besides, as an academic, my personal inclination towards what constitututes "fair use" is fairly liberal, so again, no worries there.

Regards, 

        Bob Bateman
Kewl, now if we can only get the AP editors on wikipedia for balance.
I feel honored to be a small part of this wikiproject--when authors start contributing to topics they wrote about, you know that wikipedia truly deserves the status of encyclopedia, and really does rival Encyclopaedia Britannica.[6]
This reminds me of the What's the Matter with Kansas? page. The author of one article chastized a fellow wikipedia opponent of mine for interpreting his work the way he did, and deleted the paragraph, stating: "while I appreciate having my review cited here, I'm afraid this isn't an accurate summary of what I wrote. nor do I speak for all libertarians. - Jesse"[7]
Then there is the congressional members who get caught changing their own bios on wikipedia.Talk:Norm_Coleman#25_articles_on_Norm_Coleman_changing_his_bio_on_wikipedia
Welcome Mr. Bob Bateman, I am really glad to see you here. I hope more serious authors such as yourself begin to edit wikipedia.
Signed:Travb (talk) 18:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

--RobertBateman 18:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC) TravB, well thanks, but Wow, I don't know if I am up to keeping up w/ all of you! I'll try, and I welcome the potential that the AP might open their records (or donate them to an historical archive)...but dude, I've been holding my breath for that for years now.

With regards, 

            Bob Bateman

--RobertBateman 18:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Baiting Fellow Editors

Is that you TJive, the same who referred to someone who disagreed with you earlier as a Stalinist? Oh yes, I see it is. And certainly this is your signature earlier in this thread-- TJive 06:21, 15 January 2006 ... I sure wouldn't take advice from anyone who discredits himself by making personal attacks.

Oh, one more thing, TJive. Don't misrepresent what I said. I am happy to see Bob Bateman's explanation, and to see that he is buddies with Joe Galloway who is widely admired among journalists.Skywriter 07:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you know anything about the context of the term I used and who I applied it to? This is not a "personal" remark of any kind; it is a statement of fact. --TJive 08:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

What we know about you TJive is that you attack fellow editors with name-calling when someone disagrees with you. This is your reputation. Skywriter 21:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

That is not "name-calling"; again, it is clear that you are not intimate with the facts of this matter and they are not germane to this discussion in any case. I do not have a "reputation" for name-calling because I do not engage in it on any standard basis here and frankly I do not particularly have any "reputation" as I am not very well known. You have been admonishing others for perceived sleights, and yet you are working to make this conflict more personal than anyone at present. --TJive 04:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Whether you have written a little or written a lot is immaterial. What you have written builds or injures your reputation. You could improve your reputation by deleting the comment. No rationale person reading it could be persuaded that you labeled another human being a "stalinist" with the best of intentions. I have been around Wikipedia long enough to grasp that it is intended as a slur for claims of genocide based on deeply disputed allegations in controversial books. People who like throwing this term around loosely engage in ideologically based edit wars in the attempt to apply it to people like Paul Robeson, Albert Einstein, Pablo Neruda, W.E.B. Du Bois et al. Frankly, I am sick of the ideological warfare and the POV pushing. In my eyes, you do have a reputation for doing this sort of thing and the evidence is on this page. You try to excuse yourself by claiming what you wrote is irrelevant to this article. Yes it is irrelevant, and it also violates Wikipedia rules against personal attacks. If you are sorry for having made the allegation, then erase it. I give you my permission to delete my references to this slur, including this comment as well because your erasing evidence of it will improve your reputation in my eyes by showing you are a person who can acknowledge what he did was wrong, and correct it.Skywriter 20:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not particularly concerned with what you have written and don't intend to delete it. I do not have lily-white skin and can't be bothered to consider any particular range of opinion on the merits of my assertion of fact. I didn't "attack" anyone and I don't intend to apologize for not having done so. The only thing egregious here is that you are taking up more and more kilobytes of space on useless and trivial issues. --TJive 20:33, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions and comprimise

TJive and TDC, please respond to my suggested comprimise above. Would this work for you? Travb (talk) 12:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you speaking as to "members" versus "elements"? Frankly, I don't feel that I have any strong preference for one or the other. That is not really an issue. It is clear that Skywriter misrepresents or misunderstands the arguments of figures such as Bateman, who even in his language here seems to evoke a picture of a fragmented unit in a chaotic mess. The idea that this was coldly and deliberately enacted murder per policy is not a justified tone in any understanding of WP:NPOV, especially when the AP understanding of events is not fully backed by verifiable facts. That is why putting the letter at the beginning to effect this interpretation is unacceptable. It must be understood in the context of the ongoing revelations and debate about the nature of this incident. I don't know how better to explain this to Skywriter, but I don't intend to have an at-length polemical discussion on the merits of the historical debate; you guys fill up talk pages too far and too fast over too little. --TJive 04:11, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions on this talk page

I suggest that everyone (incuding myself) stop using each others names, stop personalizing the attack. Instead of saying TDC did this, or Skywriter did that, or Tjive said this, can we change our comments to:

  1. the edit says...., and
  2. I disagree with the edit because of....

This was a very helpful suggestion that I was given by a third party moderator when I was in a revert war with the smartest and most articulate conservative on wikipedia. It is advice which I myself have found is difficult to abide by, but truly does help defuse the situation.

Signed:Travb (talk) 12:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no problems with Travb's changes to the introduction. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 15:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I have stated and re-stated my objections to the langauge. Skywriter 16:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

  • No one has said "thousands" died at No Gun Ri. Both AP and Bateman have said U.S. soldiers may have killed thousands of Korean civilians in various places. To the person who made the claim, please cite the value or legal system that buttresses the point that the killing of civlilians is "normal."
  • All of the parties to these incidents concur that U.S. soldiers killed a large number of civilians during the conflict. AP, Bateman and the Army Inspector General concur that this is fact. However, the Inspector General position is that the U.S. will not investigate the additional incidents. Bateman and AP both say their research affirms a large number of incidents similar to No Gun Ri. AP used Korean and U.S. military sources. Bateman used military sources saying his research focused on why it happened. Bateman says he thinks there was some conflating of incidents into one place and time. However, he did not interview Korean sources so his research is limited in that respect.
Then let us keep in mind that this article is about No Gun Ri, and not the korean war, or civilian casualties in the Korean war. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • The differences between Bateman and AP are clearly, albeit heatedly stated at the HNN link. Bateman's scoop was to discover that Daily lied, a discovery that led to Daily being sent to jail. The AP authors replied at HNN, in its news stories, and in its book that their story does not need Daily, that their interviews with Koreans, and interviews with U.S. soldiers plus U.S. military documents provide corroboration for their book.
Bateman also brought a great deal of background into the story that the AP had left out. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Some of Bateman's criticism of the original AP account are valid so far as they go. While I still plan to read his book, he has said (here on this page) he spent a good part of his book emphasizing Daily. While that is understandable from his perspective, it does not get to the truth of the matter because his focus is only on one side's (the U.S.) account, and his goal was to disprove the AP account. His views would be more balanced if he gave equal weight to Korean witnesses but it is understandable given his viewpoint and the scope of his book--understanding why it happened-- from a U.S. military perspective.
  • The number of those killed at No Gun Ri ranges from 200 to 400 according to a number of sources, including US News story one month ago, which was one of three news outlets that raised the problem of Daily's claims after the first stories ran in 1999. AP corrected its errors with regard to Daily's false claims.[8] Does anyone contend the numbers do not range between 200 and 400. (One of the suggestions on this page is to say "several" people were killed.)

The title of this article does not say it is a story about the first drafts of journalism or how well the news media corrects itself. It is about what happened more than 50 years ago in a Korean village. It is a story that will be read by Koreans as well as Americans and in that respect, it should fairly represent the various viewpoints. Over emphasis on one man's lies insults the families of the 200 to 400 civilians who died at No Gun Ri.

