Talk:George W. Bush/Archive 7

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"Republican" Clarke

This was already covered--Clarke's claim to be a Republican is used to bolster the concept that he is criticizing "one of his own," thereby strengthening the impact of his charges. Evidence that his loyalties are elsewhere speak to his credibility. If that evidence comes out, the claim must come out. Removing this material on the claim "this is about Bush" is ingenuous, at least. Cecropia 21:46, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is all completely irrelevant, and none of it should be in the article - either Clarke's claim to be a republican or any evidence that he is not in fact one. john 22:01, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I essentially agree with that point. In fact, I'm not sure Clarke's charges should even be in a Bush bio instead of an article about his administration. However, an earlier user said Clarke's claim to be a Republican is relevent to the credibility of the charge, so either the GOP claim should stay with the qualifier, or it should all go. Any consensus on which? Cecropia 22:04, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Bush Administration is a redirect to this article so as long as that is the case, I think the info needs to stay here. Mdchachi 14:29, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree with John that it is irrelevant to discuss whether Clarke is a Republican and with Mdachi that the info about Clarke's claims needs to stay here. Get-back-world-respect 15:35, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Also agree. The fact that he held the same position in both the Clinton and Bush administrations demonstrates his party affiliation is a non-issue. - Hephaestos|§ 15:39, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Woodward

I do not think we can present Woodward's statements as if he stated facts given the Bush administration denies most of them. Get-back-world-respect 10:53, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If you are talking about the two dates I added, they have not been denied by anybody. Actually the administration is not denying "most" of the facts at all. After all, they are the ones that supplied most of them. Mdchachi|Talk 14:35, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

As far as I know, the Bush administration denies having planned the war so much in advance, and they claim the decision was not final before the end of the ultimatum. Get-back-world-respect 14:42, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Correct. They're making it out to be a conversation wich started with "The president has not decided" before the recording started, and then continued on to "You can take this to the bank", "This is going to happen", and "Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast.". I'm not sure exactly how such a conversation could occur, but it's their claim. It should be pointed out that the reason that the administration and Bandar haven't been denying what Woodward claimed, but instead have insisted that there's a different interpretation for the words or that there were prefixed/postfixed statements, is that Woodward tape recorded all of his interviews. Consequently, what Woodword quotes are correct quotes; it's only their meaning that the administration is disputing. --Rei

They are NOT denying the request to Rumsfeld 11/2001 to update the Iraq war plans. In fact the white house confirmed it. I also haven't heard them denying that Dec/January conversations which started the final countdown to war. They have been denying some of the spin that has been put on it as well as the order & characterization of them. (e.g. Saudia Arabia getting informed before Powell, etc.). In any case, if you can find anything disputed in what I added let me know. Mdchachi|Talk 17:02, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, close. They are not denying that they had made the plans before (their claim, which has some truth to it, is that the government often develops war plans that it doesn't plan to use), but they have denied that the decision was made in January (which makes for a rather strange conversation, as I mentioned above). The reason they're denying that is because during that time, they pretended not to have already agreed to go to war, and were still working with the security council to get a new "inspection" resolution (which would contain what Germany, France, Russia, and China referred to as "triggers"). --Rei

While I myself set great store by Woodward's books (there is really no-one like him), his works may be problematic for Wikipedia because of his unique methods. He does not provide sources or citations for any of the specific facts related in his books, nor will he if asked. In some limited cases he may have sat in on a meeting. In the great majority of the cases not. His narratives are carefully synthesized from a variety of first-, second-, and third-hand sources, stitched into a seamless form, and generally presented omnisciently.

This is a neat way to do journalism, and its uniqueness surely contributes to his unique results. He surely gives a great view of the big picture of how things happen. However, for any specific fact, it is difficult to credit sourceless and citeless Woodward against someone who has direct firsthand knowledge of what happened at some particular meeting.

I see this as problematic for Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is about verifiable facts, not about "big picture" narratives. --Roland walker 19:09, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Equally problematic is any statement made by Bush or the Bush administration. We should not have a double standard. Kevin Baas 22:45, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hey Kevin, glad to know you. The reason it is not a double standard is that reports from anyone with first-person knowledge of events are different than reports based on third-person knowledge. Bob Woodward books contain plenty of second- and third-hand knowledge woven into his story, with no way to tell which bits are which.

If say Ted Kennedy was at a meeting with Bush and both came away with a different story about that meeting, it would indeed be a double standard to prefer one version over the other.

If, however, a journalist (Woodward) writes a third-person narrative of the meeting without revealing his sources or even _how_ it was sourced, a direct report by a witness to events should be given considerably more weight. For instance, Woodward may have learned about that particular meeting from person A, who learned it from person B, who learned about it from sneaking a look at the minutes.

