Talk:United States involvement in regime change/Archive 1

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NPOV

This artcle is written with an anti-US bias and needs to be deleted or changed in a big way to make it neutral. 86.171.33.78 (talk) 12:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear this opinion. Please believe my intention has been to be NPOV. Have patience, this is a young article. The pre-1917 involvements are less popular than the post 1917 interventions.

How do you think the article can be improved? I can suggest, as a beginning, that expanding and adding detail to the the WWI and WWII sections would make the article appear less "anti-US"?

My research interest is more in the "small wars" that most people tend not to know about, but I'd invite you to help by expanding the section on the "large wars" which, not coincidentally, are the wars Americans are most proud of.

Also remember that the "event summaries" are taken from the pre-existing articles-- if you find bias in the summary, that might just be because of earlier authors had bias. --HectorMoffet (talk) 13:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see much of anything NPOV in this article. Nevertheless, one wonders why we need so many articles on U.S. actions to "preserve or remove foreign governments": From Covert United States foreign regime change actions to Open U.S. regime change actions to United States involvement in regime change to United States support of Authoritarian regimes to articles for CIA activities in every country on Earth--and now the template you made! Clearly, some of these pages must be deleted or merged.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Nice article. It can be expanded,fir starters you have left out the CIA/MI5 coup against the Iranian government in 1953.Zrdragon12 (talk) 21:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Good catch, TheTimes, on Open U.S. regime change actions, I hadn't seen that one. It's just a stub, unfortunately, and a good candidate to be merged into this article. Please know I'm not working on this subject because I have some anti-american "ax to grind"-- 1917 was LONG time ago in a very different world, and documenting that era has nothing at all to do with trying to make any point about the US of the 21st century. --HectorMoffet (talk) 23:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

86.171.33.78 or others, I'm still very eager to dialogue about what you perceive as anti-american bias and how we can fix that. Americans spread their form of government evangelically-- they fight wars to bring democracy to nations with autocratic rule. The US has a unique global role, with far more interventions than most nations, but it's not anti-american to point this out-- the US is proud of its foreign policy, especially during the past century. Listing the extend of the interventions doesn't mean to imply any "judgements" about them at all-- not in my mind at least. --HectorMoffet (talk) 02:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

This page looks to me as a POV fork of United States military deployments... My very best wishes (talk) 22:30, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

It's horrible that you guys deleted the old version. that's censorship. I think it should come back. Google search "Covert United States foreign Regime change actions" and you'll find the saved back up

I don't know who "you guys" are, and also by the way, you don't need to google the title to see the previous versions of this page, there is literally a history section for exactly that. - SantiLak (talk) 04:38, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Nation State?

The section on the Civil War suggests that the U.S. became a nation state after the war; there is room for discussion here, but "nation state" is a widely-misused term, and one that I do not think is appropriate here. The term is often used as a synonym for "state" or "country," but is something quite a bit more specific. In usual practice, a nation state claims to be the sole home of an ethnic or linguistic nationality (e.g. France, Hungary, Japan). According to Benedict Anderson, the U.S. could conceivably be a "civic nation," which is bound together by tradition and culture, but I think it's quite a stretch to suggest that the U.S. as a whole, even in 1865, was ever really a nation state. Immigrant groups that are culturally and linguistically unassimilated, indigenous populations, and widely-divergent civic views (especially between the North and South) make it difficult to call the U.S. a nation state in any true sense. Schnabeltiere (talk) 15:28, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Whether it is a "nation state" or not, the civil war really has no place in this article. - SantiLak (talk) 00:24, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Article needs overhaul

This article contains a lot of great information, but suffers from a number of problems. First, the article is missing a substantial number of regime change actions in the latter half of the 20th century. Second, the article lacks a meaningful lead. Third, the article could benefit from greater structure, listing each regime change action as a subheading with an item line in the contents. Fourth, the various article problem tags have been present for years without ever apparently being addressed.

I think that if problems 1-3 are addressed the problem tags can be removed. I'll work to achieve this. -Darouet (talk) 17:24, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Iran material

Hey TheTimesAreAChanging, I don't understand your removal, and am making a post here so you can explain more. I appreciate your watching these articles and helping keep quality high, but you arguments for removal of the Iran material didn't make sense to me:

• WP:UNDUE is a nonsensical argument for removal because regime change is the topic of this article. Of course efforts to destabilize Iran are WP:DUE, and well within the WP:SCOPE of US involvement in regime change broadly.

• The current status of groups previously supported by the US has no bearing on material presented here. What's important is their status in 2003.

Comments would be helpful - Darouet (talk) 22:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

The claims about MeK have always been transparently false to anyone with actual knowledge of the topic, and bear no resemblance to U.S. policy. See, for example, former CIA officer Clare M. Lopez:

"The last offensive operation the MeK conducted against the Tehran regime was in 2001, more than a decade ago. The group relinquished its weapons to invading American forces in 2003 after its several camps in Iraq were bombed, unprovoked and without a single shot fired in self-defense, by coalition planes in fulfillment of a U.S. government pledge to the Iranian regime to do so in return for a promise from Tehran of noninterference in Iraq. A sixteen-month investigation by U.S. diplomatic and intelligence agencies followed, in which every one of the approximately 3,400 MeK members was personally investigated, DNA-tested, and found innocent of any crime or terrorist activity. Each person then signed a statement renouncing the use of violence. In 2004, the U.S. government therefore pledged protection to these now unarmed civilians under the Fourth Geneva Convention."

The claims about Jundallah have only been more recently debunked, though they were never based on strong evidence. See Foreign Policy:

"Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives—what is commonly referred to as a 'false flag' operation. The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah—a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization. ... The report then made its way to the White House, according to the currently serving U.S. intelligence officer. The officer said that Bush 'went absolutely ballistic' when briefed on its contents. ... The debate over Jundallah was resolved only after Bush left office when, within his first weeks as president, Barack Obama drastically scaled back joint U.S.-Israel intelligence programs targeting Iran, according to multiple serving and retired officers. The decision was controversial inside the CIA, where officials were forced to shut down 'some key intelligence-gathering operations,' a recently retired CIA officer confirmed. This action was followed in November 2010 by the State Department's addition of Jundallah to its list of foreign terrorist organizations—a decision that one former CIA officer called 'an absolute no-brainer.'"

The FBI did cultivate sources within Jundallah—which continued even after the CIA barred the most minimal contact with the group after the 2007 Zahedan bombings—but this was intelligence-gathering, not an attempt at "regime change." See The New York Times:

"Current and former officials say the American government never directed or approved any Jundallah operations. And they say there was never a case when the United States was told the timing and target of a terrorist attack yet took no action to prevent it."

Indeed, contradicting earlier reports, it seems Pakistan captured Abdolmalek Rigi and sent him to his death in Iran with U.S. support. Quoting Foreign Policy again:

"Rigi was turned over to the Iranians after the Pakistani government informed the United States that it planned to do so. The United States, this officer said, did not raise objections to the Pakistani decision. Iran, meanwhile, has consistently claimed that Rigi was snatched from under the eyes of the CIA, which it alleges supported him. 'It doesn't matter,' the former intelligence officer said of Iran's charges. 'It doesn't matter what they say. They know the truth.'"

I hate to break it to you, but Seymour Hersh is a liar.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, your comment about Seymour Hirsch reflects personal animus. Even if it were true, as WP editors we would not be qualified to evaluate. Your citing of sources denying American involvement with Jundulla appear to be OR--given conflicting reports we don't decide "the answer." We as WP editors are not in the "truth" business but in the RS-supported information business. In this vein, I added your "False Flag" allegation and the source you cited. --NYCJosh (talk) 02:57, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that your sources are outdated, undue, and borderline fringe. Lawrence Wilkerson has devolved into a conspiracy theorist nutjob promoting everything from the infamous "Grand Bargain" with Iran myth to the claim that the Ghouta chemical attack was actually perpetrated by Israel. Alexis Debat has been exposed as a conman, causing ABC to delete many of his articles. Seymour Hersh's widely discredited account of the bin Laden raid is the most vivid illustration yet of his tendency to fall for propaganda hoaxes—and the U.S.-led invasion of Iran that he kept predicting would happen any day now during the last few years of the Bush administration never materialized. Your copy/paste text is so old, it even omits the fact that MeK is no longer a designated terrorist organization! Look, Josh, we both know you're a 9/11 truther, JFK assassination truther, conspiracy nut who thinks the CIA is behind everything bad that happens—and, to you, everything is "disinfo"—but Foreign Policy says these old stories are "debunked." Do you have any more recent sources to the contrary? Better yet, do any of your sources even say that these alleged U.S. actions were designed to overthrow the Iranian government in favor of a Jundallah or MeK regime (if not, this is all POV-pushing synthesis)?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:25, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: I am reading the sources you've linked. -Darouet (talk) 06:26, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, don't appreciate your ad hominem attacks against me and they are inappropriate on WP. This is WP, not a presidential campaign : ) You don't know anything about my personal views or politics and anyone who does knows that your "charges" are ridiculous and false. More important, even if I were a birther conspiracy theorist and a serial sex abuser, it would be irrelevant to my WP contributions (or my ability to run for president, apparently). I'll return the substance later.NYCJosh (talk) 14:14, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

No? Some of your edits suggest otherwise: "U.S. planned attack against Afghanistan ... before 9/11" added to the 9/11 conspiracy theories page is probably not the best example—it's actually one of the rare occasions where you were playing with facts and not with fantasies, though it is pure WP:OR since nowhere did your source make the "inside job" connection—but then there's edits like the following to John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories: "According to the theory of the assassination that claims that elements of the U.S. government military and/or intelligence apparatus were reponsible (sic), the assassination was actually a coup, which succeeded in installing a new president with a foreign policy different from JFK's."; "Reserchers (sic) who for years had called into question the Warren Commission's finding that a lone gunmen was reposible (sic) for the assassination, and had posited a conspiracy theory, felt vindicated by the House report" (based on acoustic evidence that has, of course, since been discredited; also note the weasel words such as "researchers"). The more important point, however, is that your entire career on Wikipedia has been devoted to conspiracy theories—whether you would recognize them as such or not—and if you really believe even a fraction of your own allegations against the "Great Satan"/"Evil Empire" America, the cognitive dissonance required for you to support Clinton over Trump must be absolutely staggering.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

1. Lawrence Wilkerson as "conspiracy theorist" who accepts the "grand bargain with Iran" hypothesis. (a) Wilkerson, like many State Department officials in 2003 according to the first source you cite (the WP page about Wilkerson), and like Senator John Kerry, was inclined to push for exploratory negotiations on the purported Iranian offer. There appears to have been a genuine difference of opinion among senior US policy makers as to how to interpret the Iranian document and whether exploratory negotiations were called for by it. (b) In any case, neither he nor Kerry are "conspiracy theorists." You can't just call everyone you disagree with a "conspiracy theorist" and hope they go away. (c) Even if Wilkerson, Kerry and the State Dept officials were wrong in 2003, or even if Wilkerson alleged that some operations in Syria may have been "false flag" (as your Foreign Policy citation does with regard to Jundullah), this does not disqualify Wilkerson from being a sound RS per WP when cited in an RS news source on an unrelated issue.

