Talk:Second Gulf War

Comments

Apparently there was a "First Gulf War" before the one in the early 1990s, or something? More detail, please? Thanks. -Rwv37 05:17, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Merger Proposal

I proposed that this page be merged with Persian Gulf War, or it should just be deleted. It seems to say exactly the same thing as Persian Gulf War does, and can't decide if it wants to be a disam page or a fact page or what. If anyone has better ideas for cleaning this mess up, please do -- I usually try to save an AfD, if there is good reason, but I don't see one here. Thank you. Macduffman (talk) 21:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I think deleting or redirecting this page would be a bad idea and I am glad to see that it was not done. -- PBS (talk) 13:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: merge into Gulf War (disambiguation). -- tariqabjotu 06:18, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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Second Gulf War → Second Gulf War (disambiguation) – As per WP:TWODABS, when there are only two topics listed on a disambiguation page, we should generally pick the better one and use a hatnote if necessary to redirect traffic. And to be perfectly honest, there really aren't even two plausible meanings here. There is a clear primary topic for this term in English in the year 2013, and it is for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Second Gulf War should redirect to 2003 invasion of Iraq. Just as WWI was no longer called "the war to end all wars" after WWII, we no longer call the First Gulf War (which redirects rather painlessly rather than having a disambiguation), well, the Second Gulf War. Oh, and if your disambiguation page has to explain why it exists instead of taking you straight to the obvious target, you don't need a disambiguation page. In common English, Gulf War refers unambiguously to the 1990-1991 conflict, and therefore, the Second Gulf War is probably unambiguous, too. Red Slash 08:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: There does seem to be ambiguity here, if we look at, say, Google Books. Iraq and the second Gulf War: State Building and Regime Security (1997) and this chapter from a 2004 book are obvious examples from the first page of results. StAnselm (talk) 08:42, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Well, per both WP:DAB (which I didn't cite) and WP:TWODABS, we're allowed to have some ambiguity. There's a LOT of results for a bird when you search for "Turkey" in Google, even in Google Books. But we have tolerance for ambiguity as long as there is a primary topic (see: Turkey), especially when you only have two possible meanings. Red Slash 09:03, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
• Merge and then redirect Second Gulf War (disambiguation) to Gulf War (disambiguation) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 12:17, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • The ambiguity of "Second Gulf War", "Third Gulf War" and First Gulf War (disambiguation) can all be resolved at the Gulf War dab page, with a joint dab page. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 12:20, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
• NOTE second gulf war does not lead to this page. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 12:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I have fixed that obvious inconsistency, pending the outcome of this discussion. StAnselm (talk) 13:10, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• I like 76.65.128.222's idea of merging all of the Gulf War dab pages into Gulf War (disambiguation) and working it out there. —  AjaxSmack  02:28, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
• Merge to Gulf War (disambiguation) per above suggestion. I note that Second Persian Gulf War already redirects there. StAnselm (talk) 02:52, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose A complicated and potentially confusing issue, but as you rightly point out, where we have only 2 possible meanings it does not take much to decide that 1 is primary. I suggest that we adopt terminology for these wars which avoids terms like 1st, 2nd. PatGallacher (talk) 00:17, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support per nom. This still sounds like the most logical proposal. --BDD (talk) 16:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
• Merge to Gulf War (disambiguation) and redirect there, per 76.65.128.222 and StAnselm. This seems the cleanest solution and avoids the ambiguity question altogether while also removing the need for hatnotes.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:00, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

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