Unlike other journalists, Woodward does not typically give a report with hints about source information ("a senior White House official who was privy to the discussions said ..."). His (great) books are seamless narratives synthesized from many different types of sources. Some of these sources are a great first-person witness. Some of those sources are much less reliable than a first-person witness. If there is no way to inquire about the source, then that is problematic compared to a first-person witness who reports straight out "I was there on this date and Bush said X".

Again, Woodward is open about how he works and why. He gets results and I think his books are great. But for Wikipedia purposes, when a specific factual matter is disputed, his accounts may be problematic.--Roland walker 00:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

To get a matter out of the way first - I am not concerned with Woodward. I am unfamiliar with his book and his remarks. With regard to statements: when Bush, for instance, makes a statement like "We know that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." This may be construed as a first person account - but really he is implying that certain statements have been made by certain established authorities. That is, this statement is in effect a compliation of second and third (and fourth, fifth, etc.) hand sources. Without, ofcourse, revealing his sources. This is problematic.

Furthermore, his decisions regarding policy (in contrast to his statements) likewise have such implicit connotations, and must be balanced out by a representative diversity of interpretation, in order to put this information in proper context.

President Bush is by no means a first person witness to the events in question. He may be a first-hand source to his own statements, at best. But even in this case, it may very well be that second-hand sources are in general more reliable than this first-hand source. For example, the statement that weapons of mass destruction was never used as a justification to go to war is less reliable than the historical record.

The point is that there is, in the suggested distribution, a clear and naive bias of sources: some are considered a priori more "legitimate" than others, while those considering things as such are unaware of this bias. Kevin Baas 05:56, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hey, Kevin. You say "I am not concerned with Woodward", but that's what this thread is about. Our friend Mr World-Respect started this thread with

It is clear and evident that that is what this thread is about. That does not preclude the possibility of discussing logical discrepencies in the discussion that are independant of whether one is talking about woodward or not. Clearly, I am doing this on a relevant and important issue. Since all of this is quite obvious, and your response does not address any of the argument (nonetheless mention it), I can only assume that your statement is an attempt to distract from this (valid) line of reasoning. The topic is reliability of sources in regards to woodward, and in comparison to the norm of this page. I am discussing reliability of sources in general and in comparison to the norm of this page. This is critical to the discussion. Kevin Baas 16:36, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

• • • • • I do not think we can present Woodward's statements as if he stated facts given the Bush administration denies most of them

I do not think we can present the Bush adminstration's statements as if he stated facts given Woodward denies most of them Kevin Baas 16:36, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My own comments were in agreement with this and just fleshing out why that would be. So we are off the topic, or perhaps finished with it.--Roland Walker 14:18, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This thread is much adieu about nothing; Get-back-world-respect likes to harrass me otherwise I doubt this thread would have come into being.

I added two dates sourced from Woodward and not disputed by the administration. I agree with the points about using Woodward as a source but then that point holds true with just about any source. Mdchachi|Talk 16:54, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Hey there, Dubya Talk people. I snipped out the phrase

  ..., and winning in 30 of the 50 states...

from the section on the 2000 election under =Business and political career=. While certainly factual, it distracts from the flow of the sentence. The purpose of the sentence is to say "Bush won Electoral College", though "Gore won popular vote". A principle of good English writing is that there shouldn't be too much verbiage between the point and the counterpoint within such a sentence. In addition, this fact overlaps quite a bit with the previous statement (Electoral-College margin of five). Perhaps this level of detail belongs on the dedicated page for the 2000 election.

I'm overexplaining this style edit because a factual item was removed from a contentious section. I'm leaving it here on the Talk page in case someone has the need to work in this fact elsewhere.--Roland walker 20:01, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Revised the sentence slightly; I think this makes for good sentence flow as well as making the link to the Electoral College article more functional. I think it is useful to note Bush won a majority of the states. MisfitToys 20:28, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, now it reads nice, doesn't it? Thanks for the catch on the math (actually the meaning of the word _margin_).--Roland walker 20:32, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

2002 mid-term elections

Here's something I am deleting over to Dubya Talk:

  Others have argued that the Democrats lost seats in the election because
  of their timidity in criticizing Bush as a popular "war-time" President.

from the Popularity section. My reasoning is that this sentence contains two ideas:

 1. Democrats were "timid" -- This tells a vivid story, but uses unfortunate
    value laden language.  And since Bush is a Republican, the mood/mode of
    Democrats is not technically germane to his page.
 2. Bush was popular -- This is adequately covered in the previous sentence.

I am always open to opposing arguments.--Roland walker 20:53, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oops -- missed a word -- I meant "NOT technically germane to his page".--Roland walker 00:17, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In response to 1: first part - the word "timid" can easily be replaced. For example, "reticent" is a good candidate. second part - political pages are not partisan. That would conflict with the NPOV policy of wikipedia.