2. Debat. ABC news has not retracted the story I cited. The key information from the ABC story I added to the page, Jundullah raids into Iran and terrorism operations there, Jundullah's Al Qaida and drug ties, Jundullah receiving training and support from the US, etc. are sourced from US and Pakistani intel sources, not (just) from Debat. In any event, as WP editors, it's OR for us to try to go disqualify the ABC News story by attacking individual sources identified therein, so long as ABC News stands by its report.

3. Seymour Hirsch is a legendary American journalist whose often groundbreaking reportage has been featured in The New Yorker and other media outlets for decades. He continues to be featured in The New Yorker and elsewhere to this day. You may dislike him or what he writes. But you should keep personal animus about him and about me to yourself--this talk page is about a WP article, not a place to vent or to explore your own theories about the world. Hirsch and the New Yorker are first-rate RS.

I won't dignify your repeated ad hominem attacks by responding. It's amazing that you claim to know so much about my personal views, you ignore my decade-plus contributions to a host of WP articles, and can even divine how I plan to vote next month. I request that you delete all personal attacks and apologize for them forthwith.NYCJosh (talk) 19:08, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I removed the Debat quotes from the Jundullah paragraph and made it more succinct in view of TheTimesAreChanging's allegation.--NYCJosh (talk) 01:12, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I'm sure you'll vote Stein. It's not like New York's a swing state. The question is, what if it were? Chomsky endorsed Clinton in swing states. That just seems bizarre to me, assuming Chomsky actually believes the U.S. is "the world's leading terrorist state." How could Trump be worse than that?

I reiterate: Your sources are old and widely discredited. This entire matter is WP:UNDUE and WP:SYNTH. In the same way, Hersh's account of the bin Laden raid is clearly WP:FRINGE—even if Hersh has broken other major stories (such as the CIA's "Family Jewels," which were given to him by DCI Colby), and even if you happen to believe it.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree with TheTimesAreAChanging at all re:Hersh, but I'm not going to re-instate this material until I've had time to read TheTimesAreAChanging's provided sources (I began but am quite busy right now). I would not be opposed to excluding it, or substantially modifying it by having it radically shortened and adding TheTimesAreAChanging's refs, until you both (or I, if I am involved) have time to consider sources properly.

It's really hard to know about clandestine activities of governments and spy agencies - by design - and so we rely on journalists, academics, confidential sources, etc. After a review of all sources we might decide to remove the Iran material, or keep it all. More likely, I'm guessing, we'll need to indicate what various sources (journalists, officials, etc) have said, contradictory or not. -Darouet (talk) 21:19, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

@Darouet: Don't stop with my sources. Read NYCJosh's "source" for the claim that the U.S. tried to use the MeK to overthrow the Iranian government. What actually happened is that—at Iran's behest and without provocation—the U.S. attacked the MeK's camps following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, disarmed the group and cleared all of its members of involvement in any terrorist activity, forcibly relocated them to Camp Ashraf, and then pledged itself to the protection of these now defenseless civilian dissidents. After the U.S. withdrew from Iraq, the MeK were abandoned to the tender mercies of Iran and its Iraqi allies, which is precisely what NYCJosh's source discusses: "'They can't just leave us unprotected,' said Zanjani, a former MEK tank commander. 'The Iranian regime is waiting outside at the door for us. They will kill us.'" As indeed they did—MeK members have been repeatedly massacred, doubtless as Iran apologists and/or useful idiots like NYCJosh were hoping for all along. Where does NYCJosh's source mention "United States involvement in regime change"?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:32, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Hey Times, sorry if I can't get involved right now - I'm a little busy. I read your Foreign Policy article, and found it compelling. Began re-reading Hersh's piece but don't have time to continue. -Darouet (talk) 03:10, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, if the book you have at page 550 says Washington "completely rejectss" that could be added as a source. It may be official denial. It may a denial of Israeli involvement. It does not negate the fact that several sourced, including your Foreign Policy "false flag" source, support the fact that agents who seemed to be American were doing this stuff with Jundullah. Again, we as WP editors are not here to judge who is "right" but to present information based on RS (even if there is some tension between them). Oh, and please get off your hypothesized understanding of my personal political views and let's just stick to the job (editing WP). It's unbecoming of a WP editor. I am asking for the fourth time. --NYCJosh (talk) 19:56, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, just today you have deleted three (3!) entire paragraphs that I had added to this article. That is not a good faith attempt to build this article! If you have a legitimate issue with a figure or factual content, feel free to discuss it here on talk page. I and others can then weigh in. For example, you deleted a paragraph that had over 8 different sources because you alleged that a UNICEF source's findings were "propaganda" and that I mischaracterized a NY Times article. Even if that were so, and you haven't identified the mischaracterization or provided any evidence of such propaganda, what about the rest of the paragraph and the other sources?! Please be specific with any criticism, citing WP rules where appropriate. Attacking me as someone who supposedly tends to favor peace is insufficient support for any deletion.--NYCJosh (talk) 20:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I would like to add the following 27 May 2007 Telegraph "Bush sanctions 'black ops' against," Iranhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552784/Bush-sanctions-black-ops-against-Iran.html source, which states that:

President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. ...the CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan.

It also details other, non-Jundullah oriented aspects of the CIA black operations program to topple the Iranian govt.NYCJosh (talk) 18:58, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Structure

I think we should give these different interventions their own, proper subheadings so that these can be seen and navigated from the navbar below the lead. -Darouet (talk) 17:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:41, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Kuwait/1991 Gulf War

This is a section I added about the Gulf War, which mentioned that after the US-led coalition liberated Kuwait, it restored the same rulers. This entire paragraph was removed with the explanation "No consensus to claim that expelling Iraq from Kuwait constitutes 'regime change.'" It seems to me completely obvious that removing an occupying foreign power and installing a regime, even if it's the old regime, is regime change. What do other people think?--NYCJosh (talk) 20:03, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Full protection, 1 week

After observing that the recent history of this article consists mostly of "undo" edits and other reversions, I have fully protected the article. The stability of an article shouldn't suffer due to a content dispute. Please work it out here.

If the parties in dispute agree that protection wasn't warranted and should be lifted, I'll gladly remove it. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Amatulic. Please see my comment today to TheTimesAreChanging, above, regarding his deletion just today of three entire paragraphs I had added, each with multiple sources.--NYCJosh (talk) 21:16, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Amatulić, User:TheTimesAreAChanging and I appear not to be making headway in resolving the issues after several rounds. I don't believe further discussion with him is likely to resolve this. Any suggestions? I believe he doesn't have a leg to stand on and I would be open to a third view.--NYCJosh (talk) 00:55, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Scope of article

NYCJosh obviously wants to fatten up this article with loads of WP:COATRACK material copied and pasted from around Wikipedia, much of which has been deleted elsewhere because it is so laden with WP:POV. Per WP:BRD, if there is no consensus, there is no change. So I will continue to revert any WP:UNDUE material NYCJosh adds to the article until there is consensus for his changes (while not removing Jundallah yet, because Darouet believes it may belong with modification). Because two editors cannot achieve a consensus between themselves, and this page receives relatively little traffic, the best solution would be a series of RfCs regarding whether or not particular incidents are within the scope of the article. I have already made my case on Jundallah and the MeK. Below, I briefly respond to two new additions proposed by NYCJosh:

• Restoring the Kuwaiti monarchy: The expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait seems to be the very opposite of "regime change" (though I admit it is relevant to the criticism that America has a foreign policy). Per NYCJosh's comment above, I removed the entire "Gulf War" section. (The "Vietnam War" section should also be removed, as it was North Vietnam that successfully sought to conquer South Vietnam, not the other way around.) The change NYCJosh proposed was: "After liberating Kuwait, the invading militaries restored the same Kuwaiti despotic family as rulers of the country."
• Iraq sanctions: Few if any of NYCJosh's sources connect the UN sanctions on Iraq with "United States involvement in regime change," the supposed topic of this article. His text is a POV-pushing WP:COATRACK from Sanctions against Iraq, based almost entirely on original research primary sources and activist groups like FAIR. Moreover, claims of mass death resulting from the sanctions have been long-refuted, particularly after several UN-sponsored studies taken after the fall of Saddam's government proved that the previous infant mortality figures for South/Central Iraq were inflated by more than a factor of two, and that no disparity between the decreasing infant mortality rate in Kurdistan and the supposedly increasing rate elsewhere existed. (I assume NYCJosh knows that the figures in question did not come from UNICEF, but from the relevant Iraqi government agencies, because Saddam's government—unlike the Kurds—barred independent experts. He might be surprised to learn that the biggest children's health problem in Iraq prior to 2003 was childhood obesity.)

