Talk:Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 NPOV
2 CIA
3 Title and content in article don't correspond
4 Lynch
5 Count Iraq/Iran War
6 Misleading Comparison to World War 2
7 Title: Name

[edit] NPOV

Well it is hard to see how this page can be NPOV. It is not enough to say "allegedly" -- who has alleged this? Who has named these names? Why? What is the purpose of creating a list of twelve? Did Saddam do it? Maybe this page should be deleted? Slrubenstein

I agree Slrubenstein.Such claims MUST be refrenced, to decent sites. It should either be deleted or more clarification that this "dirty dozen" is just American media propaganda. --Mostafa Hussein

Slrubenstein: The page already has a reference as to who points the group out. No one, as far as Iknow, has given a purpose to name it the Dirty Dozen. As far as Mostafa Hssein is concerned, it isnt very Neutral of you to say it is just American propaganda, Hussein.

Antonio Magic Man Martin

What exactly is this sentence supposed to mean: "In the event of the 2003 war against Iraq, the group has surfaced to the general public's light." I did a google search [1] and got all of 8 hits. --snoyes 20:42 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

Well, it's because the group wasnt widely known before the 2003 war. Not like nowadays, anyways..

Antonio Hot baby! Martin

First of all you'd have to somehow validate the claim that it is infact widely known at the moment. I did not know this term, and from the looks of it neither did many others. Secondly the grammar in that sentence appears to be attrocious. --snoyes 20:52 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

AntonioMartin, thanks -- I am sorry I missed the attribution; I put it up top where it belongs. It still seems like progeganda and more needs to be said. I went to the US State Department home page but could find NO reference to this phrase -- the Guardian article doesn't provide a source either. Maybe this is just a creation of the Guardian? Let's have some more research than just cribbing from a newspaper article! Slrubenstein

Slrubenstein, can you justify the removal of the term "derogatory". Surely if I start calling you "dirty Slrubenstein" from now on, you (and I) would agree that this is a derogatory term, not so? --snoyes 20:57 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

I of course agree with you that it is derogatory. I just consider it poor style -- it is editorializing. The article is stronger without it, because readers can make their own judgement (and some -- not I -- would call it "accurate" rather than "derogatory.") You will note that I was the first to state my NPOV objections. I do not believe adding the word "derogatory" renders the article NPOV -- I think the way to render it NPOV is to situate the claim more precisely (i.e. who coined the term, when, and why). I have made other changes to the article along these lines. Slrubenstein

I concur, it is probably best to let the reader themselves draw any necessary conclusions. --snoyes 21:08 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

I am glad we agree -- and I am sure most readers will reach the same conclusions as you and I. Still, I wish we had more info on whose idea the list was, originally, and in what specific context it was presented. The article has the potential to be a valuable object lesson in the relationship between politics and the media -- but we need more facts! Slrubenstein

Yes, more information is definately needed. Have a look at this LA times newspaper article. I think that it is relatively clear that this term was invented to create a good-sounding news bite that would resonate with the average television viewer. But obviously this is just my opinion. It may, according to who you ask, also be racist. --snoyes 21:19 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

My favorite line in the article is this: "The hybrid is also necessitated by the Bush administration's opposition to the International Criminal Court. US would look hypocritical if it asked for a UN-mandated war crimes tribunal." I am not sure the word "would" is quite the right word, though. Slrubenstein

Well, let's just say that we need to keep working on this article. As many users can testify, my 1,000 or more articles have, for the most part, except my first few articles, enjoyed a neutral point of view. I tired to make this one as neutral as I could. But a good edit is good for an article, so Im more than happy to see a good edit to my articles. My biggest problem here was with Mostafa Hussein, who, by trying to critizize my neutrality (or lack of therefore) by using the term American propaganda actually shows hes not neutral on the subject. I wonder if he hasnt learned that at Wikipedia you need to be neutral.