In response to 2: Refering to the election: Bush was not popular. Popular refers to population, literally. He did not recieve the popular vote, therefore, he was not popular. Nor did he win by popular suffrage. America, clinically, does not elect its national leaders by popular suffrage, but by an electoral college. This all follows logically, without distortion. I.e. is the truth.

"Reticent" means 'unwilling to talk', which isn't the right word. And Bush was fairly popular in 2000, though Gore got more votes. It's possible for more than one person to be popular, even if only one can be the most popular. Anyway, in 2002 Bush was indeed a 'popular "war-time" president', with sky-high approval ratings. --wwoods 23:53, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Reticent" does not mean 'unwilling to talk'. That is close, but doesn't cut it. Reticent is clearly more to the point of what is meant by those making the statement.

Yes, it is possible for more than one person to be popular in a certain sense of the word popular. But it is clear and evident that that is not the sense that is being refered to. Rather, the sense as construed by the average reader in the statement in question is "the most popular". Kevin Baas 05:56, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Exactly. The above comment (from Kevin Baas?) missed the fact that the relevant section covered Bush's popularity in 2002, not 2000.--Roland walker 00:17, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Globally, Bush was very unpopular in 2002. But where does the talk page discussion refer to 2002? As far as I can tell, the popularity is concerned with election. War-time president and reticence is a separate issue altogether. Kevin Baas 05:56, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Key Kevin. Actually. this entire thread refers solely to domestic popularity of Bush in 2002. Check the "Popularity" section of the Bush article, and see above the start of this thread, which shows the text I deleted from "Popularity" into Talk. This text was about domestic popularity of Bush in 2002. This thread is a discussion about that deletion.--Roland Walker 14:18, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. At the time I asked this, this section was not titled 2002, and the discussion just above what is now the section break was discussing the 2000 election. There was nothing below that to suggest that the 2002 election was being discussed. There was only one tangential reference to it. To be clear: what I have discussed refers to the 2000 election, and I stand by it. With regards the 2002 election, I agree that domestic polls reflected approval rating statistically expected for a wartime president: above 50%. (I don't recall the exact number) And that this reflects that he was "popular" domestically. Since this is an international medium, it should be made clear in that section that the popularity refers to domestic popularity. Also, the statistic should be put in statistical context: It should be compared with the statistical distribution for wartime presidents ("conditioned on"), so that the reader has an accurate statistical model of events. Kevin Baas 16:58, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the relevance of 2 (brought up below) - Its pretty significant, it was all across the news, and it is in relation to Bush. Someone researching Bush may be interested in this information. This page is here to provide information that someone researching Bush would be interested in.

As well, socially, it is clear and evident that people find this connection relevant, interesting and important. (How political leaders get power is a very important thing to know if one is at all concerned with politics.) As well, information theory-wise, it is important to communicate this improbable event so that those who are not informed of it will not be misled into thinking that Bush won the popular vote. (by minimum message length) I.e. in effect, this information improves the accuracy of the page. Kevin Baas 23:03, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand your comment about point #2 above. My point was that the "Bush was popular during the 2002 elections" concept was covered in two consecutive sentences. This is a good argument for trimming out redundancy. I didn't remove the concept nor even move it from its place in the paragraph.--Roland walker 00:17, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am refering exclusively to the comments made on the talk page. Kevin Baas 05:56, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

PS wwoods - you reformatted my text, but the way you did it looked kooky in my browser, with two bullets and bullets plus numbers. I'm reverting to see what was wrong in the first place.--Roland walker 00:17, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

As the page is getting longish anyway, getting into a long section analyzing the 2002 elections might more appropriately belong in a separate article, which could be linked from here. Discussing why the Dems lost seats in Congress is not, I think, closely enough related to this article for a longer section. I'm somewhat surprised that there aren't articles such as U.S. congressional election, 2002, with an national overview of the elections, but perhaps that's something for the WikiProject: US Congress. Such an article would presumably include links to the pages for various Senate races, etc. MisfitToys 03:50, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the discussion of "why" the Dems lost ground in 2002, while interesting, is capable of NPOV, because (at this point, at least) it's Monday morning quarterbacking. I'm fascinated by how most of the pundits have no idea that there is some kind of upset in the offing in an election, but the minute one happens, they know exactly why it happened. For one thing, I don't remember the Democrats as being especially timid. In fact, they made a number of races declared "must wins" and lost almost all of them. Particularly striking was the Jeb Bush election in Florida in which the Dems were sure that anger over 2000 would oust him. It didn't.