On another level is the following:

"The CIA directed a government sabotage and bombing campaign in Baghdad between 1992 and 1995, including targets such a crowded movie theater, which killed many civilians, and a schoolbus, which killed children."

NYCJosh previously added this material to United States and state terrorism, even though the cited New York Times article says nothing about "state terrorism," meaning the inclusion was pure OR (trivially, one must also note that United States and state-sponsored terrorism would have been a better fit). Perhaps it isn't OR here, but the implication that civilians were definitely targeted is a blatant misrepresentation:

"Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say. ... The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former C.I.A. official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then. One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period 'blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed.' Mr. Baer, a critic of the Iraq war, said he did not recall which resistance group might have set off that bomb. ... But one former senior intelligence official recalled that 'bombs were going off to no great effect.' 'I don't recall very much killing of anyone,' the official said."

• Bomb and sabotage campaign in Iraq is arguably undue, too, because it resulted in no change of regime and "was a test more than anything else, to demonstrate capability"; however, it could be relevant background information for a section on the CIA's role in the failed 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I won't respond to TheTimesAre vexatious attacks against me but will just stick to the subject. The US organized a coalition to invade Kuwait with the aim of removing Iraqi rule from Kuwait. That's pretty clear regime change. After successfully doing so, the US-led coalition installed the same despots as were in charge before the Iraqi invasion. That too is pretty clearly regime change. What's the counter-argument? That a Kuwaiti could have slept from July 1990 until April 1991 (assuming he was not woken up by the repeated wars) and have been cognizant of no regime change? The US govt was clearly directly "involved in" (directly caused, actually) two successful regime changes in Kuwait. --NYCJosh (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

The paragraph I added clearly supports the notion that the sanctions against Iraq were an effort to remove the Saddam government. Just read my first two footnotes: NY Times and United Press International. Here are the first two sentences of the NYT source "President Bush said today that the United States would oppose the lifting of the worldwide ban against trading with Iraq until President Saddam Hussein is forced out of power in Baghdad. His statement, along with earlier remarks by the White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, indicated strongly that the United States has decided to try to drive Mr. Hussein from power through a postwar policy of economic strangulation." (Emphasis mine.)

What's the counter-argument? TheTimesAre wrote "few if any of ...sources connect the UN sanctions" with US regime change. All I need is 1 source! I provided two. The fact that he could not be bothered to read the FIRST sentence of my FIRST sources, or read it but still wrote what he wrote and deleted the entire paragraph, shows a lack of good faith in editing this article. This lack of good faith is corroborated by (1) his repeated deletions of many of my contributions (that's why the administrator had to step in this week to stop the edit war), (2) his repeated personal attacks me notwithstanding my repeated requests that he stop (see section on Iranian material, above), (3) his wild accusations (see section on Iranian material, above) against respected American senior officials like Lawrence Wilkerson (see above) and legendary American journalists like Seymour Hirsch in an attempt to discredit my contributions.--NYCJosh (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Editors are welcome to this add this material (or other portions from the sources provided) to any other WP page they believe is appropriate. As far as THIS article is concerned, the NY Times source that is linked above says:

One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed.

A paragraph later it says: "Other former intelligence officials said Dr. Allawi's organization was the only resistance group involved in bombings and sabotage at that time."

So it's clear that the bombing was orchestrated by the CIA, and confirms the targets and that people were killed in them, all according to CIA officials.

The bombings alone produced no regime change in Iraq but what was the purpose of the bombings? Why are bombings like this perpetrated by a foreign power? The article tells us: "Evaluations of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign varied, although the former officials interviewed agreed that it never threatened Saddam Hussein's rule. (Emphasis mine.) Had it been effective, it would have threatened his rule. So removing Saddam was the goal, even if that goal was difficult to attain at that stage.

An attempted foreign regime change action still merits mention in this article. Together with the "strangulation of the Iraqi economy" by the sanctions (see my first NY Times article), the bombing campaign was part of a coordinated effort to topple Saddam.--NYCJosh (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I would like to add the following 16 May 2003 Washington Post source "The CIA And the Coup That Wasn't," https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/05/16/the-cia-and-the-coup-that-wasnt/0abfb8fa-61e9-4159-a885-89b8c476b188/ to the paragraph, which states that the CIA's bombing and sabotage program had the name DBACHILLES, clarifies that the project began in 1994, and confirms that the intention was to topple Saddam. Also this source for the same thing:

19 May 2003 source http://www.afio.com/sections/wins/2003/2003-19.html#us (Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Weekly Intelligence Notes) NYCJosh (talk) 18:08, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I have moved NYCJosh's comments, which were previously placed directly underneath each of my bolded sections, because if we continued to respond back-and-forth in that format the talk page would have become almost as much of a mess as every article he touches.

I have already made my case and urge NYCJosh to file RfCs if he wishes to drastically expand the scope of this page to include every allegation under the sun, provided he has one source from the far fringes of the Internet.

On Kuwait, NYCJosh provides no sources that describe the Gulf War as "United States involvement in regime change," although he says it's "pretty clear" to him.

On the Iraq sanctions, I did of course read those primary sources, and concluded that NYCJosh's use of them constitutes original research. If NYCJosh knew much of anything about this topic, he would understand the context in which Bush's post-war statements were made: Virtually all U.S. observers were convinced Saddam could not survive more than a year after the "loss of face" inflicted by Iraq's crushing Gulf War defeat. See, for example, Bush's 1996 interview with Sir David Frost: "Everybody felt that Saddam Hussein could not stay in office—certainly not stay in office as long as he's stayed in office. I miscalculated—I thought he'd be gone. But I wasn't alone! People in the Arab world felt, with unanimity, that he would be out of there. I think all observers felt that" (event occurs at 45:14, in response to Frost's question about how "We all—the world—assumed that Saddam could not survive a humiliating defeat"). For a non-primary source, see, e.g., Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear (1998): "The Iraqi leader has defied nearly every prediction made about the certainty of his impending demise, including my own in the early 1990s" (p. xv). Makiya believed the sanctions "could not have been lifted without legitimizing Hussein," and this rationale seems more consistent with other statements by U.S. policymakers than the belief that sanctions in and of themselves could affect regime change. Finally, even if NYCJosh was not misusing primary sources, he has offered no evidence that similar sentiments were held by the Clinton administration, which was in power for most of the time sanctions were actually being enforced.

On the bombing and sabotage campaign, NYCJosh's reply is simply hilarious. Neither the Washington Post nor the Association of Former Intelligence Officers attach any importance to the alleged bombings, or even mention them at all. Those articles are both about the failed 1996 coup against Saddam, which—as I previously acknowledged—does fall within the scope of this article (I am familiar with them for the same reason NYCJosh is—namely, thanks to Wikipedia). Most telling of all is NYCJosh's inability to grasp what is wrong with his misrepresentation of The New York Times, even after I bolded the relevant excerpts for his benefit. NYCJosh's summary of the article is misleading because he confidently declares that targets included "a crowded movie theater, which killed many civilians, and a schoolbus, which killed children," whereas neither the NYT nor any of its sources support that summary. The Times mentions "the Iraqi government"'s assertion that a movie theater was hit, but notes that this could not be independently confirmed. With regard to the school bus, neither Robert Baer nor the other CIA officers suggest that Allawi targeted civilians with U.S. support: Baer says "schoolchildren were killed," but not by Allawi, as he "did not recall which resistance group might have set off that bomb"; other officials remember things differently, recounting "Allawi's organization was the only resistance group involved in bombings and sabotage at that time"—but those officials "don't recall very much killing of anyone." NYCJosh is simply arguing that editors should "read between the lines" and willfully choose to interpret sources in whatever way is most damning to U.S. policy, but I am not aware of any Wikipedia-specific rationale for that sort of conduct.

As a general point, when an editor such as NYCJosh begins mass copy-and-paste jobs from Wikipedia and around the Internet without the requisite level of competence to fully digest their own sources—especially when few or none of them actually support their "summary" of events—and then insists that nothing they added can be removed because "All I need is 1 source!"—they inevitably derail the conversation and destroy articles. It is important for self-styled "activist" editors who think Wikipedia must include every claim and counter-claim made on the far fringes of the Internet—and who cannot fathom what would motivate another editor to purge or trim such material—to consider What Wikipedia is not. I advise NYCJosh to ponder WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and WP:BRD, in particular the parts where editors are urged to use the WP:BESTSOURCES, as opposed to activist groups like FAIR or even contemporary news reporting from outlets like The Daily Telegraph. The Telegraph has previously published "exposés" on other matters related to intelligence and covert action—for example, promoting the idea that Iraq was behind 9/11—but no serious editor would continue to cite it after scholarly sources like Foreign Policy and David Crist investigated its allegations and concluded they were "debunked." If later scholars come along and challenge Foreign Policy et al., then they can be added, but not before—not by editors falsely equating the earlier news reports with the later scholarly analysis, as though "both sides" deserve equal WP:WEIGHT. (NYCJosh is hardly even that generous, as his revision gives vastly more weight to the allegations ignored by scholars, and he even attempted to delete Crist for no clear reason). In the same way, claims from FAIR and the Iraqi government about the effect of sanctions should not be presented as fact when independent studies taken after 2003 reveal, according to economist and war mortality expert Michael Spagat, that such claims "should now take up (their) rightful place in the historical record next to Iraq's mythical weapons of mass destruction." Given the scarcity of information available at the time, NYCJosh's additions on Jundallah would surely have been acceptable in 2007-2008, but times change, and Wikipedia must reflect the best recent scholarship.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:12, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Is the following paragraph appropriate for this article, "United States Involvement in Regime Change Actions?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the following material on the UN Sanctions against Iraq be added to United States involvement in regime change?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:14, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