  • AP is critical of Bateman and his book for exaggerating the number of North Korean plants. [9]

(2-23-04 Document Supplied by Charles Hanley. Mr. Hanley has asked HNN to draw the attention of readers to the end of the second paragraph, July 28 entry, where the text refers to "enemy equipment." )

No, the AP criticizes Bateman for one piece of documentary evidence he provided. The DPKR's use of infiltrators among civilians was not uncommon, and the reason why new rules of enagagement were drafted. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • ...After AP revealed the existence of the ambassador's letter, on May 31, 2006, US News reported, "If the killings at No Gun Ri were carried out on the orders of superior officers, it would have been the second-largest reported killing of civilians by American servicemen in the 20th century, after the slaughter of some 500 Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968." US News concluded: "...the discovery of the letter from Ambassador Muccio appears to indicate that whatever happened on that terrible day, at least some of the killings resulted from something more than panicked soldiers reacting to an unknown threat on a distant and confused field of battle."
The AP did not reveal anything, Sahr Conway-Lanz did when he found the archived letter. Linking Muccio's letter to No Gun Ri is a stretch because, as stated above, it was issued the day before, and a policy on a general rules of engagement could not have been disseminated to a company wide level in one day. Fact is Hanley's story that the soldiers were ordered to fire on the refugees fell to pieces when nearly every one of his supporting legs were discredited or debunked. He is now looking for straws and has found one. I will be interested in reading Conway-Lanz's take on it though. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • So, you have a news source--US News-- that was initially sympathetic to Joe Galloway's K-R and stripes.com reporting (based on what Bateman says were his tips, although I don't recall if Bateman was quoted or credited for those tips) now saying, hey wait a minute-- there seems to be something to the claim that this was not the actions of some scared soldiers-- we have a document from the lead U.S's lead civilian official-- its ambassador-- saying this was policy, even before the events transpired.
  • Blaming the shooting of large numbers of civilians on scared U.S. soldiers is not such a strong argument anymore, and it scapegoats the grunts, which always happens when bureaucrats get busy covering their collective rear. Skywriter 16:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
What Bateman was never able to verify, and what the AP (aside from it discredited witnesses) is that there was no order given to fire on the refugees. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
This article is actually supposed to be about a village. Neutrality problems relating to the historical content were what lead to my initial move to a separate article in the first place, but revert warring over the title of that separate article eventually landed the material back here at a later point, where it looks starkly out of place and overly burdened.
Knowing that full and well for myself, I am not in the least bit impressed with your attempt to downplay the significance of material relating to the media reports and treatment considering that the furor over this was initiated by those same media reports. I also do not intend to be baited into a discussion on the merits of one particular piece or the other. That you are attempting to argue over the meaning of my very value-neutral comment that deaths in war time (deliberate and not) is "normal" demonstrates beautifully how worthless such discussions are in general, and how they are not conducive in determining content issues.
The purpose of this article should be to accurately convey what has been and is being argued, not simply to evaluate the reciprocral claims and weigh in on one side of the other. The research into this is ongoing and contentious; it is not a dry, sound, and settled matter what happened at No Gun Ri under whatever circumstances. The article should reflect this fact, not accept up-to-the-minute reports on the very fact of a diplomatic document release mentioning policy as trumping all information on previous findings and interpretations, with stories and authors who can very well account for that document (as you would see if you actually absorbed the meaning of Bateman's comments here), and in any case appropriately contextualize it.
What is apparent to me is that your opinion on what Bateman's scholarship even means changes on a whim from a day to day, and with it the relevancy of the material. Were this article not protected at the moment, it would probably mean schizophrenic reverts as well. So much the better that it is, at least for now. --TJive 06:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the courtesy of your reply. This is the first I have ever heard anyone argue in favor of killing civilians.

  • The killing of civilians violates international treaties to which the United States is a signatory.
  • What you refer to as "up to the minute report" appeared for the first time in an article in a scholarly journal in 2001. Bateman said he mentioned it in his 2002 book although I am not sure of the context or his emphasis. Are you in a position to provide that information?
  • There should be more information available soon as a new book discusses it, as mentioned earlier in this thread.
  • The discussion of Bateman's contribution is valid and averts revert wars later. Skywriter 00:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Please see WP:NPA. That is a deliberate misrepresentation of my comments and one which I find appalling and offensive.
You are also conflating material. The letter is new. Bateman is (here) referring to material which the letter discusses that is contained in his book. My comments referring to "up to the minute" reports have specifically in mind your utilization of that letter as trumping all else on this subject. I did not say, nor have I ever voiced support for, accurately and neutrally describing notable and verifiable information on this subject, no matter how new it is. I have on the other hand objected to your careless treatment of it. --TJive 03:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
As a side, the most significant problem with the AP report is the downfall of all "gotcha" investigative journalists. The delve into a story with a preconcieved notion of how the events will play out, all they do is look for facts to refine and reinforce what they already believe. They are far too willing to accept any piece of information just so long as it fits into this narrow view, that why Daley took them for such a ride; he was the genuine emotional war hero who summed up thier report with the his order to "kill em all". too bad for the AP that he was full of shit, and a number of their other testimonials were sorely lacking. I dont want to speak for Bateman, but I think the reason he focused on the US Army in his books is because he could readly confirm the accuracy of the information.
The North Koreans made a bad situation worse by intentionaly generating large ammounts of refugees, and then using those refugees to cover the movements of thier units. I doubt you have ever been to South Korea in uniform Skywriter, but I have. Older South Koreans, those who remember the Korean War, are almost unanimous in thier favorable view of the US and US armed forces, for good reason. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Do we want this page unprotected or not?

Do we want this page unprotected or not?

This comment was ignored, so I will state it again:

Impersonalize

I suggest that everyone (incuding myself) stop using each others names, stop personalizing the attack. Instead of saying TDC did this, or Skywriter did that, or Tjive said this, can we change our comments to:

  1. the edit says...., and
  2. I disagree with the edit because of....

This was a very helpful suggestion that I was given by a third party moderator when I was in a revert war with the smartest and most articulate conservative on wikipedia. It is advice which I myself have found is difficult to abide by, but truly does help defuse the situation.

Two falacies of logic

Second. Let me introduce you all to two falacies of logic, which are sorely needed here:

One of the most common forms of ignorantio elenchi is the “Red Herring.” A red herring is a deliberate attempt to change the subject or divert the argument from the real question at issue;


For instance, “Senator Jones should not be held

accountable for cheating on his income tax. After all, there are other senators who have done far worse things.”

Another example: “I should not pay a fine for reckless driving. There are many other people on the street who are dangerous criminals and rapists, and the police should be chasing them,

not harassing a decent tax-paying citizen like me.”


Certainly, worse criminals do exist, but that it is another issue! The question at hand is, did the speaker drive recklessly, and should he pay a fine for it?

Another similar example of the red herring is the fallacy known as Tu Quoque (Latin for "And you too!"), which asserts that the advice or argument must be false simply because the person presenting the advice doesn't follow it herself.


For instance, "Reverend Jeremias claims that theft is

wrong, but how can theft be wrong if Jeremias himself admits

he stole objects when he was a child?"

I think from now on, I will simply put "Red Herring" or "Tu Quoque" or "impersonalize" behind all the guilty comments here, to show how illogical some of you are being.

Signed:Travb (talk) 04:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

New suggested comprimise intro

No Gun Ri is a village in South Korea, located in Hwanggan-myeon, Yeongdong County, North Chungcheong province. During the early days of the Korean War, several Korean refugees were killed by elements members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.
During the early stages of the Korean War, U.S. armed forces killed a number of civilians in No Gun Ri village. The incident, which occurred between July 26 to July 29, 1950, was investigated in the well-publicized 1999 Associated Press report, later expanded into the book, The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2000. [1] A report was released in January 2001 by the United States Department of Defense and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) about the incident.
On the day before the incident, hundreds of Korean civilians were evacuated in the vicinity, southward from Im Gae Ri and Joo Gok Ri, fleeing a North Korean advance. They were stopped by an American roadblock at No Gun Ri and set on the railroad track near the bridge. U.S. soldiers fired mortar rounds to compel the refugees to halt their advance. (needs to be rewritten, but not sure how)
The circumstances of the killings, and the precise number of dead, are disputed.