The "timid" comment was about something completely different. Please refer to the comment: "Others have argued that the Democrats lost seats in the election because of their timidity in criticizing Bush as a popular "war-time" President." This refers to the 2002 mid-term congressional election, with regard to the Iraq war. It has nothing at all to do with the 2000 presidential election or the controvery regarding electoral corruption in Florida. (Notice also that the comment is very specific: "in criticizing...".) You have taken this out of context. Taking things out of context is not a valid (or respectable) method of argument. Kevin Baas 17:07, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OTOH, if the Democrats had been more aggressive (as by attacking Bush heavily on foreign policy) and lost, then the same pundits would be saying "the Democrats lost ground because they were too aggressive and this turned off the electorate." - Cecropia 04:43, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No. The statement that the Democrats were too timid quite intentionally implies that the democratic-leaning populace were fairly confident in their assesments and would have given stronger assent in their voting affinities to a more aggressive response by the candidates. This is completely unrelated to the contrapositive of the disputed statement. Every statement has a contrapositive. This does not in any way reduce the validity of every statement. Kevin Baas 06:13, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No majority of the popular vote

For the benefit of those not in the U.S., I think the phrase "the third consecutive presidential election in which no candidate received a majority of the popular vote" is a little misleading, in that it imples that this is unusual. Because of third party candidates, it is a common occurence. The popular vote wasn't even an important issue until Andrew Jackson lost the presidency in 1824 with 43% of the measured popular vote to John Quincy Adams' 31%. In fact, a number of famous American presidents were elected at least once with a minority of the popular vote, including Lincoln in 1860 (40%), Woodrow Wilson in both 1912 (42%) and 1916 (49%), Truman in 1948 (49.5%), Kennedy in 1960 (49.7%), Nixon in 1968 (43.2%), Clinton in 1992 (42.9%) and 1996 (49.2%), and of course, G.W.Bush in 2000 with 47.9%. Ironically, even if Gore had gotten the Electoral College vote, he would still have had a minority of the popular vote at 48.4%. Cecropia 20:56, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree. People often write something along the lines of "plurality victories are the rule, rather than the exception, for the modern president". But how much is this a history lesson on American elections vs an entry on GW Bush? If it was up to me the phrase would be snipped but people tend to be funny about that.--Roland walker 21:03, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

But it is unusual for there to be no majority for three consecutive elections (I believe the last time was 1884-1892?), and I think that briefly noting that fact contributes to understanding the closeness of the race. I note that Gore himself was elected twice by a minority, though this would be more appropriately noted on his page than here. MisfitToys 03:41, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

I guess—but there have been so many "minority" popular votes that I don't think it's amazing. Only three Democrats since the Civil War have won with a popular vote majority—Roosevelt (all four times), LBJ and Carter. - Cecropia 04:35, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Guantanamo Prisoners and International Law

Hey get-back-world-respect. Let's not get in to an edit/revert war. I've entered my change for the second time with some expl below.

In section Afganistan, I changed

  stated that they must be treated as

to

  asked that they be treated as

I'm going to lay out some reasons/thoughts here now. I also plan to make some more changes in this section.

This whole issue is complex. Law is complex. International law is incredibly hairy stuff. Precise wording helps.

The parties arguing on behalf of the Camp Delta prisoners have no legal standing to "state" how the prisoners "must" be treated wrt the Geneva Conventions (GC). These entities are merely third parties in any such dispute. They can query, but they can only query the US. And this is merely the sovereign equivalent of a chat. Because we are talking about something in the vicinity of law, "stated" carries the implication that something deeper is going on.

Of course, these various entities may have a strong motivation or interest, but that doesn't create standing under GC. With considerable simplifications to get us started on the thrust of the thing: The GC creates a structure recognizing two entities - those nations which are at war with each other. It sets rules and standards for the treatment of prisoners acquired during the course of the war. But the prisoners themselves aren't parties to the GC. The warring sovereign nations are the parties to the GC.

The specific structures of the GC don't include nations which aren't part of the conflict, so those third-party nations just don't exist under the GC, in the same sense that, if you consider the rules laid out in your elementary arithmetic textbook, concepts such as "France" or "the US" are so irrelevant or orthogonal as to not exist under the system of arithmetic.

If I say

  The nation of Italy "stated" that 3 + 5 "must" be equal to 8

it would be somewhat nonsensical, no? Even if 3 + 5 really does equal 8. Your main question would be: what does Italy have to do with 3 + 5?

Likewise, if I say

  The nation of China, "stated" that a new arithemic operation,
  addification "must" be used in all US 3rd-grade arithmetic

it would be nonsensical. The most China could do, would be to ask or propose to the US that our arithmetic books adopt their new idea. They just don't have any standing to "state" this with authority.

Similarly, we could not meaningfully say that the United States "states" that Russia "must" allow imports of Turkish marmalade under the terms of some Russian-Turkish trade agreement.

In general, each bit of international law, each treaty, each convention, is a law unto itself. There is no unified "international law" in the sense we are used to thinking about law.