• Iraq 1991-2003 Following the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. government set out to remove the government of Saddam Hussein by persuading the United Nations Security Council to adopt a strict sanctions regime against Iraq, but later announced that the removal of the Iraqi government is a precondition for lifting the sanctions. The UN Security Council had imposed stringent economic sanctions against Iraq in 1990 but after the war the U.S. government successfully advocated that those sanctions be made even more comprehensive, which the Security Council did by adopting Resolution 687 in April 1991. The new sanctions banned all trade and financial resources except for medicine and "in humanitarian circumstances" foodstuffs, causing an economic crisis. After the UN imposed the sanctions, the U.S. government acknowledged in May 1991 that the goal of the sanctions was to topple the government of Saddam Hussein and that the sanctions will stay in place until his government is gone. Also, the Unites States enacted the "Iraq Liberation Act" of 1998, which states, in part, that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq..." The crippling sanctions are estimated to have caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

--NYCJosh (talk) 19:02, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

References

Survey

• No. This is a classic WP:COATRACK from Sanctions against Iraq, and does not belong in a broad overview of major U.S. interventions aimed at regime change. As I explain in "Threaded discussion," the proposed use of the May 1991 Bush quote is misleading WP:OR.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:23, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

• Not as currently written, as I read the sources, the sources do not claim the UN or US initiated sanctions to produce regime change. CuriousMind01 (talk) 13:03, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

• Yes if redone - drop the advocacy sites and minor bits as it smells like WP:CHERRYPICK or fringe views, add some of the OTHER views to conform to due WP:WEIGHT, and to tone down the hype-level. The sanctions are prominent enough to find books, major media, and governmental references, so having so much stuff from sites named "accuracy.org" or "fair.org" or "nointervention.com" is both unnecessary and leads to it failing credibility check of being neutral reporting. Look in books like "America's century of regime change", google for it in places .gov or archives of the UN, or hey just pick 3 or 4 major media and show what each of them say. That there were sanctions and hardship is given; that regime change may have been hoped for is not so clear but plausible as seen in some better cites than these; and claim of NNN children is plainly inflammatory and WP:EXCEPTIONAL gonna need really robust sourcing or a US government self-admission. Markbassett (talk) 13:29, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

• Yes - See detailed analysis below; sources are unambiguous on US govt regime change intention for sanctions.--NYCJosh (talk) 00:48, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

• Yes in some form: U.S. president George H. W. Bush, his Secretary of State James Baker, and Deputy National Security Advisor Robert Gates stated that sanctions were intended to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussain, per the NYT, Chicago Tribune, UPI, and prof. Joy Gordon's Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions (Harvard U Press, 2010). It would be false to exclude this episode from the article, given the declarations from the highest levels of US policy stating that it is true. -Darouet (talk) 14:05, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

• Yes if rewritten - See the other two that say the same. _{Adotchar| reply here} 10:37, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

• Yes per above. Very clear that the United States pursued regime change through diplomatic/economic means in Iraq before doing so militarily. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:22, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

• No per COATRACK. This is an effort to push a partisan belief that the US intended regime-change from the beginning. There's no way this can be included as NPOV. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:39, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
• No per COATRACK. --Iloilo Wanderer (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• No. I think the content in question is inherently undue and violates WP:COATRACK.--Angelsi 1989 (talk) 23:57, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

NYCJosh provides many sources, but none that link the sanctions to the supposed topic of this article (i.e., United States involvement in regime change). The UN voted to maintain sanctions against Iraq because Iraq refused to comply with the UN resolutions required to certify it's disarmament. In support of his claim that the sanctions had something to do with "regime change," NYCJosh takes a handful of primary source quotes from the first Bush administration out of context, engaging in textbook original research. Of course, in context Bush et al.'s statements read very differently, as virtually all U.S. observers were convinced Saddam could not survive more than a year after the "loss of face" inflicted by Iraq's crushing Gulf War defeat. See, for example, Bush's 1996 interview with Sir David Frost: "Everybody felt that Saddam Hussein could not stay in office—certainly not stay in office as long as he's stayed in office. I miscalculated—I thought he'd be gone. But I wasn't alone! People in the Arab world felt, with unanimity, that he would be out of there. I think all observers felt that" (event occurs at 45:14, in response to Frost's question about how "We all—the world—assumed that Saddam could not survive a humiliating defeat"). For a non-primary source, see, e.g., Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear (1998): "The Iraqi leader has defied nearly every prediction made about the certainty of his impending demise, including my own in the early 1990s" (p. xv). Makiya believed the sanctions "could not have been lifted without legitimizing Hussein," and this rationale seems more consistent with other statements by U.S. policymakers than the belief that sanctions in and of themselves could affect regime change. In response to my earlier objections, NYCJosh's latest revision includes a secondary source with quotes from Clinton administration officials, which is an improvement inasmuch as the Clinton administration was in power for most of the time sanctions were actually being enforced. Yet the Institute for Public Accuracy is not a very reliable source, and—illustrating the danger of excessive reliance on primary sources—the quotes in question largely undermine NYCJosh's thesis:

• "As Bill Clinton is about to take office, he states: 'I am a Baptist. I believe in death-bed conversions. If he [Hussein] wants a different relationship with the United States and the United Nations, all he has to do is change his behavior.' (The New York Times, January 14, 1993)"
• "While inspections are taking place, though not complete, Ambassador Madeleine Albright says the U.S. is 'determined to oppose any modification of the sanctions regime until Iraq has moved to comply with all its outstanding obligations.' She specifically cites the return of Kuwaiti weaponry and non-military equipment. (Reuters, January 12, 1995)"
• "In response to the question 'Is it his [Clinton's] opinion that the sanction will not be lifted ever as long as Saddam is in power, whatever he does?" National Security Adviser Sandy Berger states: 'No. Let Saddam Hussein—let Saddam Hussein come into compliance, and then we can discuss whether there are any circumstances ... I don't think, under these circumstances, when he is blatantly out of compliance, it is the right time for us to talk about how we lift the sanctions ... It's been the U.S. position since the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein comply—has to comply with all of the relevant Security Council resolutions.'"
• "December 16, 1997: President Clinton: 'I am willing to maintain the sanctions as long as he does not comply with the resolutions ... There are those that would like to lift the sanctions. I am not among them. I am not in favor of lifting the sanctions until he complies.'"
• "November 5, 1998: Scott Ritter claims on Nightline: 'He holds the key to getting sanctions lifted. All Saddam Hussein has to do is provide what he was obligated to provide 15 days after the passing of the initial resolution in April, 1991, a full, final and complete declaration of the totality of his holdings.'"
• "November 12, 1998: Albright on the PBS NewsHour: 'This has been one of the clearest sanctions regimes with the clearest roadmaps that have ever existed in terms of how to get from point A to point B.'"

I can't read NYCJosh's mind, but I assume he has comments like the following in mind:

• "March 26, 1997: Albright, in her first major foreign policy address as Secretary of State: 'We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted. Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council resolutions to which it is subjected.'"
• "December 9, 1997: In response to the question: 'The United States has given apparently contradictory criteria for when it will lift the sanctions. It says it will do it when UNSCOM is allowed into Iraq, when UNSCOM can get into the 'palaces,' when Iraq abides by all U.N. resolutions, including paying a few hundred billion in reparations, when Saddam Hussein is overthrown, or never. The question: When is it?' [Ambassador Bill] Richardson: 'Our policy is clear. We believe that Saddam Hussein should comply with all the Security Council resolutions, and that includes 1137, those that deal with the UNSCOM inspectors, those that deal with human rights issues, those that deal with prisoners of war with Kuwait, those that deal with the treatment of his own people. We think that there are standards of international behavior.'"

It's fine if NYCJosh thinks those quotes prove that the true, hidden goal of U.S. policy was "regime change," but that conclusion is still his own original research in the absence of any secondary sources making the claim. (Perhaps NYCJosh can get some of his own work published, and then reference it here on Wikipedia?) NYCJosh also mentions the Iraq Liberation Act, but again without any secondary sources connecting it to the sanctions, thus falling into the trap of synthesis. Finally, as a secondary point, claims of mass death resulting from the sanctions have been long-refuted, particularly after several UN-sponsored studies taken after the fall of Saddam's government proved that the previous infant mortality figures for South/Central Iraq were inflated by more than a factor of two, and that no disparity between the decreasing infant mortality rate in Kurdistan and the supposedly increasing rate elsewhere existed.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:23, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

(1) The connection to US regime change is clear from the sources I provided: Pres. Bush said in April 1991, shortly after the UN Sec Council voted for the sanctions: "My view is we don’t want to lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." (See first footnote-NY Times.) Since the US was the major architect of the UN sanctions, and since the US has veto power on the Sec Council, that quote means the US was prepared to prevent any lifting of the sanctions until and unless Saddam was gone. The US Sec of State, the chief foreign policy officer of the US, said at roughly the same time something very similar: "We are not interested in seeing a relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.” (see the third footnote; here is another source for the Baker statement: The Nation, 3 January 2002, "Killing Sanctions in Iraq," https://www.thenation.com/article/killing-sanctions-iraq/ ; and here is a third source citing the St. Louis Post Dispatch 21 May 1991 for the Baker quote: FAIR, 1 Jan, 2003 http://fair.org/extra/wolf-blitzer-for-the-defense-department/). That too is pretty clear: the US was using the UN sanctions to effect regime change and was going to oppose any lifting of the sanctions until Saddam was gone from power.

How did contemporary journalists understand these statements of Bush and Baker? Was it just my fanciful misreading of these statements that connected them to regime change? Here are the very first paragraphs of the NY Times source reporting the Bush statement:

"President Bush said today that the United States would oppose the lifting of the worldwide ban against trading with Iraq until President Saddam Hussein is forced out of power in Baghdad.

His statement, along with earlier remarks by the White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, indicated strongly that the United States has decided to try to drive Mr. Hussein from power through a postwar policy of economic strangulation.

Implicit in the statements by Mr. Bush and his spokesman was a threat to use the veto authority that the United States holds in the United Nations Security Council as one of its five permanent members to oppose lifting the sanctions against Iraq."