Antonio I love you everyone!! Martin

Well, I think it is actually exhibits all the conditions necessary to be a propaganda term. Why would you need to invent a potentially racist alliteration at all? --snoyes 21:50 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

Antonio I didn't mean to criticise you personally. The first version of the article was alarming. Thats why I commented. It is much better and informative now. Yes, I might be not very neural on the subject, therefore I will not edit it. I only complained on the Talk page. Well, I hope that ALL war criminals get prosecuted fairly. -- Mostafa Hussein

I moved the article from Saddam's Dirty Dozen to Torture and murder in Iraq. Hope no one minds. --Uncle Ed

Now that Sadam has been deposed shouldn't this article, particularly the first sentence, be in the past tense? --Axon

I'm disputing the accuracy and tone of this article. --Systemshocked

"Much of this was made possible by the United States's arming of the Baathist regime run by Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s." Look, wasn't Iraq a Soviet Client State!!? Where did all those AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles, Scud missiles, ZSU-23 Anti aircraft guns and T-72 tanks come from? The ether? Hardly a Neutral Point of View. --Systemshocked

Please qualify this "support" the United States gave to Saddam Hussein. I concede that the United States did give him intelligence and some helicopters during the Iran-Iraq War, but that's nothing compared to thousands of front line (at the time) tanks like the T-72. --Systemshocked

I've updated it with information from, and a link to, Arms sales to Iraq 1973-1990. Happy? --No-One Jones

Keeping it honest, that's all. Thank you No-One Jones. --Systemshocked

The link to Arms sales to Iraq 1973-1990 gives quite a different picture than the sentence in this article: "Foreign powers at times colluded in Iraqi state oppression, including France, the Soviet Bloc and the United States". In the table showing sales, I see that the US was the least involved by a great measure. I would like the sentence to be changed: "During his dictatorship Saddam Hussein was aided by foreign powers; the great bulk of Iraq's weapons were supplied by the Soviet block, China, France, and Egypt. (here link to Arms Sales)" The US contribution is so small, even less than Germany. It seems to me that some try link the US to anything and everything. Proof: Egypt and China are left out entirely in the sentence. Whyerd 13:49, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Saddam Hussein may be responsible for the deaths of 1,131,000+ Iraqis and others in the region.

I added this line in order to reflect a balanced position on the harm caused to Iraqis by including the previous regime's possible human rights violations. --Systemshocked

I also added an internal link to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and an external link to the United_States State Department website. -- Systemshocked

[edit] CIA

I don't see the need to mention the CIA in the article, and certainly it does not belong in the intro. Saddam had dozens of important international connections during his reign, and singling out one is not appropriate. Furthermore, the links cited to support this are highly dubious. The first states that UPI has "pieced together the following account", meaning it is original research by them and needs to be treated with skepticism, and furthermore is not nearly as explicit as what is in the intro. The second is just garbage from the far-left zine ZNet, which is not credible at all and doesn't really support the allegation anyway. At any rate, reverting my entire edit (and then duplicating another intro sentence!) is the sort of thing that creates so much conflict on Wikipedia. -- V V 06:52, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I should acknowledge that in fact you did move it out of the intro, although perhaps not intentionally. My other objections remain. -- V V 06:53, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As far as you feeling no need to mention it, apparently others do (me, Pir and Rei) feel it needs to be mentioned. Saying all "international connections" are equivalent is nonsense, if Iraq had an "international connection" to say Kenya, that "international connection" could not provide Apache helicopters, tanks and so forth like the US could. Perhaps you should go around all of the pages and remove that countries had the backing of the USSR if you feel this way. That what UPI reports is irrelevant and to be deleted is not a standard held on Wikipedia. You may feel that only the allegations of Baathist torture and murder are relevant (which happened while the US backed Hussein), but your removal of subsequent accounts does not do, it does not do. I've heard first hand accounts of people being shot for throwing rocks and the like. Your standards for deletion are held nowhere else on Wikipedia. Venceremos 08:09, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A wealth of information was published in an article entitled, "A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making", by Roger Morris, in the March 14, 2003, New York Times. In it, Morris details the role of the CIA in the toppling of the Kassem (Qasim) government in collusion with the Baath Party (involving Saddam) in 1963. Following the coup there was a bloodbath in which hundreds of suspected Communists and other leftists were killed, using lists passed by the CIA to Baathists. --Jose Ramos 08:11, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well if you have a better source than the two cited then that's a start. But I don't see you saying the CIA actually sought their murder. And at any rate it should be a side note in an article that covers a lot of major incidents, and certainly does not belong in the intro paragraph. -- V V 08:34, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have read this article as well, The New York Times has reported that the CIA provided lists of people to kill as well. As if UPI was not good enough. And then you're deleting any murder and torture that happened post-invasion as well of course. Venceremos 09:02, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Then edit in in an appropriate and NPOV and appropriate place as per my repeated explanations, and do not undo my other changes. -- V V 09:07, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Pir's entry is appropriate and NPOV. As far as your "other changes", meaning your deletion of any post-invasion torture and murder, I will continue to undo your undoing of them because while you may not want people to know about CIA involvement in Hussein's initial coup or murder and torture that happens in Iraq after the invasion, I'll leave it up to them to decide whether they should know it or not. Venceremos 09:12, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