Now, to further complicate things, Law is a very precise kinda mechanical beast. It doesn't work based on general concepts but on specific mechanisms. The GC lays out what happens to prisoners taken between warring nations. In the case of British prisoners at Guantanamo, Britain could hardly claim redress under the GC, as the UK and US fought on the same side!

If the parties we describe in the article take a position on the interpretation of international law wrt the Guantanamo prisoners, such a position is inherently argumentative. They don't carry the authority to "state" anything on the matter.--Roland Walker 22:46, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the meaning of "stated" in the context of legal issues. I know that law has its own wordings which do not always match with the everyday use of words. I only wanted to stress that organizations do not simply "ask" the US to treat the prisoners according to the Geneva Convention and international law - or law at all. This could be interpreted as if they just thought it would be nice to do so. But much more than this, the organizations expressed their deep concern about the point that they see the US action as a violation of international - and even US - law. If "to state" has a meaning in this context that I did not know about I am ok with a rewording, but "to ask" is clearly misleading. My suggestion is "to argue". Get-back-world-respect 23:43, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dear Mr World-Respect, please bear in mind that while I like to argue, I am friendly and would like to be friends with you. You have just reverted my change for the second time, replacing "stated" with the synonym "said" and restoring "must be". I don't think that should be how this works.

I am not saying that "state" is so much of a legal term itself. I'm saying that (as my last paragraph makes clear) the position of third parties in this matter is (inherently) merely argumentative, and that (as earlier paragraphs make clear) there is no understood framework or venue in which their arguments may appear. This is all the more true when you say they have concerns that the US violates its own law.

The wordings "said", "state", and "must" are deceptive in this instance, as they imply to the reader that something is going on which is not in fact going on. Because they have no standing, because there is no venue, yes, in the fundamental sense (and you are free to feel this is unfortunate), all they are doing with regard to the GC is saying "it would be nice". There is no authoritative interpretation, and there is no compulsion.

Perhaps we could separate out the concept that certain other nations registered protest about the treatment of individual prisoners. Then we could have the protest/deep concern thought without muddying the waters on the other stuff.

I would like to try to refine the whole paragraph. I believe I can make it better. I would like to work together, even actively collaborate, instead of having small changes spark edit/revert wars and require inordinate amounts of Talking.--Roland Walker 00:40, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I really do not see why you do not see that they all said that international law applies. Even if they have no legal standing they can still state their opinion and criticize. If my brother says "Mumia Abu Jamal is a political prisoner" he has no legal standing, but he can still say so. Or he could theoretically, since I have no brother. The point is, if I had many many brothers or if they could encourage many many people to join him, they could set up a "Free Mumia Jamal Group", boycott Coca Cola and Microsoft, and if they were about one billion or so maybe Mumia would be set free. Since in our case governments and human rights organizations representing probably more than a billion people made a statement, the statement is worth noting. However, given that they still have not come up with the idea to boycott Microsoft and Coca Cola, nothing much changes. Although some of the "illegal combatants" may have killed less people than Abu Jamal. Get-back-world-respect 01:45, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hey, now we are getting somewhere. The key is that what we say can be deceptive to the reader. If the Mumia entry went like

  Mumia is in jail.  Tony World-Respect, brother of a noted Wikipedian,
  has stated that Mumia is an illegal political prisoner and must be 
  released.

This would confuse the reader. It would make the reader think that something was going on that was not really going on. It would suggest to the reader that Tony World-Respect has some substantive relationship to the proceedings. It doesn't matter how famous Tony is, or how many people are represented by some group. A substantive relationship doesn't arise after some threshold of intense fame, intense interest, or large number of people. It either is or it is not.

In this case, the wording "said/state" ... "must be" is would deceive the reader into thinking that there is some sort of substantive relationship.

PS I find that your wording "you do not see" personalizes the question unnecessarily. I can and do see what people say. I'm trying to respect the reader by giving her correct information and correct wording.--Roland Walker 03:24, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Would 'complained' be a better word than 'stated'? I think it fits what's being indicated by the paragraph; 'charged' seems to me too harsh. MisfitToys 21:05, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