Crystal clear support for everything I have written.

(2) TheTimesAreChanging writes, based on the David Frost interview and other statements, that these Bush had hoped that the destruction wrought by the Gulf War and the loss of face would have sufficed to collapse Saddam's rule. That is true, but that does not undermine at all the clear statements about US intentions for the sanctions. In fact, those presidential expressions of hope for Saddams's departure buttress the point: having failed in their first attempt they turned to economic strangulation.

(3) The Clinton administration was more diplomatic and thus the Clinton and Richardson statements that TheTimesAre cites are less unambiguous. They set the bar so high that Saddam was clearly never meant to meet it, but I was not relying on that for this paragraph. All the paragraph needs to source to be an important contribution to this article is that the Bush administration aimed for regime change with the UN sanctions, even if a later US administration had not. Scott Ridder was a UN weapons inspector who had his understanding of the UN weapons inspections mission and its importance at the time. The inspectors reported findings about WMD; they had no power to lift UN sanctions, nor were sanctions in any way part of their mission.

The Clinton administration did implement the CIA operations aimed at regime change discussed in the paragraph. So it would have been surprising, to say the least, for the Clinton administration if regime change was not at least a preferred, if not non-negotiable, fruit of the sanctions. But to keep things simple, as I wrote, we don't have to go there for the Clinton admistration.NYCJosh (talk) 16:51, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

This post won't be as long as the previous one because I don't want to monopolize the discussion, but in response to Markbassett's comment "that regime change may have been hoped for is not so clear but plausible," I would argue that United States involvement in regime change should be limited to a concise overview of major U.S. efforts aimed at regime change—and that it is long enough already without setting a precedent for inclusion that is so broad we may come to regret it. With regard to NYCJosh's latest reply, contemporary news reports are themselves primary sources, and Wikipedia prefers secondary sources: If the RfC was reframed as "Is this New York Times article sufficient to claim the UN sanctions regime on Iraq—as enforced by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—was an attempt at 'regime change' in Baghdad?," I think that underlying problem would be even more obvious. Again, NYCJosh invokes the CIA's role in the failed 1996 coup against Saddam as well as the Iraq Liberation Act—a largely symbolic measure signed by Clinton to appear "tough" to the Republican-dominated Congress—but he has not produced a single source to suggest they are all related as "part of a coordinated effort to topple Saddam." Of course, NYCJosh has other, alternative arguments as well—namely, that these actions provide circumstantial evidence "regime change was ... at least a preferred, if not non-negotiable, fruit of the sanctions"—but, even if we were inclined to agree, he is still leading readers to his position by way of innuendo rather than sources. Note that both the failed 1996 coup against Saddam and the Iraq Liberation Act could be included in this article—the latter more as a prelude to the 2003 invasion of Iraq than anything else—yet lumping them together with the sanctions in a single subsection as drafted by NYCJosh appears to contravene WP:OR and WP:SYNTH.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:13, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

(1)I have no problem with the proposal of TheTimesAre to separate into two or more separate sections.

(2)Re: primary versus secondary source. WP requires RS. There is no WP rule that says that if the NY Times report says President Bush took position X, and the NY Times article reporting that goes on to explain position X, this should not serve as a perfectly good source. There is no disagreement that the NYT is a reliable source. In fact, although there are plenty of books that would amply source many of the things in the paragraph I added, I have preferred citing sources with free links so I cannot be accused of making up stuff. I would rather avoid (to the extent reasonably practical) making people run to a research library so any interested editor or reader can read the linked sources right on the spot. That's what the WP mission is all about: making information available for free any time to anyone with internet access.

(3) Scope of article/significance of the action. The Iraq Sanctions were a major operation. They involved the authority of the UN Sec Council, the cooperation of the major powers ("the international community" in official US parlance) and a multi-year undertaking by the US govt. They caused a major economic crisis in Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. (They also paved the way for the US-led invasion of 2003, because Iraq was perceived to be an easy target post-sanctions.) Were they much more consequential than, say, many of the other US r.c. operations in Latin America involving the US marines described in our article? Definitely. Must an action entail sending in the Marines or the CIA to be worthy of the name regime change and coverage in our article? By describing in the article r.c. actions implemented using different foreign policy tools, we make for a more interesting article because the reader comes to understand that r.c. can sometimes be more subtle, and even more deadly, if it does not involve the marines or the CIA. In fact, as we see in Iraq in the 1990s, when the sanctions failed to produce r.c., the CIA was unleashed to try r.c. So the reader is shown the interplay between different foreign policy tools for r.c. I am not necessarily suggesting writing all this out in the article; I am just explaining the relevance and salience of the sanctions for our article. NYCJosh (talk) 01:22, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Re Darouet, I reiterate that that use of primary source speculation by reporters and direct quotes from U.S. officials violates WP:OR, and that Bush's May 1991 statement "We don't want to lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power"—based on later comments by Bush and other U.S. officials and the context in which it was made—does not in fact mean what you think it means, as explained above.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:40, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Those statements are unambiguous and supported by professor Joy Gordon's book Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions, published by Harvard University Press, 2010. Gordon writes, "Although the US repeatedly called for regime change, it was clear this was grossly unrealistic... But while regime change was unlikely, from the beginning all three US administration officials stated in a variety of contexts that regime change was a prerequisite for lifting sanctions. In early may 1991 deputy national security advisor Robert Gates said: "Saddam is discredited and cannot be redeemed. His leadership will never be accepted by the world community.... All possible sanctions will be maintained until he is gone... Any easing of sanctions will be considered only when there is a new government." According to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, "The senior president Bush had vowed that sanctions would never be lifted as long as Saddam was in power." In 1993, Clinton began his term by saying, "There is no difference between my policy and the policy of the Bush Administration..."" Gordon quotes from Albright again in 1997, stating that WMD disarmament is not sufficient to end the sanctions. "From the end of the 1991 war until 2003, under both Democratic and Republican control, the overriding concern regarding Iraq for congressional leadership and for most members was the potential military threat presented by Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from Power... In addition to containment, the other concern of the majority of the Congress and the congressional leadership was regime change, accompanied by frustration that it had not yet taken place. This culminated in the ILA, which formalized the U.S. policy of regime change in Iraq... there were several hearings devoted to this topic, such as "Iraq: Can Saddam be Overthrown?" "US policy toward Iraq: Mobilizing the Opposition," and "The Liberation of Iraq: A Progress Report."" -Darouet (talk) 21:00, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

I cited the Prof. Gordon's book but not nearly as well as you did, Darouet. Thanks for your contrubution; we should add a lot of what you wrote, including the Gates and Abright statements, as part of a footnote.NYCJosh (talk) 21:12, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Gates was referring to what all observers believed was Saddam's imminent downfall, regardless of anything the U.S. might do. The Clinton administration changed course, as demonstrated by Clinton's allusion to "death-bed conversions." Albright did not call for "regime change," as previously noted; any implication to the contrary is at best "reading between the lines" and at worst an attempt to mislead by selective quotation:

• "March 26, 1997: Albright, in her first major foreign policy address as Secretary of State: 'We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted. Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council resolutions to which it is subjected.'"

The official policy of the U.S. and UN was, in fact, to maintain sanctions until Iraq complied with the UN resolutions it was violating; since Iraq refused to do so, it is pure speculation to imagine sanctions would still have been maintained regardless of Iraqi policy. (In fact, in later years the sanctions were already collapsing despite Iraq's failure to comply.) None of the quotes you have listed thus far suggest sanctions were seen as the means to remove Saddam. At most they suggest that some U.S. officials were worried Iraq might comply, because this would complicate their efforts to "contain" Saddam's regional ambitions.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:35, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

The Bush administration statements (Bush, Baker, Gates) are unambiguous. Their meaning is confirmed by both contemporary journalists like the NY Times source I quoted, and by the Gordon source that Darouet's carefully cited: US senior officials like Sec State Albright explaining what had been Bush administration policy, and scholars like Prof. Gordon providing their analysis. There is no contravening interpretation of Bush administration sanctions policy.

I am really having an issue with this process in which one editor throws a monkey wrench forcing other editors to find quotes by many different US officials acknowledging the same straight-forward point, and then to find multiple sources for that same point made by US officials, and then after all that still does not back down.NYCJosh (talk) 15:19, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree that TheTimesAreAChanging is incorrect in this instance and actually their argument amounts to what they object to: WP:OR. That said, I think their insistence on challenging material is not a bad thing: it forces everyone on the page to source and understand things as carefully as possible. Sometimes this kind of back and forth is very helpful. And I, for one, have learned a lot about Bush and Clinton administration policy from this disagreement and the associated research. -Darouet (talk) 18:16, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

In concept, Darouet, challenging material presented can be a good thing if done in good faith. The way in which it was done here, with unreasonable arguments, making me post verbatim material from the footnotes that I specifically referenced repeatedly in earlier comments, and as you point out, OR arguments, is problematic. (I am not even going to discuss in detail the incivility against me and the personal trolling.)NYCJosh (talk) 20:45, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Quit whining. If you can't handle the concept of building consensus and adhering to basic policies such as WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, you are free to start your own blog. OR is often the only way to challenge OR, but the policy doesn't apply to talk pages, so your objection makes no sense. Again, from your own sources, here is the Clinton administration's public policy:

• "December 16, 1997: President Clinton: 'I am willing to maintain the sanctions as long as he does not comply with the resolutions ... There are those that would like to lift the sanctions. I am not among them. I am not in favor of lifting the sanctions until he complies ...' In response to the question 'How do you assess Saddam Hussein?' Clinton makes several points and then says: 'Finally, I think that he felt probably that the United States would never vote to lift the sanctions on him no matter what he did. There are some people who believe that. Now I think he was dead wrong on virtually every point.'"