I do not care to hear about your reasons for not agreeing with this intro. Each person, please rewrite this intro, as you see fit.

I cleaned up some of the passive voice, and made the intro more readable.

Since TDC has agreed with this intro, there is no need for him to rewrite the intro, unless he wants to. Signed Travb (talk) 04:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

TJive's agreement to the edit

There are no particular problems with this version that I can identify. It needs to be made clear that the facts are disputed, and this introduction continues to impart that. As well, I do not object should the material be forked off, on the condition that the article title is neutral and that the material is moved as it is before rewording. I am not suggesting that this should be done before unlocking, however, as that would be imprudent and possibly a violation of rules (I'm not sure on that point).

I'm also not sure why Skywriter is persisting in personal insinuations and comments, now about my "rage" (I am perfectly calm). I want no part of them and I find them to be insulting and counterproductive. --TJive 04:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you TJive. Now we have three editors in agreement (yourself, myself and TDC), we just need the fourth, then we can go on to the next section, if you all wish, or request to unblock the article, which I think is premature. Travb (talk) 15:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I find there is enough blame to go around for everyone, including myself. Lets not talk about what the other user's past "crimes" are. I wish I could just delete this comment that you wrote, and I suggest you do this. Travb (talk) 15:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe that I can appreciate your motivation in moving my comments, but I do not support doing so. I am for a fully cohesive and largely chronological (but sometimes contextual) record of comments. I'm not fond of mid-comment parsing or even strike-outs and I do not believe comments should be removed unless they are simple vandalism or are extremely egregious violations of policy, such as vulgar insults. I have seen nothing on this page that would remotely qualify as such, and I certainly have nothing to apologize for. You are right, however, in emphasizing that this conversation should discontinue its personal characteristics and focus on content. For that reason, I moved this prior comment of yours back to my original remark, to which it was addressed, and have given this reply, which hopefully is the end of this (small) particular matter. I left the fork subsection, with my comments excised (you quoted them anyway), as I believe it is an issue which should rightfully be separate. --TJive 05:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Kewl, as you wish. Travb (talk) 13:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter comments and questions

What is the source/basis for saying several Korean refugees were killed?

US News is quoted later in this article in support of certain points (unrelated to casualties but critical of one witness--Daily). Why is US News rejected on the issue of civilian casualties? US News puts the number of dead related to No Gun Ri at between 200 and 400

Here's another estimate published in major American newspapers "Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers' estimates ranged from under 100 to "hundreds" dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles southeast of Seoul, the South Korean capital. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say."[10]

So, of all these estimates, Wikipedia's "several" is the lowest, and it is not sourced. What is the basis?

grammatical correction: re: were killed by members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. = passive voice Members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment killed xx civilians. = active voice. Active voice = the subject is the doer of the action. (Joe picked up the phone.) Passive voice = the subject is receiver of the action. (The phone was picked up by Joe.)

factual correction: The report was issued by the U.S. Army Inspector General (not the United States Department of Defense and the Republic of Korea (South Korea))

research suggestion: Rely directly on the primary and secondary sources to net the result that no one can quibble with. Quote directly and fairly from each party. (Our personal experiences (or speculation about others personal experiences are irrelevant and not verifiable.)

The present structure of this article is flawed in that the IG report follows the Bateman commentary. The official US government response outweighs the response of any one (or two scholars)

structural suggestion:

  • AP reported Koreans said XX civilians killed whereas Army IG reported its soldiers killed XX Korean civilians.

The AP erred in several details of its original report but the errors did not negate the story that between the US soldiers did kill between 200 and 400 civilians in and around NGR in the weeks xx..."

  • Army IG reported its findings
  • Scholars weigh in (Bateman and Cinway-Lanz) with their comments and estimates.

The IG report weakens U.S. soldiers were young, under-trained, under-equipped, and unprepared for the fight they would wage[11] in the face of the Muccio document that suggests there were policy reasons why, as Bateman says, "thousands of civilians" killed in that two-week period. (Bateman however discounts policy as factor "under the bridge" but concedes it could well be the issue for US soldiers killing thousands of civilians over period of several weeks.[12][13]

The IG report acknowledges but does not address the policy question in its report. "The Army report's own list of sources for the 1999-2001 investigation shows its researchers reviewed the microfilm containing the Muccio letter. But the 300-page report did not mention it."

Pertaining to the number of civilians killed over several weeks in question. Above, Bateman summarizes his view as follows.

B. I believe that (and documented in my book) in dozens of incidents, ranging from two weeks before to four weeks after, literally thousands of South Korean civilians were killed by US forces both on the ground and from the air. I believe that some of the memories of these incidents may have been combined when the oral history of NGR was assembled over the years. This means that nobody has to be "lying" per se, and that everyone's "truth" can be granted.
C. I believe that these acts were, initially, uncoordinated and generally accidental and/or the result of panic. Later acts (such as those which occurred following the 25 July meeting at EUSOK, which Muccio writes of) could be construed as more deliberate, but are irrelevant to events on the ground in a shattered unit on the 26th of July at NGR.

(does anyone object to using Bateman's own summary? )

Bateman and the AP apparently agree on Bateman's point (B) above. The AP wrote: "Since that episode was confirmed in 1999, South Koreans have lodged complaints with the Seoul government about more than 60 other alleged large-scale killings of refugees by the U.S. military in the 1950-53 war."[14]

If you reject Bateman's summary and the US Inspector General summary, which is similar in many ways to the Bateman summary, and you also reject the claims by the Korean civilians, and also the substance of the AP reporting, then this article reduces to a narrow subject-- what happened under the bridge and a new article will be needed to cover what all of the interested parties have conceded-- and that is that US soldiers may have killed thousands of civilians in the early weeks of the war. For the purpose of consolidation, I see no reason why all should not be dealt with here, but I am flexible. If you want this article to solely be about what happened under the bridge, then there's a whole lot that can not be known for a host of reasons, as the various reports have stated. To focus narrowly on "under the bridge" overrides Bateman's contention that "This means that nobody has to be "lying" per se, and that everyone's "truth" can be granted."

I am still interested in knowing the citation for "several civilians killed". That should be sourced, and when we know the source, we can decide whether or not there needs to be another article addressing the larger questions raised by Bateman, AP, and Conway-Lanz. If it is the will of the other 3 editors to make this article as narrow as possible, the broader issues, quoting the same sources, can be addressed in a related article. In any case, all statements should be sourced.

I am interested in knowing what weight to give to the Muccio memo but I guess that depends on whether or not this article addresses policy. The Army IG did not, although it mentioned the memo. Bateman apparently did not address policy issues, but I could be wrong. Please cite what his book says if you have it. Cinway-Lanz and others including US News contend the policy memo carries weight.

"In South Korea, Yi Mahn-yol, head of the National Institute of Korean History and a member of a government panel on No Gun Ri, said the Muccio letter sheds an entirely new light on a case that "so far has been presented as an accidental incident that didn't involve the command system." " [15]

The Muccio memo is what began this discussion, and it should be reflected in the lead. It is one of the ambiguities of this story. That's my position. However, I do understand if the 3 others do not want to address policy, and prefer that it be addressed in detail in an article on the overall issues of civilian casualties in Korea, and why they occur.