MisfitToys, yes, "complained" is closer to the truth than "stated". However, I feel it is weaker/less specific than "asked", because, as I understand it, certain entities did petition the US to consider the prisoners as lawful combatants under the GC. --Roland Walker 23:58, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Roland, I really do not understand you. There are people in cages at Guantanamo and US authorities deny them any access to law and order. The whole world protests against it and you say it should not be reported because US courts and you say that the rest of the world has no legal standing in the issue? Are the Geneva Convention and international law defined by US courts or the US administration? We know that they were kind of in the case of Nicaragua v. United States and in many cases when the US executed foreigners whom they denied access to legal services as guaranteed by international law and as ruled by the International Court of Justice [1]. It would however be deceptive not to report here a major issue in the worldwide view of George W. Bush and his administration. Get-back-world-respect 22:08, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dude, back up a minute. I never said it should not be reported. I have a very technical objection over the wording of "stated"/"said" vs "asked". Maybe you are confusing me with some of those involved in an edit war right now. I'm not editing the page, right now, just Talking. --Roland Walker 23:58, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A "belief" is not necessarily based on an analysis. The statement of human rights organizations and numerous governments is. Get-back-world-respect 22:43, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I regard it not helpful to get back to a version that was already discussed to be misleading without even pointing out why you do so and claiming "it was explained at length at talk". Get-back-world-respect 23:29, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "discussed to be misleading". I find the current wording misleading. I have let that wording stand while it was talked out. It seemed to be talked out at last, so I changed entered the change. This should not be a controversy -- it is a technical improvement. If we could reach a consensus we could both help defend the consensus text. I am interested in a consensus, accurate text. Patiently, --Roland Walker 03:20, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't have a major problem with the wording of this as it stands now, but saying that the critics complaint is bsaed on "analysis" is begging the question. "Analysis" implies that they had no opinion on the subject, read the law, considered ("analyzed") it, and decided on that basis that the detainees are POWs. We don't know this--what we do know is that they are expressing a belief, which may be based on analysis, on internal politics, on political sympathies, or some combination of those, that the combatants are entitled to be treated as POWs. Cecropia 01:57, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A belief tends to be something you cannot argue about, e.g. whether Mohammed or Jesus is the one to believe in. The question whether people can legally be kept without any rights is not something about that you can only have beliefs but something where you can refer to laws and international agreements. You analyze those, and you come to a conclusion, as even US courts do. You state that conclusion, and I very much doubt any western government would make such a statement without basis of a legal analysis of the question. In that case they would only say say "We think it is immoral", although they would use a more diplomatic wording. Get-back-world-respect 13:18, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC) PS: U.S. Detentions Undermine the Rule of Law, Guantánamo remains an affront to the rule of law

Cecropia, who appears to be a native speaker of English, has a better grasp of the meaning of the word "believe" here. GBWR, I respectfully request that you consider listening more closely to native speakers on fine points of English wording such as the difference between "ask" and "state".

Overall, GBWR seems to be conflating two things: what has been said, and the vehemence with which it has been said. This is not a matter of adding more vehemence or more persons brings us to the point where that quantitative change transforms into a qualitiative change and standing and authority are acquired. To "state ... must" implies standing and an authoritative interpretation. Period. The entities described have no such standing and authority. Period. I understand that they may hold vehement opinions, which is why I previously suggested separating the two thoughts in the text of the article.--Roland Walker 15:04, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

GBWR, I am very sad to tell you that this

  people can legally be kept without any rights [...] something 
  where you can refer to laws and international agreements

isn't so. The problem is when there is no law or international agreement which applies. International agreements are especially problematic b/c "referring" to the text is not sufficient. The body of practice that surrounds an agreement is rather more important than the text, given how many agreements are signed and then ignored, or relax/mutate into new de facto agreements over time.

Again, this is a sad thing, but it is the truth. "Rule of Law" and "International Law" are currently immiscible. Part of the Rule of Law concept is that in the bad old days, laws (domestic laws) were like codifications of the Crown's commandments. The Crown could change its commandments at any time, and it went without saying that the commandments did not apply to the Crown itself. One of the big, hard-fought transformations to come about was that the Crown, the issuer of laws, was itself made subservient to Law. This set the stage for all sorts of amazing new developments, such as democratic self-government.

International law is in its very early stages. One day people will look back and casually remark that these were its "bad old days". Most arrangements are broken, those that survive are basically contingent on circumstance. When you get down to fundamentals, international law can change at any moment, unless you are prepared to enforce your interpretation by war. Someday, after much time and probably many battles, the Rule of Law concept will become a fundamental part of international law. This will set the stage for all sorts of amazing new developments, about which I cannot even hazard a guess. I can hope that my children or grandchildren live to see such a world. I can fight those battles on their behalf. But I can't pretend we are living in that glorious future now.

PS I personally oppose indefinite detention of the prisoners in Guantanamo. But that shouldn't affect the current technical debate, should it?--Roland Walker 16:01, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am very sad to tell you that this people can legally be kept without any rights [...] something where you can refer to laws and international agreements