It's one thing to speculate about the administration's intentions: It's quite another to pretend that U.S. officials endorsed your theories by taking quotes out of context and "reading between the lines," an analytical framework you have advocated on many occasions. Still, if you are confident that you have met Wikipedia's threshold for verifiability and notability, then you should have nothing to worry about now that this still-deadlocked RfC is in the hands of the broader community.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Take a step back - "quit whining" is not a reasonable response to his complaint about civility. -Darouet (talk) 03:41, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Darouet: What are you talking about? Josh's complaint at 15:19 made no mention of "civility"; he was essentially lamenting that I had wasted his time by forcing him to identify which of his sources he felt best supported inclusion here. It would be like me venting about how pissed I am that Josh's entire copy-paste section on the MeK was based on a single source he obviously hadn't bothered to read—and forcing me to read it constituted some sort of undue burden. Tough!TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:34, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Your comment, "quit whining," immediately followed Josh's comment, "incivility against me and personal trolling." It's a blatantly uncivil remark and I'm surprised you won't even back away from it. A content dispute doesn't need that, and I think my comment was not aggressive. Your response to me claims to be clueless about the point I'm raising. I'm not even defending Josh's editing in every regard, I'm just saying you need to remain civil. -Darouet (talk) 15:19, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Darouet: "Incivility" wasn't Josh's complaint, nor was that what I was responding to. I was responding to Josh's comment to me at 15:19—not his comment to you at 20:45. Even in the latter, Josh reiterates that he is bitching about "unreasonable arguments, making me post verbatim material from the footnotes that I specifically referenced repeatedly in earlier comments." In that context, "quit whining" is a very appropriate, and even mild, response to Josh openly arguing (as he so often does) that anyone who disagrees with him is ipso facto an unreasonable censor acting in bad faith (a characterization you would probably dispute, but not half as vigorously as "quit whining"). Now, if I had made that remark in response to the parenthetical aside Josh was "not even going to discuss" in his reply to you, then it would mean something completely different. But that's not the way it happened—reminding us, once again, of how easily quotes can be misconstrued.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:28, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Darouet had a point, and I won't bother explaining. Interested readers can read this page for themselves.--NYCJosh (talk) 04:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, you have once again attempted to ignore the sources cited: (1) by providing a late 1990s quote from Pres. Clinton, who was trying to be diplomatic. Remember, Clinton was trying to justify getting UN weapons inspectors into Iraq. But if he had acknowledged that the sanctions would remain in place unless Saddam was deposed he would have had no leverage with Iraq. He had to extend the carrot of easing sanctions in exchange for getting weapons inspections. Also, for p.r. reasons, since by that time human rights activists and humanitarian aid organizations were documenting the massive human toll of the sanctions, it would have made the govt look bad if Clinton had not made it sound like a concrete WMD issue. This focus on WMD was also necessary to persuade the UN Sec Council to send the inspectors. And, (2) by shifting the discussion to Clinton administration quotes in 1997 from the unambiguous Bush administration statements years earlier.

Perhaps more fundamentally, I agree with Darouet that you are engaging in speculative OR but have provided no sources refuting the unambiguous and uncontraverted facts, which were cited to multiple RS.--NYCJosh (talk) 04:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

That's because it's not on me to prove a negative; it's on you to prove your case. We'll see if the community agrees with you.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:01, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that this is a case of recentism. People are still upset about something that happened 10 years ago and they think Wikipedia is the best place to rewrite history. For this reason I think we ought to have a moratorium on any articles about incidents less than 50 or 100 years old. Further, this is a case where NPOV is insufficient. We can find any number of sources on either side of the aisle to claim whatever we want to claim. A policy of "Attributable Point of View" would allow us to name and identify what each partisan group believes. That way, everyone gets to have their cake and eat it, too. Finally, allowing everyone to edit and then not taking action against using lax sources is going to lead to this being an ongoing edit-war magnet. It saddens me to see these sorts of arguments because it takes all the joy out of editing. I think I'll stick to the obscure articles no one cares about. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:48, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

As detailed throughout this talk, reliable sources and high level officials all state that regime change was an integral part of sanctions, both "from the beginning" and later on. -Darouet (talk) 16:22, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Well at the very least, assiduously attributing statements is good editing and scholarship, period. So, attributing the statements about regime change to Bush and Clinton administration officials, and to academics, would be wise whatever one's personal view of those statements. -Darouet (talk) 16:25, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

You mean the statements where Clinton officials stated over and over again that all Iraq had to do was comply, and regime change was not on the agenda? No-one from the Clinton administration ever said anything resembling your "interpretation" of the administration's position.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:30, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Iraq Liberation Act. Darouet (talk) 00:51, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Which had nothing to do with the sanctions, and involved token support to Iraqi opposition groups at the behest of the Republican-controlled Congress. ILA is within the scope of the article; the sanctions are not.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:03, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Official denials mean little in view of the fact that by the mid-1990s the humanitarian devastation wrought by the sanctions was well documented. By that point, the sanctions had to be sold as being about WMD.

In any event, the primary architect of the sanctions, the Bush administration explicitly tied the sanctions to regime change (see numerous statements quoted above). So even if the Clinton administration had changed the policy, the US regime change action (unsuccessful) had already taken place.--NYCJosh (talk) 23:47, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Coatrack allegation

Some editors have objected to inclusion of this paragraph based on WP:COATRACK. They have provided no explanation of how this rule applies here. The paragraph very clearly and directly relates to a US regime change action. I don't see how anyone can reasonably argue that it does not. It may be argued that the paragraph contains an extraneous phrase or sentence (a "coat" that obscures the "rack"), a sentence not directly related to a US govt regime change action. But if that's the case, the discussion about the appropriateness of inclusion should focus on that allegedly extraneous phrase or sentence, not the paragraph as a whole. In any event, even if that's the case, the coatrack objection is improper for the paragraph as a whole, since the paragraph squarely relates to the topic.NYCJosh (talk) 02:53, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

United States involvement in regime change exists to provide a broad overview of the topic; not every disputed allegation has to be included, or should be included.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

The article as written provides very little by way of "broad overview," except for 3-4 paragraphs in the intro. It is primarily a list of rc actions. So additional significant rc actions make the article more comprehensive. Certainly an rc action that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people cannot be dismissed as insignificant or duplicative.

In any event, the coatrack rule is inapplicable, even if the article were a broad overview, because the paragraph is directly relevant to the topic of the article.--NYCJosh (talk) 02:51, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Obviously, I disagree, and it looks to me like you lost that RfC. Sometimes that's the way things go here at Wikipedia.

There is absolutely no evidence that "hundreds of thousands" died as a result of sanctions on Iraq except for fabricated statistics supplied by Saddam's government, which were uncritically repeated by sensationalist journalists and activists around the world—but suffered a crisis of replication in Iraqi Kurdistan and after 2003. Iraq's population continued to grow at a nearly identical rate under the sanctions as it had before; Iraqis ate far better than people in neighboring countries (enjoying red meat several times a week whereas Iranians were lucky to have it once a month); "if Saddam Hussein's government has managed to spend more than $2 billion for new presidential palaces since the end of the Persian Gulf War, and offer to donate nearly $1 billion to support the Palestinian intifada, there is no reason to blame sanctions for any degradation in water and sanitation systems." There was still a middle class in Iraq prior to 2003, and—contrary to what you may have heard from Chomsky—the biggest health problem for Iraqi children was obesity. After 2003, outside observers were free to conduct independent studies of infant mortality in South/Central Iraq, and discovered that the previous figures were inflated by more than a factor of two and that no disparity between the decreasing infant mortality rate in Kurdistan and the supposedly increasing rate elsewhere existed. Moreover, the Lancet estimates for Iraq War deaths are probably valid, but they would be completely invalidated if the earlier Iraqi government-UN numbers are accepted: The Lancet's calculation of post-war "excess deaths" is based on a pre-war mortality rate of 5.5 per 1,000, which is comparable to other Middle Eastern countries and lower than most Western countries—due to the West's aging population—but only half what one would expect based on the outdated propaganda. You can't have it both ways: If more Iraqis died under sanctions, then fewer died during the war. Les Roberts made it clear that allegations of mass deaths under sanctions were nonsense, and nearly the entire anti-war Left toed the line, conveniently forgetting it had ever made such claims; of course, with such drastic revisions of history there will always be a NYCJosh that refuses to "get with the program."

In sum, as Spagat says, the theory you are promoting "should now take up its rightful place in the historical record next to Iraq's mythical weapons of mass destruction."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:41, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, your response is coatrack with respect to the coatrack issue. Stated differently, even if every word of what you wrote about the casualties were true (and it I can marshal a half-dozen footnotes to show it isn't), it would still be irrelevant to the coatrack allegation. --NYCJosh (talk) 19:52, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Nice try, but—like so many other Wikipedia policies (e.g., WP:OR; WP:BLP is a notable exception)—WP:COATRACK doesn't apply to talk pages. (The talk page equivalent of WP:COATRACK would probably be WP:SOAPBOX, but attempting to apply it to the above would be a real stretch.)

Your proposed paragraph on the UN sanctions against Iraq is an example of WP:COATRACK because it has little or nothing to do with the supposed topic of this article—United States involvement in regime change—contains numerous activist sources, and repeats as fact the official Iraqi government propaganda line that "hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children" died (despite independent researchers being unable to replicate those results). (It also perpetuates WP:OR by falsely claiming the U.S. government "announced that the removal of the Iraqi government is a precondition for lifting the sanctions," while omitting the repeated U.S. government "official denials" that it had any such policy.) Moreover, you have produced no sources that would suggest the UN sanctions against Iraq are commonly discussed in major studies of U.S. involvement in regime change, which this article should strive to replicate. Therefore, including your paragraph in this article would lend undue weight to a POV-pushing attack on U.S. policy. As Chris Troutman put it: "There's no way this can be included as NPOV."