  • Sahr Conway-Lanz. Collateral Damage: Americans, Noncombatant Immunity, and Atrocity after World War II Routledge ISBN: 0415978289

"Collateral damage" is a military term for the inadvertent casualties and destruction inflicted on civilians in the course of military operations. In Collateral Damage: Americans, Noncombatant Immunity, and Atrocity after World War II, Sahr Conway-Lanz chronicles the history of America's attempt to reconcile the ideal of sparing civilians with the reality that modern warfare results in the killing of innocent people. Drawing on policymakers' response to the issues raised by the atrocities of World War II and the use of the atomic bomb, as well as the ongoing debate by the American public and the media as the Korean War developed, Conway-Lanz provides a comprehensive examination of modern American discourse on the topic of civilian casualties and provides a fascinating look at the development of what is now commonly known as collateral damage. [16]

Skywriter 19:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

As I wrote above: I do not care to hear about your reasons for not agreeing with this intro. Each person, please rewrite this intro, as you see fit. Please write an intro that you feel is fit. I simply donn't care about many of the arguments on this talk page, therefore, since I am not interested, I am going to ignore most of what you wrote, and most of what others have wrote on this subject. I simply want this article to be unprotected. That is my number one goal, and I think we all want this.
Again: I do not care to hear about your reasons for not agreeing with this intro. Each person, please rewrite this intro, as you see fit. If you disagree with my introduction, please write another introduction, with no reasons listed, for your introduction. We can then discuss your alternative introduction, at length, and make a comprimise. Travb (talk) 20:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we should be focusing primarily on establishing what content should actually appear in the article rather than the motivations for our preferences but such comments can be extremely useful in elucidating useful responses and counter-proposals. It would also be beneficial were editors to take a look at the last version with which I was significantly involved, in order to understand what my linguistic preferences may be (it has stylistic problems, however, as I've never been up to speed or very patient with the latest preferred formatting, particularly with regard to references). Though problematic, this is Skywriter's most productive comment thus far, and I have a number of responses to his suggestions and complaints:

  1. I find the issue of quantifying casualties to be a very pedantic point of discussion. I do not favor the word "several" because that word implies to me a number below twenty or ten. Saying "dozens" or "hundreds" is not appropriate because they respectively and exclusively minimize and maximize the estimates. I am not sure under what circumstances this has been changed, but I prefer a reference to "an unknown number". This suits perfectly the fact that estimates vary widely on the number of deaths and the relevance of certain possible deaths to the subject matter.
  2. The same goes for the distinction made between "passive" and "active" voice. I fail to see the difference between "elements" and "members" as well. My (less specific) version stated that "the U.S. armed forces are said to have killed a number of Korean civilians".
  3. Skywriter is correct on the point of the issuance of the report. I am not sure how and when the issue of the investigation and joint-statement became conflated with this, but it is easily correctable.
  4. Agreed on the point of personal observations, though unsure of the relevance, as I don't believe anyone has suggested editing them in.
  5. I am not convinced that there is a structural problem in the organization of the article regarding the placing of the report's findings below media and academic coverage. The investigation would not have taken place if it were not for the media furor, and there needs to be a proper and contextual examination of the debate that ensued. While the findings of the report have been disputed (and therefore holding them in prominence above other accounts would actually be misleading in the disfavor of e.g. the AP story), the report remains aloof from these matters even when it contains points of similarity.
  6. I am confused about the significance of the next few lines. There is no indication if this is a proposal of phrasing or merely of general organization. I find the latter objectionable, but the former particularly egregious.
  7. Bateman's summary (from this talk page) can not be utilized in the article because it is a comment contained on Wikipedia, not from a published document (I am not discounting the idea that he is who he says he is but we must follow referencing standards).
  8. I am unsure of the meaning of his "under the bridge" references. This information pertains to, and should pertain to, the incident at No Gun Ri - which is the actual subject of the article. I am in favor of a relocation of the material to a neutrally-titled fork, but it should not stray into tertiary subjects.
  9. I do not "reject" Bateman's summary, either in principle or on its merits. It can not be utilized here, but that does not mean it isn't a valuable comment or in any way untruthful. However, you are again conflating interrelated, but very distinct, issues. Bateman is vague on the point of other (later) incidents because the facts are even more murky, though he has contended that the issue of policy does not explain the events at No Gun Ri itself. Simply stating that "thousands died" in the early part of the Korean War (which is true) does not inform us as to 1) who died), 2) who killed them, 3) under what circumstances. The subject of the incident at No Gun Ri, as the AP originally framed it, dealt with policy and refugees. While other events may have elements in relation to these issues, that all such deaths were 1) of refugees, 2) intentionally inflicted, 3) a matter of policy, is not self-evident. We would all do well not only to refrain from imparting our own biases, but to retain these nuances in our understanding of how this material is treated. I too am interested in the outcome of the Conway-Lanz book because the concept of "collateral damage", though not articulated until years later, is very useful in any such analysis (it strikes me that Conway-Lanz will mainly focus on how KW experiences were essential in framing the concept rather than delving at length into any novel interpretation of No Gun Ri).
  10. The Muccio letter should certainly be addressed in a neutral fashion, but not plastered in the lead. --TJive 06:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Kewl, we will address all those important issues, probably in excrutiating detail, once User:Skywriter comes up with an alternative introduction, then we can debate it, comprimise, and move on to the other important issues.
I will probably learn a lot from this, because I am a casual contributor to this article. That is both good and bad.
It is bad because most of what you guys are arguing about I honestly have no idea what you are talking about, nor do I care to learn more, at least at this point (but this probably will change later).
It is good because I don't have any real opinions about no gun ri. I have anti-american bias, to be sure, but I am also willing to allow both sides to express their views fully in the article.
Why is me being a casual contributor to this article good? Take for example: Talk:Hugo_Chávez#The_basic_question_about_Chavez I posed a question on that talk board about Chavez. In my opinion, the very best answer did not come from a Venezulean, but from a Colombian (Juancarlos2004). All of the Venezualens simply used my question as a springboard to push their own POV/pet ideology, and really never answered the question. Sometimes when a person begins to become an expert on a subject, they become more biased, not less. This seems particuarly true on wikipedia. (the most evenhanded editors of this article may be non-American, non-Korean wikipedians)
Anyway, TJive, we will address all of those issues hopefully very soon. I would like to agree on an introduction first, if that is okay with everyone.
I think most of the debate will not be over actual facts, but how to frame the facts (POV spin). So edit comprimises will not harm the article's factual information.
Signed:Travb (talk) 13:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Just so that everyone knows, whatever you decide, I will *not* be involved in editing the page itself. As for "primary source" (vice my comments here) they exactly replicate what I wrote in my book and/or have been quoted in articles (or written articles) about. Ergo, none of my comments are new. They've all been published before, albeit in some cases, in smaller venues. But I leave all of that to you to discern wrt utility.
Good luck.
Bob
PS~ I welcome anyone who wants to contact me offline. Some things here (such as the idea that I don't use Korean sources) are offbase and reflect a poor reading. I used Korean sources...100% of the transcripts...published by the AP! (So that I could not be accused of bias, I ONLY used THEIR sources! D'accord? Same w/ spelling.) --RobertBateman 18:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be wonderful if you could edit this article too.Travb (talk) 18:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Fork argument

TJive wrote: As well, I do not object should the material be forked off, on the condition that the article title is neutral and that the material is moved as it is before rewording.

I hope you don't mind if I moved this to its own section, I want the discussion above to stay on the topic of the proposed edit. If you do not like me moving your comments, you are welcome to move them up above. (Note: Comments moved back by user. Travb (talk) 13:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC))
In regards to your fork idea, I think you brought this up before above.
The reason this article moved here, was because there was a fight over the name No Gun Ri massacre and No Gun Ri incident. We comprimised, someone suggested moving it here, and the edit war ended. Were you involved with that edit war? I was right in the middle of it, pushing for No Gun Ri massacre as the title, but I felt like moving the article here, to No Gun Ri was a satisfactory comprimise. We can talk about moving some of the information later. Right now, lets just focus on the introduction, how can we rewrite those two akward sentences?
They were stopped by an American roadblock at No Gun Ri and set on the railroad track near the bridge. U.S. soldiers fired mortar rounds to compel the refugees to halt their advance.