isn't so. Hm, was it not you who complained about my English? The Bush administration shows us that they can be kept without any access to the law, but that does not mean it is legal. The Supreme Court is currently investigating it, and even if the US Supreme Court decides that they have no right for a trial in the US this would not change that many governments and human rights organizations claim that the current treatment is a violation of international law. Feel free to have your opinion, do not feel free to let it appear as if the rest of the world had just some beliefs like others believe in ghosts or that they asked like the poor ask not to be disadvantaged by Bush's tax policies. Get-back-world-respect 17:02, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am really sorry, but this is the poorest attempt to save your strange argumentation I could imagine. I am fully aware that as a non-native English speaker I do not know all the subtleties of the English language - native English speakers do not know all of them either, but many know more than I. However, the terms "believe", "state" and "ask" are such simple words, and also so close to the German counterparts, that I have to fully refute your claim. As merriam webster clearly shows, "to believe" has a connotation of not being based on analysis: 1 a : to have a firm religious faith b : to accept as true, genuine, or real <ideals we believe in> <believes in ghosts> 2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something <believe in exercise>. "to ask" can also mean to make a request. But the governments and organizations do not ask "Could you please treat them like human beings rather than animals." They insist that it is the duty of the US to do so. Stop trying to obscure this. Get-back-world-respect 15:46, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Aha! "insist" is argumentative, and much better than "state".--Roland Walker 16:01, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If just that was your problem where was your problem with "argued"? Get-back-world-respect 17:02, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Argued" instead of "stated ... must" would be a clear step in the right direction, and I'm all for it over "stated ... must". While you did bring up "argued" above, the commit you actually entered at that moment was "said ... must", along with a comment that "said" was an improvement on "argued". The continuing discussion on my part was based on your advocacy of "said ... must".

However, as with complained, it may be a little less than what we want in the sense that "ask" makes more clear that they went farther, and sought a change in the situation by direct request to one of the parties involved (the US). The other problem with "argued", is that it carries with it considerable specific connotation of a legal venue. It's still an improvement over "stated ... must", though it's not as specific and correct ask "asked". I still say we separate out the technically-correct "asked" from the concept of the vehemence of the request in a separate sentence that discusses how strongly felt the objections are. Regards.--Roland Walker 19:46, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Redundant statement

"Several member states of the European Union and the Organization of American States, as well as non-governmental human rights organizations, have said that they must be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention or, at least, be protected against indefinite detention as specified in international human rights law."

I removed the part about being treated as prisoners of war, because it is redundant. If they are treated as prisoners of war, then they would be protected against indefinite detention. So saying that they must be treated as prisoners of war or be treated given a specific protection given to prisoners of war is redundant. anthony (see warning)

True, but keeping it in keeps the link to prisoners of war. That link is important; so is the statement about indefinite detention, which is the most specific right these groups are including. Thus, both parts of the sentence are important, IMO. Meelar 00:48, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Why is a link from George W. Bush to prisoners of war a good thing? The new phrasing: "Several member states of the European Union and the Organization of American States, as well as non-governmental human rights organizations, have said that they must be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention and thus protected against indefinite detention as specified in international human rights law." if true, is better, though. My main problem was the "or" (though I wasn't going to change it to "and" since I don't have a cite for that). anthony (see warning) 01:01, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, in general, if readers aren't sure why they should be protected from indefinite internment, the POW article could be helpful. It establishes that these groups have a legal argument, rather than just a human-rights one. Meelar 01:32, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, the Geneva Convention does not state that POWs cannot be detained indefinitely. What it does say was removed. And the original phrasing of the statement was not that the Geneva Convention requires this for POWs, but that international human rights law requires it of all prisoners. My phrasing, back in early March, was Under article 118 of the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war "shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities." However, under article 119, POWs "against whom criminal proceedings for an indictable offence are pending may be detained until the end of such proceedings, and, if necessary, until the completion of the punishment." But at some point (when I wasn't following), this got removed. anthony (see warning) 01:47, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ah. My mistake. Well, I have seen groups pressing to grant them POW status--I think that's where my error got in. Do what you will. Meelar 03:06, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Without some sort of citation, the only thing I can think to do is remove it, because I don't really know what exactly the sentence is referring to. But I'm sure if I removed it someone would just add it back, so I'm waiting a while for someone to explain themselves first. anthony (see warning)

I want to add here, as in the thread above, that there is no such thing as a monolithic system of "international human rights law". There are only individual agreements between nations. The statement could be greatly improved by mentioning which international agreement is at issue. I plan to get to this too, but got hung up just trying to change a couple of adjacent verbs and haven't yet been able to progress to the nouns.--Roland Walker 03:31, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

172 - VV edit war protected

Hey guys, what ever happened to the "three-revert" rule? Can we cool down and discuss it here? Cecropia 05:35, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