I count five Nos, three Yeses, and two Yes, but only if redone votes above. (Only one uninvolved user voted Yes, while four voted No.) Even if you combine the Yes and Redo votes, there is still a 5-5 split. Therefore, you have failed to achieve consensus for your proposal, and—per WP:CONSENSUS—if there is no consensus, there is no change. You are free to reject this rationale and remain wedded to your original position, but an explanation has been provided: It just so happens that other editors disagree with you.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:24, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, your comment is irrelevant once again to the WP:Coatrack allegation regarding the proposed paragraph for inclusion. No response to your comment is therefore warranted in this coatrack discussion.

Other issues you discussed were addressed in the previous portion of the threaded discussion. WP works by consensus, not by simple voting. It seems to me that no credible objections grounded in WP rules remain notwithstanding your handwaving.--NYCJosh (talk) 02:21, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Pretending not to hear other editors is no excuse for disruptive behavior. You should really WP:DROPTHESTICK.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:22, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clinton administration goal of regime change in Iraq

@Markbassett and Cerebellum: please note Joy Gordon's view that the Clinton Administration also pursued regime change in Iraq. I'll quote a portion of her book as I did above, but I'd encourage you to read it yourselves and come to your own conclusion. She might be wrong, but I think her view is notable enough to be included here. As I wrote earlier,

"Joy Gordon's book, Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions, published by Harvard University Press, 2010. Gordon writes, "Although the US repeatedly called for regime change, it was clear this was grossly unrealistic... But while regime change was unlikely, from the beginning all three US administration officials stated in a variety of contexts that regime change was a prerequisite for lifting sanctions. In early may 1991 deputy national security advisor Robert Gates said: "Saddam is discredited and cannot be redeemed. His leadership will never be accepted by the world community.... All possible sanctions will be maintained until he is gone... Any easing of sanctions will be considered only when there is a new government." According to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, "The senior president Bush had vowed that sanctions would never be lifted as long as Saddam was in power." In 1993, Clinton began his term by saying, "There is no difference between my policy and the policy of the Bush Administration..."" Gordon quotes from Albright again in 1997, stating that WMD disarmament is not sufficient to end the sanctions. "From the end of the 1991 war until 2003, under both Democratic and Republican control, the overriding concern regarding Iraq for congressional leadership and for most members was the potential military threat presented by Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from Power... In addition to containment, the other concern of the majority of the Congress and the congressional leadership was regime change, accompanied by frustration that it had not yet taken place. This culminated in the Iraq Liberation Act, which formalized the U.S. policy of regime change in Iraq... there were several hearings devoted to this topic, such as "Iraq: Can Saddam be Overthrown?" "US policy toward Iraq: Mobilizing the Opposition," and "The Liberation of Iraq: A Progress Report.""

TTAAC has been topic banned, and it feels sketch to come in and start editing against him in that context. I won't be very active here right now. But if I "showed" anything, it's that an important scholar argues persuasively that the Clinton Administration's policy also included regime change in Iraq. -Darouet (talk) 03:32, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I will rewrite the paragraph per Cerebellum's summary of the consensus view. Also for the sake of compromise, I can side step for now the issue of whether the Clinton administration continued the policy.--NYCJosh (talk) 16:46, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Darouet -- that's better for the cite quality and that previously it looked like regime change may have been hoped for is not so clear. I'm not putting much weight to what a politician said (they say a lot of things they don't really mean), but adding Congress as well and an Act about it makes it more solid. Markbassett (talk) 06:48, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

TheTimesAreChanging is back and has disrupted the version I added based on the analysis of the consensus provided above. I'll break up the consensus version as it stood last month into numbered sections so the dispute is easier for others to see and comment on:

1. * Iraq 1991-2003 Following the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. government set out to remove the government of Saddam Hussein by persuading the United Nations Security Council to impose tough sanctions against Iraq, limiting the flow of goods into the country. The U.S. government successfully advocated that the pre-war sanctions be made more comprehensive, which the UN Security Council did in April 1991 by adopting Resolution 687. After the U.N. imposed the tougher sanctions, the U.S. government clarified in May 1991, and thereafter, that the goal of the sanctions was to topple the government of Saddam Hussein.

(a)The version of TimesAreChanging (read the current version on the main page) lacks any mention of the US govt effort to topple Saddam during this period, stating only that "select U.S. officials stated in May 1991—when it was widely expected that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein faced imminent collapse[71][72]—that the sanctions would not be lifted until after Saddam's ouster."

The president and Sec of State speak for the US govt. It's misleading to state "select US officials stated," when the president, the sec of state, Dir of CIA Gates and other senior principal decision makers state the same thing. It's like saying "in 1990 select US officials gave Saddam an ultimatum of withdrawing forces from Kuwait or retaliatory military action." No, the US govt issued that ultimatum and followed through with action in Jan 1991, and all you need to support the issuing of the ultimatum is to cite Pres. Bush in 1990.

(b)The book I cited by Gordon (actually originally cited by someone else on this Talk page, I just added it later) ties this US policy to oust Saddam with the US policy to get the UN Sec Council to adopt the tougher sanctions (read the discussion earlier in this section and in earlier sections of this talk page). So it is totally supported based on RS to say that the US govt set out to topple Saddam through the sanctions and it is revisionist history to claim otherwise.

(c)All this has been explained to TheTimesAre repeatedly. His reaction in this edit was: (i) To remove the Gordon footnote (the Harvard University publication) and to change the text of the section, (ii) To offer no sources to the contrary, (iii) To hang his/her hat on statements made five years LATER by a different US administration (the Clinton Administration). As if the Clinton administration statements in the late 1990s could magically retroactively disappear from history the policy implemented by the Bush administration years earlier (in 1991)!

(d)In fact, while Clinton administration statements were deliberately more ambiguous (because the devastation wrought by the sanctions had become too embarrassing), the Clinton administration continued the policy and never unambiguously refuted it. None of the Clinton administration quotes provided by TheTimes' rewrite refute this.

2. The malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water caused by the sanctions, according to some major studies, caused the death of many Iraqi children.

(a) TheTimesAre removed the specific civilian shortages (food, medical supplies, water treatment equipment) caused directly by the sanctions, AND removed the footnotes that supported this. There is no dispute as to whether the sanctions caused these shortages. Also, why remove relevant footnotes?

(b) The 1996 "oil for food program" that TheTimesAre introduces is irrelevant to the 1991 policy.--NYCJosh (talk) 21:03, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised by NYCJosh's hyperbolic response to my slight tweaks to his edits, which left almost all of his content intact. (No, the Gordon footnote's still there, Josh... look closer.) I've read several books on Iraq and U.S.-Iraq relations—as well as U.S. foreign relations generally—and it's simply not true that UN sanctions on Iraq are commonly described as an attempt at "regime change" in mainstream sources, nor did any U.S. officials ever make such a claim. (Maintaining sanctions until Saddam falls is emphatically not the same thing... and that statement was later retracted.) Still, even though most of the RfC input was against inclusion, I'm not interested in an edit war and am fine with saying (with attribution) that Gordon thinks regime change was (at least one of) the objectives behind the sanctions (though you've yet to provide the relevant page numbers). I do, however, think that the Institute for Public Accuracy quotes (which NYCJosh himself brought up in earlier discussion) belong in the footnote, because reality is complicated and there are other interpretations besides the one given in Gordon (NYCJosh's only source). (Gordon is not really any more reliable than Barry Rubin, who wrote: "While the United States did bomb Iraq and fight to retain sanctions when Iraq blatantly broke its commitments on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, the United States also made compromises to ease sanctions, tried to improve the humanitarian situation in Iraq, limited its use of force, and resisted proposals to go all-out in using the Iraqi opposition in trying to overthrow Saddam." If all it takes is one source, there you go—not everyone agrees with you!) As to the rest: Studies do dispute the effects of the sanctions, whether you wish to promote only one POV or otherwise; far from suffering food shortages, Iraq was exporting food at the time. IMO, it's also strangely inconsistent that NYCJosh thinks the scope of this article should include the Iraqi government's claims regarding the humanitarian impact of the sanctions, but not the oil-for-food program initially proposed in 1992 (then rejected by the Iraqi government) and implemented in 1996 to address those very concerns. Of course, if NYCJosh wants to add other footnotes or tweak certain language (such as "select officials"), that's fine; if I believe he is overreaching, I may respond with additions of my own. However, we just cannot say "the U.S. government clarified in May 1991, and thereafter, that the goal of the sanctions was to topple the government of Saddam Hussein" in Wikipedia's voice, because that is a straightforward misrepresentation of the U.S. government's public position and of the cited sources. Besides, why the exclusive focus on primary sources? If his position isn't WP:FRINGE, then NYCJosh should have no trouble finding mainstream secondary sources that support the "regime change" motive, and use those instead: This debate would be over.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:54, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Adding table listing US regime change involvements by continent/region

The article is organized chronologically. How about adding to the article a table listing U.S. regime change involvements by continent or by geographic region (e.g. Central America, Middle East, etc.)? Each entry could include just the target country, the year(s), any known name of the operation, and whether the US action was successful.--NYCJosh (talk) 05:02, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

March 1949 Syrian coup d'état

Is there some reason the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état is NOT on this list? It certainly looks like it belongs here. It's not as well known as others that are on this list, but it seems to have been sufficiently well documented to be credible. I intend to add a mention of that event here if someone does not beat me to it or unless someone provides a compelling argument why it should NOT be listed here. DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:48, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy: it used to be, and was removed by TheTimesAreAChanging who argued that current scholarship leaves US support for the coup ambiguous. I had recently done research into the topic with a leading expert in the field, and at least as of 9 years ago, scholarship consensus was that the Americans definitely supported the coup in principle, and were most likely involved. I have not done a check recently to see if things have changed. -Darouet (talk) 19:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Darouet: Your claim is false. The March 1949 Syrian coup has been continuously listed under "Covert involvements" from October 13, 2012 until the present, and was never removed by anyone (as I recently confirmed by analyzing the edit history). Nor did I object when DavidMCEddy added an additional paragraph on the topic under "Cold War era" (though it does beg the question of whether the "Covert involvements" section—which DavidMCEddy apparently overlooked—is redundant). In addition, while I recently rewrote March 1949 Syrian coup d'état to better reflect the nuances of the underlying evidence (declassified documents show that Meade had exceptional access to Za'im, but do not prove that the U.S. provided any material support; the only other evidence comes from Copeland's memoirs, which are contradictory and largely unfalsifiable), I couldn't disagree with a proposition as broad as "the Americans definitely supported the coup in principle." There is a reason, however, why the 1953 Iranian coup d'état is far more commonly described as the CIA's first successful overthrow of a foreign government—and why the U.S. and British attempts to overthrow the Syrian government during the Syrian Crisis of 1957, famously culminating in the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador and other U.S. officials, is much better-documented and more well-known than the events of March 1949. If you really don't know why that is, I would recommend Rathmell's Secret War in the Middle East: The Covert Struggle for Syria, 1949-1961.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Thanks for your note. I was skeptical of aspects of your March 1949 rewrite - but I need to go back and look through all that material. Otherwise I agree with plenty of what you have to say here. There is a *chance* that, in the next 10 years, material will be declassified relating to that period and American activity in Syria. If that happens I hope to put on an old hat and go have a look at it. -Darouet (talk) 19:00, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

"Post-World War II" vs. "Cold War"?