VV, Venceremos, Rei, and all other readers: do you feel that the latest version before protection by 172 is acceptable? pir 13:34, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, I do not, at all. The 1,131,000 dead is incredibly inaccurate, since that is mostly composed of deaths in the Iran-Iraq war, and are not "torture and murder in Iraq". It's a distortion that has been continually used to try and create an illusion of a need to invade the country (that, and the pretending that torture and murder in Iraq were just as common in the late 90s/early 00s as they were during the Anfal campaign in the 80s). The entire ANFAL campaign, of which part was conducted as retribution for supporting Iran in the war, is described by HRW and Amnesty as being in the tens of thousands, usually with a "minimum" of 50,000. Rei

I did not look up the claim of 1,131,000+ dead, but if most of them were indeed killed in the war, this figure should be removed as it is misleading. Victims of war or not usually considered to have been 'murdered'. As the article is now, it reads like Saddam and the 'dirty dozen' personally killed over a million people.... It would be far better to list the different groups of people that were victims of murder and torture under Saddam (e.g. Communists, Kurds, Marsh Arabs, etc.), and give estimates of the numbers. Does anyone have a source for such info? pir 18:30, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Okay, two issues are being drawn out: First, West, I gave as an example; by "facing" court martial (which, by the way, you keep misspelling, breaking the link) I meant he was threatened with it (which forced the decision you alluded to); by "face" you maybe mean something stronger, but the point is that soldier misbehavior is in gross violation of the coalition's rules of engagement, which is not adequately emphasized in the article right now. The current text looks like it seeks to draw a moral equivalency between this handful of coalition misdeeds and Saddam's brutal regime of rape rooms and torture chambers, which, for lack of better words, is both perverse and inhuman. The second issue is that I don't think every single bad thing done by coalition soldiers needs to be explicated; no such corresponding exposition is given for the thousands of Saddam's victims, why the detail for these cases? (Of course, I know why some want it.) There is already a link provided where a person can read about the alleged mistreatment in detail if they want to. Right now this article is losing focus in the desire by some to paint an equivalency which does not exist. Personally, and unrelated, I think at this point it should be split up into two articles, one on Saddam's regime, one on the aftermath (or that info can be attached to an existing article on the occupation), since they are wholly different topics, but such a radical change can wait. -- V V 02:03, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

VV, from what you write it seems that you are concerned about the conclusion readers will draw from the article, but not about the factual accuracy of it. Wikipedia should bring facts in a NPOV manner (leaving the spin to the spin-doctors) and let readers make up their mind.

It's fair to say that Saddam's use of torture and murder was far, far more extensive and brutal, and this should be reflected in the amount of text dedicated to it. We should expand the bits on T&M committed by Saddam.