Signed:Travb (talk) 15:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter MIA

Skywriter has disappeared, and hasn't posted since June 29th.[17] So now what? I would like to get this article unblocked and avoid another edit war. But we need Skywriter's okay on the introduction, otherwise without consensus before the page is unblocked, there will probably be another revert war. 08:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't you mean "MIA"? I don't know why he's gone but it's no imperative. I think we all need to put this site into perspective of real life. In any case, I would also love if Bateman could contribute; if not putting in work into the article itself, uploading document and image sources (including perhaps his own) would be very valuable. --TJive 13:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
LOL. Yes MIA. Travb (talk) 17:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I am at the beach right now, but when I get home I'll go through my files and try and discern what primary source by this I mean the historian's definition thereof, meaning archival materials originally and contemporaneously generated by people who were there/involved.) Somebody please e-mail me to help me w/ logistics. I have, obviously, entire file cabinet drawers full of this stuff, so culling (and particularly making sure the selected materials themselves are "neutral" in POV) will take some thought, but I am thinking that map overlays might be useful, as well as some logs. Anyone who has copies of my book (and is scanning this page) can help w/ some recommendations by scanning my endnotes in the book, which pretty much outlines what I have on-hand.

Best to all, 

            Bateman

--RobertBateman 13:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Unprotecting

As suggested, I'm going to unprotect this article. --Tony Sidaway 18:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Sigh, here we go

I added the most recent introduction which we talked about here on the talk page to the No Gun Ri page, deleting the previous one.

I moved the AP account to the AP section, and Batemans account about the body count to Batemans section.

I hope this is a helps relieve some of the contention in the previous edit wars. Travb (talk) 08:35, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed modification to the introduction

Current edit

No Gun Ri is a village in South Korea, located in Hwanggan-myeon, Yeongdong County, North Chungcheong province. During the early days of the Korean War, several Korean refugees were killed by members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment in No Gun Ri village.

The incident occurred between July 26 to July 29, 1950 and was investigated in the well-publicized 1999 Associated Press report, later expanded into the book, The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2000.[1] A report was released in January 2001 by the United States Department of Defense and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) about the incident.

On the day before the incident, hundreds of Korean civilians were evacuated in the vicinity, southward from Im Gae Ri and Joo Gok Ri, fleeing a North Korean advance. They were stopped by a roadblock at No Gun Ri and set on the railroad track which eventually led to a bridge, where American forces were. To compel the refugees to halt their advance from the line, U.S. soldiers fired mortar rounds. The circumstances of the killings, and the precise number of dead, are disputed.

Proposed edit

No Gun Ri is a village in South Korea, located in Hwanggan-myeon, Yeongdong County, North Chungcheong province. During the early days of the Korean War, several Korean refugees were killed by members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment near the village.

The event occurred between July 26 to July 29, 1950 and was investigated in the well-publicized 1999 Associated Press report, later expanded into the book, The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2000.[1] A report was released in January 2001 by the United States Department of Defense and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) about the event.

The day before, hundreds of Korean civilians were evacuated in the vicinity, southward from Im Gae Ri and Joo Gok Ri, fleeing a North Korean advance. They were stopped by a roadblock at No Gun Ri and set on the railroad track which eventually led to a bridge, where American forces were. To compel the refugees to halt their advance from the line, U.S. soldiers fired mortar rounds. The circumstances of the killings, and the precise number of dead, are disputed.

Let me know what you think of the proposed changes to the introduction. Travb (talk) 10:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Confusion

Current introduction edit: "They were stopped by a roadblock at No Gun Ri and set on the railroad track which eventually led to a bridge, where American forces were. To compel the refugees to halt their advance from the line, U.S. soldiers fired mortar rounds. The circumstances of the killings, and the precise number of dead, are disputed."

The question when I read this sentence is why did the refugees advance. They were sitting on the railroad and then what? This needs to be clearer for those of us, like myself who don't know much about the event. Travb (talk) 10:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Changes to the existing introduction

Please see: [18]

I deleted one sentence on the main page:

"During the early stages of the Korean War, U.S. armed forces killed a number of civilians in No Gun Ri village."

...which was basically reapeating the same idea:

"During the early days of the Korean War, several Korean refugees were killed by members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment."

I combined the sentence with the preceding one. The modified sentence now reads:

"The incident occurred between July 26 to July 29, 1950 and was investigated in the well-publicized 1999 Associated Press report, later expanded into the book, The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War."

Signed:Travb (talk) 10:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed the edit war and NPOV tags

I removed: {{POV}} {{editwar}} maybe I am jumping the gun by removing these tags.

But I am hoping that in the spirit of good will and comprimise which I have seen on this page, we can:

  1. avoid a future edit war, and the previous edit war is finished,
  2. and all sides are now amply recognized on the page, in a NPOV manner, so a POV tag is no longer necessary.

If any of you disagree, I welcome you adding the POV tag back, and will not protest.

Signed:Travb (talk) 21:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Incident to tragedy

User:RobertBateman changed the word "incident" to tragedy.

I think this is a nice comprimise, especially since the word "incident" and "massacre" were both words used in a previous edit war. I was going to use the word "event" but I think tragedy more amply describes what happened then "event" or "incident".

I personally prefer "massacre" because tragedy makes it sound like it was simply a mistake, like someone getting in a car accident. In other words: no one is to blame. American soldiers really didn't kill unarmed civilians, or if they did, it was simply a mistake, like breaking a cup in the kitchen, or stepping on someones toe. But in the spirit of comprimise, I will respect the beliefs of those who are members of the American civil religion.

In my studies, the National media at the onset used the word "massacre" but as time progressed they used the word "incident" more. I don't think Bateman coined the term, but I may be wrong.

This would make a great sociology study on why the media switched as time when on from "massacres" to "incidents"--maybe because of:

  1. the US News and World report articles, and the Bateman criticisms of the AP story--
  2. but maybe it was because when the initial horror wears of, Americans go back to believing that any war crime committed by there soldiers and country is a mistake, and it was simply an anomoly. They go back to believing that they are an innocent nation. The "massacres" to "incidents" occurance maybe similar to what Americans did after:

As the horrors wear of, Americans return to their ideology, embracing their American civil religion once more. Travb (talk) 22:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

TRAVB: Nah, what happens is that massacres, when validated, remain massacres. That complete asshat Chivington and the WashitaMassacre, and my own 7th Cavalry with the Wounded Knee massacre are prominant examples which stand the test of time.

--208.54.95.129 23:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That's just funny now. A tragedy? Now, let's call every massacre a "tragedy" starting with the wikipedia list of massacres, right? There no such thing as a massacre; if unarmed civilians are massacred by military it is by no definition a massacre; nooooooo, just a little tragedy.84.167.200.25 17:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Move

I object to the move. "No Gun Ri" gets 8 million hits in Google, and Nogeun-ri only a few hundred. The most easily recognizable English language version of the name should be used.

Please move it back, somebody. --Uncle Ed 13:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I moved it to No Gun Ri tragedy, because the word "massacre" connotes deliberate killing of unarmed people.

This article needs to clarify that there is a dispute over two different versions:

  • AP version: airmen were ordered to strafe and bomb retreating civilians, and soldiers knowingly and deliberately opened fire on unarmed civilians who posed no threat to them
    This is obviously an accusation of war crimes
  • US/ROK version: dozens or even a couple hundred unarmed Koreans were killed, but not deliberately: it was a tragic mistake

Wikipedia contributors are faced with three different ways to write this article:

  1. slant it toward the US/ROK version (not going to happen, obviously!)
  2. slant it toward the AP version (where it is now)
  3. write it from the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

I endorse the 3rd way, naturally. We can do this by summarizing the two accounts: say, put AP first and US/ROK second. Then describe the differences between the two accounts. But don't conclude that either side is "right". And don't introduce or "name" the article in such a way to imply that either side is right. --Uncle Ed 14:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I can see your point about not using the word "massacre". Makes sense. Tragedy seems to biased in the same direction, though. In that case, I'd recommend going back to "incident". It was definitely an incident. No doubt about that. Kafziel 15:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I just didn't want to leave it at Nogeun-ri, which is incomprehensible to anyone who (unlike me) is unfamiliar with Korean language and romanization rules. --Uncle Ed 15:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Somebody PLEASE move it from "tragedy". That is the epitome of weasel language. If this killing took place, then it was a massacre, not a tragedy. And if it didn't take place, it was neither a massacre nor a tragedy. So either way, tragedy does not apply.