The fourth major section of this article is entitled "Post-World War II". That's followed by a section entitled, "After the dissolution of the USSR".

However, many would say that the entire period "After the dissolution of the USSR" is still part of the "Post-World War II" period. I plan to change that section title to read "Cold War". That's clearer to me. If you don't agree, I'd be interested in hearing your perspective. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:13, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

The "Cold War" heading frames the history in a particular way: it provides an off the shelf "fight against Soviet communism" justification for US govt actions. The Cold War and the US effort "to contain" the rival Soviet superpower, of course, was always prominent in the minds of many US foreign policy planners in many of the US regime change actions covered in this section. But at the same time by so labeling the section, the title sets up a particular US public relations narrative for all the US regime change actions in the section, even when there was zero Soviet support for the targeted regime.

As for clarity, while technically, we are still in the "post-WWI" period (and forever will be) or the post Franco-Prussian war period (and forever will be), it's understood that when the next major section, "Post-Cold War," starts, WWII and the international order its ending had set up becomes less relevant or is then colored in key ways by the end of the Cold War. So, no, I don't think it was confusing before you changed it.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

User:NYCJosh: Thanks for the reply. I agree there is ambiguity in the term, "Cold War", which strictly speaking was a struggle between the so-called "free world" and "international communism", at least from the US perspective. What about changing the title to "Cold War era"? That seems clearer to me than either "Cold War" and "Post-World War II". I'll change that. It can be changed again later if someone feels the need.

By the way, the only event I see mentioned in that section as of 2017-03-11 that seems NOT to have been justified by Cold War rhetoric is the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état. Not that that matters. DavidMCEddy (talk) 20:45, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

"Cold War era" is not much different from "Cold War" with respect to this issue. It still frames the US regime change actions in the context of the public relations line routinely offered by US govt apologists. Yes, agreed, just about everything was explained by Cold War rhetoric, even if there was zero Soviet support for the regime overthrown by the US (e.g. democratically-elected Iranian PM Mosadegh, to pick one random example of many).--NYCJosh (talk) 21:25, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Korean history 1945-1950

Could someone reconcile the discussion following "South Korea 1945-1950" with the article on North Korea? The current text (2017-03-11), says, "On August 28, 1945 these committees formed the temporary national government of Korea, naming it the People's Republic of Korea (PRK) a couple of weeks later." This seems inconsistent with information in the article on North Korea. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 20:57, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Could you be a little more specific as to what in the North Korea article seems to contradict this?--NYCJosh (talk) 21:30, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Democratic People's Republic of Korea
ISO 3166 code	KP

Please excuse my excessive brevity. I first noticed there was a link to an article on "People's Republic of Korea (PRK)", allegedly so named "a couple of weeks" after August 28, 1945.

• • One point of confusion that I just resolved: The link to "People's Republic of Korea" appeared in red when I first checked it. However, there is an article by that title -- except for the difference between "People's" and "People’s" -- i.e., between <'> and <’>. I'll fix that problem.

However, infobox in the article on North Korea includes the different names (see subset of info box copied with the comment).

In particular, I can't find "People's Republic of Korea" and "PRK" anywhere in that article. Instead I find "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" and "DPRK", respectively. I assume that only one is correct, but I don't know which. If they are both correct, then I think the main article on North Korea at least should note them both, and this article on "United States involvement in regime change" should either also note them both or use the name preferred in the main article to minimize confusion by nit pickers who may be too easily distracted ;-) Thanks for your reply. DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:21, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

The North Korea article appears to gloss over the brief interval between the end of Japanese occupation in Summer 1945 and the consolidation of communist control under Soviet guidance of North Korea in October 1945, at which point the DPRK was established. US, UK and Soviet leaders during WWII met (remember those famous photos of FDR/Churchill/Stalin and later of Truman/Churchill/Stalin?) to draw lines in the maps of Europe and Asia establishing their respective zones of influence: what Churchill just a few years later called the "Iron Curtain" in a derogatory manner (even though he himself had sat with Stalin to draw the line!) dividing Europe and lines like the 38th Parallel dividing N and S Korea in Asia. But after the end of JP occupation in Summer 1945 and before the US and the Soviets militaries implemented those plans in Sept/Oct 1945, there was a brief period of Korean independence and movement toward democracy.--NYCJosh (talk) 01:40, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

This is discussed in History of North Korea and Division of Korea. The surrender of Japan occurred on 15 August 1945, Soviet troops landed in Korea on 14 August and reached Pyongyang on 24 August, US troops landed at Inchon on 8 September, and the PRK was proclaimed on 14 September in Seoul. I don't think there was a period of independence, particularly not in the North, where the transition from Japanese occupation to Soviet occupation was swift.(By the way, the division of Korea at the 38th Parallel was not decided by a meeting of the Big Three but was decided by the Americans in the closing days of the war.)--Jack Upland (talk) 04:30, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, User:NYCJosh. From your comments, I get the impression that the article on North Korea could be improved to be more compatible to the present article on "United States involvement in regime change" and the article on People's Republic of Korea. It sounds like you know enough to fix that fairly easily; I do not. It also seems that it might be worth doing if you have the time: The article on North Korea got almost 900,000 views on December 30, 2016, and averaged almost 14,000 per day since 2017-01-10. The article on People's Republic of Korea averaged almost 200 views daily recently. Thanks again. DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:39, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see any incompatibility, and we simply don't have room in the North Korea article to incorporate all of the history. That's why we have a separate history page.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:40, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for your support of Wikipedia. DavidMCEddy (talk) 12:38, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Jack Upland seems to have a handle on North Korean history of the period so I am happy to leave it there. --NYCJosh (talk) 02:05, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Syria

The article writes Syria with '2005-2015' - shouldn't this continue after 2015? Mellk (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

The most recent reference is 2015.

It would be helpful to have more recent references.

If you want to change the heading to something else, e.g., "Syria 2005-???" or "Syria starting 2005" (whether or not someone contributes more recent references), I would support that. DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:46, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I will look into it. Mellk (talk) 16:00, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Today, Tillerson and Haley have said and suggested that the US's priority in Syria was no longer regime change. I've edited the article to include this. Mellk (talk) 18:26, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

This is more recent: "Nikki Haley Changes Course: Removal of Syria's Assad Now U.S. Priority:

This despite Haley's comments last week, before a deadly chemical attack in Syria and the resulting ::::U.S. airstrike against Assad, that America's priority wasn't to remove Syrian president." ::::http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.782402 --NYCJosh (talk) ::::03:44, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Ukraine

The US was very much involved in backing Euromaiden, which removed Yanukovych from his position. Should this be included too? Mellk (talk) 23:00, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The article currently begins, "United States involvement in regime change has entailed both overt and covert actions aimed at altering, replacing, or preserving foreign governments." Thus, if there were such documentation, it sounds like it might fit.

However, if there were such documentation, I would think it should appear in the Wikipedia articles on Ukraine and Euromaidan, and I don't find any such there.

If you know of such documentation, I suggest you try to introduce it into the Euromaidan article first. That article is being actively maintained with 11 changes since 2017-03-01 and an average of roughly 850 views per day over the past 90 days. If your documentation is questionable, it will likely be challenged. Then try to introduce a less substantive into the Ukraine article. That article has had 50 changes since 2017-03-05 and has received approximately 8,000 views per day over the past 90 days.

If you get comments about US involvement in Euromaidan accepted, then you can try to introduce a summary of that here.

However, I'm not convinced you'll find adequate documentation. It might be good to start looking for documentation for US opposition to Euromaidan, e.g., in response to the work of Paul Manafort, a campaign manager in the Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016, to try to get the US to support Yanukovich. I don't remember hearing or reading about any substantive US involvement in Ukraine. Moreover, Euromaiden is so recent, official document of any such actions, either for or against either side, would likely still be highly classified and not officially available. I also don't remember hearing about Ukraine / Euromaiden being mentioned in any discussion of leaks.

If you have solid documentation, it should be added to this article plus the articles for Ukraine and Euromaidan. However, I'm not convinced that sufficiently solid documentation is available of any actual substantive actions by the US government on this. DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:59, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I see, thank you. Mellk (talk) 13:35, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Albania

Would anyone like to have a crack at this? Perhaps someone with some knowledge of the history or the area? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Subversion -- one of the earliest and most notable failures of the Western covert paramilitary operations in the Eastern Bloc. The British SIS and the American CIA launched a joint subversive operation, using as agents Albanian expatriates. CIA cryptonyms, BGFIEND and OBOPUS NYCJosh (talk) 03:59, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

The Albanian Subversion is currently listed in "Covert United States involvement in regime change" but not in this article. It looks like it should appear early in the "Cold War era" section. Go for it. DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:50, 18 April 2017 (UTC)