We need to recognise T&M for what they are: a tool to control the population when some sections of that population reject those in charge. That's is the reason why both Saddam and the current occupation make use of it. We should not break up the article. MAybe we should rename it though, as torture and murder are terms loaded with moral judgement.pir 10:50, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Also: it is rather naive to argue that T&M are not official US/UK occupation policy, and that therefore they are only 'individual misdeeds'. Do you think T&M were written into Saddam's constitution? No, it happened exactly the same way, they were illegal but the torturers and murderers did their job in the interest of the state and were therefore free to do it.pir 10:56, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'd second adding more details of torture used when Saddam was in charge, although you need to make sure that you're reporting from a reliable source (i.e., not anything that traces back to Ahmed Chalabi's thugs, who've been found to have made up almost everything they told the US). Get some from Amnesty or HRW - they cross-reference their sources. I also would like to add that I agree with everything that Pir said above. Lastly, VeryVerily, I commented already in the article about what sort of torture facilities were found in Iraq after the invasion - they weren't incredibly impressive by middle-east standards, but they were present and found in most police stations. In short, I think you need to quit reciting the INC-created fables that all but say "He Ate Babies!", and actually cite some of the real atrocities that were committed under Saddam Hussein that have been well documented. User:Rei

Oh, and I should also add: It is completely incorrect to say that West faced court marshal. He did not face court marshal. He got off from breaking the Geneva Conventions without any sort of trial and no punishment worse than what is basically getting "fired". And even *that* has been rare compared to the number of reported cases of abuse. It's no real shock that we're using Abu Gharib for all of this... it was Saddam's most infamous prison in Iraq, and now it's our most infamous prison. If you'd like, I can get you some articles from people who were held there who compare and contrast the conditions at the prison from when Saddam was in power and what it's like now (it's improved on a number of fronts, but actually gotten worse on a few fronts). Rei

(Copying some relevant excerpts from my comments on User talk:Pir:) I agree with you that all information should be presented and in a proportionate/balanced manner, including reports regardless of the perpetrators; what bothers me balance-wise is that the article goes on at length about coalition misdeeds, but only gives passing reference to torture by Saddam's regime. Of course, this can be corrected with more detail, but at present it leaves I think a very wrong impression, an impression which, I believe, some users would like to leave readers with. I see from your comments on talk that you recognize that I have this concern. As for your point about official policy, well, call me naive, but I don't believe for a second George Bush would ever authorize soldiers to engage in "sexual misconduct" with prisoners, while I am fairly convinced Saddam countenanced such behavior regularly. I believe this is a hugely important difference which needs to be emphasized. As for the claim that torture is a tool of control, I think that is a controversial assertion. Some would contend that torture is of little use in this regard and is more the result of runaway sadism and cruelty/vengeance by people with power. The torture article or its offshoots is probably the right place for these debates, which is why I think splitting the article into one on the "Dirty Dozen" and one on post-Saddam Iraq does not take away anything; the general subject of torture is too broad anyway for an article focusing only on Iraq. (V V 22:43, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC))

1) I already agreed that it would be good to get some more specifics about torture and murder in Iraq under Saddam - *so long as they're from a reputable source*, and not stories that originated from Ahmed Chalabi's thugs. By all means, go ahead and add some.

2) As for your comment about sexual misconduct, I'd just like to add that about 30% of US servicewomen reported being raped or having an attempted rape while in the service [2], so don't pretend that it's so beyond us. These are our *own people*, and the rate is that high. Secondly, I actually would be surprised if you found that Saddam Hussein had personally endorsed rape, although he certainly tolerated its use by his security forces at least for high-ranking detainees - for example, a relative of former general Najib al-Salihi.

3) If torture is runaway sadism, what do you think of the continued reports of our troops use of torture in both Afghanistan and Iraq? What about the fact that we've been deporting prisoners to their countries of origin for interrogation instead of leaving them in the US because their countries of origin use torture (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, etc, etc)? Torture isn't used for sadism in almost all cases. In some cases it is used as punishment; however, the most common use of it is interrogation. There are a lot of debates over whether it is an effective interrogation tool, but that's what it's almost always used as. By the way, I get the impression that you have no clue how widely used torture is in the world... especially among our allies. Hell, even Israel uses torture, let alone extensive use in countries like Uzbekistan, the Phillipines, essentially the entire arab world, etc. It's not nice, and it's something to be worked against, but it's reality. Rei