If some people object to "massacre" then at least move it back to "incident" until a consensus is arrived at. Gatoclass 16:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Gatoclass: Bob Bateman here (sorry, I should have signed in). I think that your personal interpretation is subject to interpretation itself. Damn, does that make sense? OK, follow me.

No matter what, if there were orders, or there were not orders, one word definitely applies. That is tragedy. The word that I used in my own book, (incident) which is also accurate, is viewed by more people than you as what you guys here call a "weasel word", though that was not my intent. I can see some of their point. You can describe a confrontation between Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly as an "incident", or a non-fatal car accident as an "incident", or even mass air-to-air combat in WWII as an "incident", but none of those meet the definition of tragedy. So that's why the switch seemed, well, appropriate. English is a magnificant language (I recommend Bill Bryson, Mother Tongue, English and How it Got That Way, for a wonderful traipse through the lexicon), but it does have some limitations, or faults. One is that there are, in some cases, TOO many synonyms which can be interpreted differently. I think that the reasoning of the majority is about right on this one at this time.

Bob Bateman

Sorry, I stand by what I said before. "Tragedy" is a nauseating euphemism for a massacre. Once again, if a massacre took place, it's not a "tragedy", it's a massacre, and if it didn't, then it's not a tragedy in any case.
"Incident" is hardly satisfactory either but at least it is vague enough to be acceptable while consensus on a more appropriate name is reached. Gatoclass 11:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Possible bias

I think I've found a possible source of bias for any writer (not accusing present company, just making a mild observation).

Some people see no distinction between (1) killing unarmed people and (2) killing unarmed people who get "too close" to ground troops. They believe that any time an unarmed person is killed, it's a war crime.

The other point of view is that modern, civilized armies can and do make as sharp a distinction as possible between the two categories. Unresisting civilians, going about their business - especially if retreating from combat zones (or masses of troops) - should not be killed, and troops should make every effort to avoid such killings. Thus, the My Lai massacre was universally considered a war crime and is used in U.S. Army ethics training manuals which I have personally studied (late 1980s, in Ft. Campbell, KY).

The problem arises if civilians appear to pose a threat - or if people not wearing uniforms are suspected of being enemies. Then there's always the confusion of the moment: you hear explosions or mortar fire or gunfire in a certain direction and panic: "They're shooting at us!" Which is why troops need supervision (NCOs) and leadership (officers) to establish use of force doctrine and rules of engagement.

Anyway, the intractable dispute will forever be between those who choose to believe that US troops in Korea (and Vietnam and Iraq) have been given orders from on high to kill unresisting, peaceful noncombatants - and those who choose to believe otherwise. Those who choose to believe the worst of the US military have an agenda they are pushing. --Uncle Ed 15:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Those who choose to believe the worst of the US military have an agenda they are pushing. And those who choose to believe the best of the US military don't have an agenda they are pushing? Travb (talk) 15:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Silly question. NPOV requires contributors to be aware of both agendas, of course. --Uncle Ed 15:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I would assert that many of those publicly denounce the US military tend not to investigate the details. Of course, the majority of those who have a knee jerk reaction against the denunciations probably also tend not to investigate the details. Hopefully, neither group edits this article without learning to investigate the details with an open mind. --Habap 15:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

AP story excerpts

  • American commanders had ordered units retreating through South Korea to shoot civilians as a defense against disguised enemy soldiers, according to once-classified documents found by the AP in months of researching U.S. military archives and interviewing veterans across the United States.

Oddly enough, the article's only classified document (shown in Image:Shootingkoreancivilians.jpg) says nothing at all like "when you see civilians, shoot them". --Uncle Ed 15:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean about the document in the image. #3 says "the army" (doesn't say who) has issued orders to "strafe all civilian refugee parties", and #4 says they have complied. Kafziel 15:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Incomplete quote: you left out "... that are noted approaching our positions." (In the section below, I amplify the distinction.) --Uncle Ed 15:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I figured it went without saying that they weren't supposed to shoot the civilians they ran into while they were on R&R. But otherwise, where else would they see civilians except at their positions? (Even if the civilians are moving away from their positions, they would have had to have approached at some point or they wouldn't have been spotted.)
I'm definitely not one who thinks there's some kind of big conspiracy with all these things, like there's some general in Washington telling them to do it. In my own experience, it's usually poor supervision or bad examples set by NCOs or junior officers. In any case, I don't see how anyone could have an "agenda" like the guy above is saying; the war is 50 years gone. Anyone who might have issued an order like that is long dead. Probably most of the guys who carried it out, too. Kafziel 16:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm sensitive about the issue. It was my ambivalence about "collateral damage" that led to my decision to leave the US Army instead of becoming an officer and making it a career.
Please take a look at the article changes I made today and give me feedback. Am I taking the article in the right direction? --Uncle Ed 17:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Were the orders general or specific?

I think there's a big difference between "shoot any civilians you see, because infiltrators might be among them" and this order:

"No refugees to cross the front line. Fire everyone trying to cross lines. Use discretion in case of women and children." [19]

Think of a bouncer outside a nightclub. If he walks up to a person standing in line (waiting in an orderly fashion to get in) and hits him on the head with an iron bar, he'd be guilty of assualt. But if the same person were to try to rush into the club ahead of everyone else (improperly attired or even trying to avoid paying the cover charge), the bounce would be within his rights to restrain the person from entering - taking care not to use excessive force, of course.

The "bouncer example" sets up a distinction between two types of responses to different situations. Similarly (some may argue), US troops should treat (apparent) civilians differently based on their location and behavior.

Are there different points of view on this? May we assume these types of ethical distinctions were common knowledge, or what? --Uncle Ed 15:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Clean up

Clean up info from the cleanup tag:

  • unclear on sequence of events (omits movement of 'civilians' towards troops)
I don't know enough about this event to correct it.
  • makes AP investigation sound like "first news report" 40 years later, which is absurd
Was the AP investigation the first news report? I thought it was. Travb (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


Strafing civilians

Michael Breen's book The Koreans reports that "US planes strafed fleeing civilians." (sorry, I read it last right at a friend's house and forgot to write down the exact words or page number).

The key point is whether these "fleeing civilians" were moving toward or away from GIs. Also, were they warned in any way, or did U.S. troops simply open fire?

Two points for my fellow contributors: (1) I have no idea what happened, other than what I've read at Wikipedia and googled on-line. (2) I want the article to state both points of view, rather than endorsing AP's version as truth. --Uncle Ed 16:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm biased in favor of the US Army. It's a distinct possibility, because I served 5 years (two enlistments) and was considering making it a career. BUT ...
I've noticed a pattern in anti-war reporting on US military activities. Whenever civilians (or anyone not wearing a military uniform) is killed by US troops, anti-war activists omit any mention of what people were doing before they were killed. As if to imply that anyone who gets killed other than a soldier is a war crimes victim.
Now, I don't expect Wikipedia to take a position for or against this POV, but I think people who write articles for Wikipedia should be aware of this source of bias.
My point is, there's a world of differences between:
  1. US troops killed unarmed people, who were not wearing uniforms; and,
  2. US troops murdered civilians
I'd like to see our articles distinguish between #1 and #2 - I daresay that anti-war activists would prefer to blur this distinction. --Uncle Ed 13:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Targeting civilians

This is a key sentence, expressing the anti-US point of view of the AP, and I've cut it only temporarily:

Documents retrieved in this investigation suggested that there was an official policy in the U.S. Army to target civilians with deadly force.

It all hinges on the word target just as in the 2006 Lebanese village incident.

In military terms, a "target" is something you want to hit because it has military value - both to your side and to the enemy.

Peaceful civilians, particularly women and children, are not targets because they don't advance the enemy campaign; so killing them doesn't advance your side's campaign. (There are certain rare exceptions that go beyond the scope of this article: Hiroshima, Coventry, etc.)

However, an elementary principle of combat security is that suspicious people are not allowed to approach. Specifically, US forces were told not to let groups of apparent civilians to move southward toward US ground troops.