To answer your question, it's usual POV/style stuff. The ABM treaty is called "a bedrock of U.S.-Russian nuclear stability for three decades" (my emphasis), clearly one person's opinion; it's hard to believe it was a "bedrock" in 2001. In fact, a whole spin is put in to make Bush look bad; in this case it was helped by splitting up paragraphs with explanatory material from the initial criticism. Also, there's pure nonsense, such as "The Kyoto protocol was signed by President Bill Clinton either." (?) I could have picked through and tried to straighten it all up, but 172 would have just reverted me either way, so I didn't bother. -- VV 05:59, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You are an active editor on this article, and you had no right to to pick sides and then protect your favored version. If you don't remove the protection and the notice, then I will do so myself. 172 05:38, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Cecropia is NOT an active editor of this page, his only edit was to revert a vandalism. I checked that out myself since he reverted to a version which has his name on it. If YOU delete the protection, *I* will block you. RickK 05:45, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I dare you. Both of you have axes to grind and that's obvious. 172 05:48, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC) 172 05:48, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sure, everyone else is the devil. -- VV 05:49, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for backing me. I removed protection to lookup policy. If you think appropriate, maybe you'll consider restoring it. Cecropia 05:47, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

172 just unprotected and reverted to his version. You've probably noticed by now. -- VV 05:49, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, let the war begin. I've just blocked him. RickK 05:53, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Actually, no he didn't, I jumped the gun. I'm unblocking him. RickK 05:55, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You fucking coward. You didn't have the balls after all. 172 05:56, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In Wikipedia:Protection log, it says he did. -- VV 06:00, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It looks like there was some sort of race condition; RickK tried to protect after Cecropia's unprotection, but 172 unprotected immediately after that in response to Cecropia's protection. -- VV 06:03, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oh dear god, this is all a mess. The chronology would appear to be as follows:

1:31 - Cecropia protects article 1:33 - Cecropia reverts to his last version of the article 1:34 - Cecropia adds protection notice 1:43 - Cecropia unprotects 1:44 - Cecropia removes protection notice 1:46 - Confusion! RickK protects and then 172 unprotects. At some point, 172 reverts to his version. But is this before or after RickK reprotects? 1:47 - RickK adds protected notice 1:49 - RickK reverts.

The whole thing is unclear, I think. john 06:09, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

And Rick blocked me for a couple of minutes, perhaps to put up and protect his little bitch's version in the meantime. 172 06:12, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It was unprotected the last I saw, so I protected it. I'm such a neutral party :-) I only looked at one diff - was disappointed to see that uncontroversial grammar fixes were being reverted along with the more difficult claims. Not up on who is whose "bitch" though, is there a special page for tracking that? Stan 06:17, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

VeryVerily probably didn't even look through the changes. This was just an attempt for him to assert ownership over the article and prevent me from editing the article. 172 06:27, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think I'm the "little bitch" (or is it Cecropia?). Maybe we should have a Wikipedia:Bitches to clarify this matter. (And the reason I didn't bother reinstating the grammar fixes is that it was too likely 172 would just insta-revert no matter what.) -- VV 06:23, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I was calling you RickK's bitch. 172 06:27, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I would prefer if sysops only acted on articles they feel neutral about. In this case, I remember 172 openly makes anti-, and Cecropia makes anti-Bush-critics edits. So would it not be wiser to ask someone else? Furthermore, "You fucking coward. You didn't have the balls after all. 172" and "Well, let the war begin. I've just blocked him. Rick" are unacceptable. Get-back-world-respect 22:36, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I see your point, GBWR, but look at the edit history. It was an ongoing and rapid edit war, and I happened to be the admin on the spot. I looked it up and it was not against policy for me to protect the page as I was not part of the edit war--still, I stopped the war and asked the parties to talk it out here, which you can see above. Since 172 is an admin, I was quite aware he could unprotect it if he chose. As it is the temporary protect (which I removed earlier today) worked, at least for the time being. Cecropia 22:45, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You can just request it to be protected, someone neutral will take care of it fast. And if the edit war goes on for some minutes, how many people will read the article in the meantime? Probably only wikaddicts, no one will suffer from misinformation. Get-back-world-respect 21:48, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Domestic policy

The main reason I added this section was because there was no mention of the environment in the article and to be consistent with the foreign-policy section. Once this area is fleshed out, I envision the Legislation section containing little more than the bullet list. Mdchachi|Talk 16:54, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That was really sloppy of you, to create new subtitles and not take care of redundancies. Also, your additions were unbalanced. Get-back-world-respect 22:14, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, Mdchachi, for creating this new subtitle, and for your additions. These are valuable contributions, which most of us appreciate. Kevin Baas 22:19, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

GBWR, I noticed a deficiency and didn't have a few hours to research the content. So I added a section-stub knowing that eventually it will evolve into something comprehensive. I simply added factual seeds to get the process going. If you don't like it, then tough tooties.

Kevin, thanks for the encouragement.

Mdchachi|Talk 14:49, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I do not say you should have spent hours in research but that you should not have rewritten paragraphs about topics we already had. You easily could have copied what we had under legislation to your sections as I did. Get-back-world-respect 14:54, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Enron, the oil business and jobs

There is nothing here about the Bush administration's ties to the oil business and Enron or the job statistics during the presidency. Why? Get-back-world-respect 14:51, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)