The use of force doctrine to handle the approach of apparent civilians was clear:

  1. Fire warning shots
  2. If they continue to approach, shoot the people

The difference between that and targeting is:

  • A target does not get a warning shot
    The purpose of the warning is to determine intentions. Civilian noncombatants understand that a "shot over their heads" will be followed by a "shot aimed at them" if they do not stop, and will therefore stop. Enemy soldiers are trained to keep going; they will in fact be violating military law (of their side) if they stop (see cowardice in the face of the enemy).
  • A target is something you want to destroy and feel proud of eliminationg (mixed only with the usual humanitarian regret of having "killed a fellow human being")
    No civilized person is ever proud of having shot or bombed civilians, even if they ignored leaflet warnings and warning shots.
  • If the target changes course, you pursue it
    Civilians prove their noncombatant status by changing course, e.g., by stopping, sitting down, turning aside.

Saying that US forces had "a policy to target civilians" makes it sound like GI's wanted to kill non-combatants. So that is Associated Press's Point of view (POV).

The POV of the Pentagon and of South Korea disputes AP's point of view. Each document that AP cites is subject to 2 different interpretations:

  1. that civilians are deliberately "targeted"; or,
  2. that approaching civilians who ignore warning shots will be killed

Once again, the distinction is between:

  1. ordered to shoot them (unconditionally); and,
  2. ordered to shoot them if they (A) approach your position and (B) ignore warning shots

I can't make this clear enough. I think the main reason I can't, is that the AP investigation seems to have had the purpose of blurring this distinction. It takes a relentlessly hostile tone toward the US military. They are only interesting in turning this incident into a war crime, "authorized from on high".

Faced with evidence that their initial report was flawed, they dug up 'new evidence' of a 'criminal' policy, but as before this 'evidence' showed exactly the same thing as before:

  • no "targeting" of civilians, but instead
  • orders to stop their approach using:
    1. warning leaflets
    2. warning shots
    3. shoot only if the warnings are ignored

The AP's position is that the policy was unconditional (i.e., deliberate "targeting"); the US/South Korea position is that the policy was conditional to the behavior of non-uniformed personnel. So I think the sentence I cut from the article should be expanded into a paragraph:

The Associated Press interpreted documents related to this incident as proving that there was an official policy in the U.S. Army to "target" civilians with deadly force. The US interpretation is that the policy was to avoid using deadly force against civilians as much as possible, consistent with combat security.
All very interesting but an editor is here to give a neutral POV. Once you start giving reasons why it is or not a war crime you are heading down the slipppery slopes towards becoming an apologist. The only valid position is to give the points of view on this topic and let the reader decide.
And just for interest - where is the Korean opinion of what happened? Herne nz 09:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Uncle Ed 09:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Massacre or tragedy

  1. restiore. I merely fixed double redirect. and thus noticed this artice. There is no policy against the word "massacre" Please look up titles that use this name)
  2. (cur) (last) 03:21, 17 August 2006 Chacor (Talk | contribs) (it redirects here because YOU made it redirect here. It violates wikipedia policy. revert.)
  3. (cur) (last) 03:19, 17 August 2006 Mukadderat (Talk | contribs) (restored edit. sorry, No Gun Ri massacre redirect here and it is called so in media. I humbly suggest you to read massacre article)
  4. (cur) (last) 03:16, 17 August 2006 Chacor (Talk | contribs) (removing disputed text for WP:NPOV. Do NOT add in a biased point of view.)
  5. (cur) (last) 03:15, 17 August 2006 Mukadderat (Talk | contribs) (it is called so in media; killing of civilians by military is called massacre in the world)
  6. (cur) (last) 03:14, 17 August 2006 Mukadderat (Talk | contribs) (killing of civilians is called

I've seen it called "massacre" and "tragedy". It doesn't violate NPOV to use the term massacre in a title.

I recognize, as an experienced editor, that the word "Massacre" carries connotations of "Mass murder".

This article is more about the dispute between the AP POV and the Bateman POV, over whether the U.S. government committed the war crime of deliberately targeting civilians (see stub article which I just created yesterday).

I take no sides in the NPOV dispute over whether "tragedy" or "massacre" is a better word. Either way, it upsets me because of what happened.

It's not easy to describe upsetting events in an encyclopedia. --Uncle Ed 13:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Please notice I did not put any suggestions as to the title of the article, i.e., about how it must be called in wikipedia. At the same time a significant number of references calls it "massacre". Wikipedia's duty is to report the usage. Not doing so is called censorship. And referring to "censorship" as "NPOV" is called red herring. Mukadderat 03:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense phrase

While I am here, I noticed an evident misformulation:

"damning assertion that US military policy permitted firing on unarmed, peaceful civilians who posed no threat to US forces."

In is a common knowledge that e.g., a sentry can shoot anyone who approaches and does not respond to warnings. Therefore this sentence is badly misformulated or taken out of proper context. Someone who knows the topic, please fix. Mukadderat 04:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I wrote that. Sorry if it's garbled. I welcome a reformulation of this. --Uncle Ed 14:04, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Arm Chair General

Arm Chair General magazine says that it was really a group of soldiers who were green and had never seen war before, fired upon a small group of 12-35 persons, one of whom was armed and was firing at them. It says that the person who "brought the charges to light" - (A decorated soldier) had never served in a military role in the area, and also, despite not being in combat, tried to sue the military for post-tramatic stress disorder, and was accussed of trying to defraud the government. It said that the persons interviewed were cut off by the AP and not permitted to complete what they were saying, thus the AP reported what they wanted to report, rather than what actually happened. -- --SnitchyCat 9:28 AM Pacific Time Zone, Dec-03-2006

WPMILHIST Assessment

A very long, detailed article, which upon cursory examination appears to be fairly balanced. The first few sections, however, are really short and choppy, before leading into the dense main core content of the article - looks unbalanced on the page.... LordAmeth 12:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


Hello again,

I'd like to propose that this article be moved back to its previous location, No Gun Ri. This is for the following reasons:

  1. NPOV: As the history of this talk page makes abundantly clear, no word -- "tragedy," "incident," "massacre," or "killings" -- is generally accepted as representing a neutral point of view. However, the simple title "No Gun Ri" has in the past met with general (grudging) acceptance.
  2. Topicality: Frankly, Nogeun-ri is a perfectly nice village and I can't see any reason for Wikipedia not to cover it (since like all human settlements it is inherently notable), and deal with the killings and the controversy in the body of the article. In fact, there was once a separate No Gun Ri stub dealing exclusively with the village.
  3. Shortness: All other things being equal, shorter is better (as long as there is no ambiguity, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions.
  4. Translation: Least important reason of all, but the Korean name table currently contains the simple name 노근리, which is not a correct rendering of the current article title.

Of these, #1 is the really important one, and the primary reason that this page was at No Gun Ri in the first place. As the long-timers on this page will know, we've been over this ground before. I'm disappointed that someone who should know better has obliged us to go over it again. -- Visviva 12:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Support A town doesn't become a "tragedy" because some people were killed there. Why not "London tragedy," "Madrid tragedy", or "Pearl Harbor tragedy"? "No Gun Ri tragedy" can't be justified as common usage. Out of 115,000 Google hits for "No Gun Ri," only 280 contain the words "No Gun Ri tragedy." The phrase was "invented here," created as a compromise between "incident" and "massacre." Kauffner 20:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment If we did it that way, a search or link to "No Gun Ri" would give you an article that didn't deal with the shooting incident. That would create an extra step for most readers. In addition, some will be confused, even if you put a disambiguation on top. Kauffner 20:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed from No Gun Ri tragedy to No Gun Ri as the result of a move request. I understand the argument that the article deals chiefly with the event, but there is no separate article about the village to disambiguate from. At least, not yet. --Stemonitis 09:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

New report from Associated Press

For inclusion: "Letter Reveals U.S. Intent at No Gun Ri", http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20070413/461f0040_3ca6_1552620070413201938955. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Major article overhaul needed?

It seems to me that this article is in need of an overhaul to more succinctly present information about No Gun Ri. I have no vested interest in this article or subject and have no agendas or motives for favoring any one viewpoint over another. So with that in mind, here's one proposal for a way to restructure the article:

  • Intro: Basic info about town, notable because of deaths in late July 1950. Note that accounts of numbers of death vary widely. Note recent interest due to Pulitzer-winning AP articles from 1999. Note that controversy continues.
  • Present a timeline of events (my rough list follows):
    • 1950: deaths happen
    • Contemporary investigations (Were there any?)
There is a contemporary North Korean newspaper account on No Gun Ri. There was a New York Times account covering refugee shootings in general.
1994 Survivors gathered together by Korean novelist Kauffner 20:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • 1999: AP series of articles
January 2000 AP wins Pulitzer Prize Kauffner 20:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Controversies
    • Unreliable witness(es?) for AP articles (Daily, anyone else?)
    • US Army report. Missing/Ignoring documents
    • What others?


I have just broadly sketched out this proposal. Any suggestions or comments about the above proposal are welcome. — Bellhalla 13:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


The article seems lopsided in the following way. Other than an announcement of the events at No Gun Ri for three days near the end of July 1950, there is an absence of the documentation provided with the original series and with the book. Documentation exists at: http://www.henryholt.com/nogunri/documents.htm

There is over-emphasis in the existing article on the claims of Mr. Bateman who speculates without examining documentation by the AP reporters cited above. There is an over emphasis on Daily who was one of many people quoted in the series and in the book. That he lied to the AP, there is no doubt. That his role is over emphasized in this article, there is also no doubt. The link http://www.henryholt.com/nogunri/documents.htm also asserts that some of those documents, which came to light as a result of the series, were not acknowledged or handed over to the Korean government when the Pentagon's official inquiry was released in cooperation with the Korean government in 2001.

There is much more in this article describing the reaction to the AP series than there is describing what the AP reported. To balance this, I am planning to add links to the FOI'd and found declassified documents, and add them to the initial section.

I see this as complementary to the structure you have outlined, Bellhalla. Skywriter 18:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't agree about Edward Daily. His 60 Minutes "confession" was sensational -- he put No Gun Ri on the map. Handley knew Daily was a fraud put him in the AP story anyway. What else makes No Gun Ri remarkable? Mainly the North Korean estimate of 400 dead, which strikes me as off-the-wall, although this number appears in almost every media report on No Gun Ri. My interest in this incident arose because it seems to be part of a pattern involving the use of fake sources by the AP in recent years, including Jamil Hussein, supposedly an Iraqi police captain, and Green Helmut Guy, a Lebanese "rescue worker"/news photography art director.
Handley keeps pulling documents out of the U.S. archive that detail well-known policies and presents them as relevations that somehow shed new light on No Gun Ri. He reported Muccio's letter about shooting refugees last year and again just recently. The content of the letter is basically the same infomation that The New York Times published in back in September 1950. Muccio was an ambassador and described policy set by the military commanders as he understood it. He didn't issue orders and wasn't in the chain of command.
The core of the article should relate to what happened at No Gun Ri rather than U.S. policy toward refugees in general. Fehrenbach and the other standard reference works on the Korean War have first person accounts from U.S. soldiers who shot refugees trying to cross military lines, blew up bridges crowded with panic-striken Koreans, and so forth. Lots of bad stuff was going on and the archival documents the AP has found are certainly not the only source of information we have.
There are three basic sources on No Gun Ri: AP, Bateman, and the U.S.-ROK Army report. (The U.S. and ROK investigators agreed on everything except the death toll.) I suggest that we go through what happened and compare what the different versions have to say on given points. Kauffner 16:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Belhalla asked which of the two books on No Gun Ri was published first. According to a list put together by Baker & Taylor (the book distributor) the hard cover edition of the book by the AP reporters was published in September 2001; the Bateman book followed in March 2002. A soft cover edition of the book by the AP reporters was published in September 2002.

http://isbn.nu/cgi-bin/design-books?frontpage=yes&title=no+gun+ri&author=&authorchoice=exact&subject=&isbn=&Submit4.x=42&Submit4.y=6

Skywriter 21:51, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Apr 21, 2007 added to no gun ri talk page

Kauffner wrote:

My interest in this incident arose because it seems to be part of a pattern involving the use of fake sources by the AP in recent years, including Jamil Hussein, supposedly an Iraqi police captain, and Green Helmut Guy, a Lebanese "rescue worker"/news photography art director.

With 3,000 reporters and photographers, the Associated Press is the oldest association of news organizations of its kind in the world. http://www.ap.org/pages/about/about.html

Following your logic, you apparently wish to hold accountable AP reporters Charles J. Hanley, Sang-Hun Choe, Martha Mendoza and AP researcher Randy Herschaft for the alleged errors of other reporters and photographers among thousands employed by the AP?

Do you also hold responsible each and every one of the 1,500 U.S. daily newspapers that own and control the Associated Press for the errors of the AP?

Do you also hold all of the authors and editors at Simon & Schuster responsible for the plagiarism of Stephen Ambrose? If not, why not? If you are willing to condemn an entire organization on the basis of a few flaws, then why not extend that line of thinking to others in the business of publishing?

That said, I have looked at and corrected-- for fact and context-- the alleged Jamil Hussein controversy and have recommended on its talk page that it be deleted.

Your link to an article on Green Helmut Guy goes nowhere. There is no article on Wikipedia on that subject.

I find the link to the first article you cite on AP's alleged "pattern" to be confusing, as do others who have read that article and tagged it with a "confusion" tag. The second article you cite as part of AP's so-called "pattern" does not exist.

In light of this, I find that your comments to be both harsh and over-reaching in that they are not based in fact.

I concur, however, with your proposal to add Fehrenbach's popular U.S. military evaluation of the Korean War as background or additional reading to this article. The caveat is that Fehrenbach, like Bateman, does not address No Gun Ri and that is the focus of this article. The caveat also is that both military writers, Fehrenbach and Bachman, are limited in their scope and point of view in that they are reporting solely from the viewpoint of the US military. This approach is useful to a limited extent in that the US military can shed only limited light. Koreans civilians are the nexus of the tale of No Gun Ri. Korean civilians are central to this story and their experiences must not be buried, no matter what ideology particular Wikipedia articles are pushing.

Kauffner expresses irritation with the finding of documents in U.S. military archives shedding light on the events of No Gun Ri.

In contrast, I welcome the finding of primary source documents that shed light on what happened there. Sunshine on government documents is always a good thing.

When I can manage the time, I plan to add the source documents to this article. Skywriter 23:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

So I take it you work for the AP? I once worked for Susan Sevareid, maybe you know her. Nowhere did I blame "all of the authors and editors" at the AP. I have no idea what kind of internal organization they have.
"Iraqi police captain Jamil Hussein" was quoted in over 60 AP stories, although the Iraqi police deny that a captain of this name exists. It's almost certainly somebody's pseudonym, but the AP has never admitted this. If he's a real police captian, make a videotape of him doing his thing, like the one the AP made for Green Helmut Guy just recently. Imagine him in the cop shop sitting behind a desk with a "Jamil Hussein" nameplate, waving his pay stub and saying, "Who is this fool Michelle Malkin who says I don't exist?"
Certainly the survivors views need to be included. But these people were about 7 or 8 years old at the time. They are also suing for $400 million and thus have a vested interest. They claim GIs told them to evacutate their village, but there was no U.S. policy to evacute South Koreans and none of the soldiers remember it this way. It's a version of events that conveniently keeps the North Koreans out of the story.
I didn't read the Jamil Hussein article before linking to it. You can up to speed on the issue here and here. Kauffner 05:19, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't work for AP. No Gun Ri is not about Malkin or little green footballs or helmets or someone named Hussein. Statements supported by references to solid sources concerning No Gun Ri are welcome.Skywriter 23:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Past discussions for renaming from Archive 1

This is for reference.--Caspian blue 18:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

  1. ^ a b "The Pulitzer Prize Winners Investigative Reporting Bridge at No Gun Ri". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2006-07-15.
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