(1) Well one of my implicit points was that an equivalent level of detail on Saddam's atrocities would turn this into a megamile-long article; the current level is maybe less than desirable but perhaps appropriate for Wikipedia's scope, which is why the current level for anti-coalition allegations strikes me as too high. (2) Such rapes are gross misconduct and are not sanctioned by the government; again, I see an attempt to equate Saddam's clear "toleration" of rape (which is probably a good deal more than that) with criminal behavior within the ranks of US soldiers (which, incidentally, touches on other issues like women in the military and so forth), when there is simply no comparison. It is a whitewash to blur this. (3) I'm not endorsing the view that torture is runaway sadism, noting merely that is a possible POV. I think most would say that it is a combination of different factors, sometimes being used in a utilitiarian manner, interrogation or punishment, sometimes for gratification. (Do you not think Saddam might torture his enemies "just because"?) Finally, one last equivalency to attack: the things called "torture" which you refer to (e.g., "torture lite" and Israel's "moderate physical pressure") are again nowhere near the severity of what occurred under Saddam and other such regimes (such as in the Arab world). This again is a very important distinction I feel you are trying to blur. -- V V 06:12, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

VV, you accuse us of trying to whitewash T&M under Saddam and equating it with T&M under the occupation - a pretty serious accusation to make. You really should explain why you think that is our goal. There is consensus that there's a disbalance between Saddam T&M and occupation T&M as the article is now, and we agree that we should expand Saddam's use of torture. We should also contrast the methods used under Saddam with those used by the occupation. What I am interested in is painting a realistic picture of T&M in Iraq - are you too? pir 13:33, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I was referring to Rei's points, in particular #2. I'm not sure there is consensus that there is a disbalance, in that Rei seems to feel the level of coverage for the occupation is appropriate (see my point #1 and his reverting of my trimming of a description) and does seem to want to blur the distinctions between then and now. Certainly the old text before I worked on it (suffering numerous reverts) makes it sound like there's basically no difference at all ("... has not ended the use of torture in Iraq"). I'm glad you acknowledge that that is not the case, because the article does not seem to very well. -- V V 00:32, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My first impression of this page is that it focuses way too much on post-Saddam human rights abuses, and that it is too easy to discern the writer's point of view (which is clearly antiwar, anti-occupation). I actually came to this page looking for an estimate (or discussion of competing estimates) of how many people died as a result of human rights abuses in Saddam's Iraq. The information on the page failed me.

Examples of problems with this page:

The order is chronologically wrong. The US human rights abuses are mostly listed before the ones that occurred under Saddam.
For the human rights abuses under Saddam, reasons to doubt that they happened are given. Whereas for the ones under the US, no reasons to doubt that they happened are given.
Far more information is given about US human rights abuses than Saddam's human rights abuses.
The entire article generally has an anti-occupation, anti-war tone.

I should qualify that statement by saying that I myself am totally antiwar and anti-occupation, and have devoted way too much of my personal time to opposing the war! In fact, the reason I was looking for an estimate of the death toll under Saddam Hussein is I suspect the coalition's 'kill rate' of civilians might be as much as or even exceed Saddam's. So I wanted that information in order to make an anti-occupation point in the blogs!

But Wikipedia ain't meant to be a place to put across your personal views. It's meant to give us all the facts. Can I make a suggestion? It might be a good idea if the "Torture and murder in Iraq" page were split into two new pages:

Human rights abuses in Saddam's Iraq
Human rights abuses in post-Saddam Iraq

Perhaps this would take a lot of heat out of the debate over this page, and be conducive to objectivity on all sides. What do people think? Apologies if this idea has been posted before, I haven't read the entire discussion (it's a bit long for that!)

Russell

The split sounds like a good idea. If you had followed the discussions here, we have continually invited more information about torture and murder in Iraq under Saddam, so long as it is accurate (I.e., not reports that came from the INC, either directly or indirectly, since Chalabi has admitted that the INC made up almost everything that they told the US, to get them to invade). For example, adding information about the Stalin-like executions conducted when Saddam took power, or references to the Anfal campaign in the 80s (so long as the context is mentioned - it's still an atrocity, but one does need to mention that PUK sided with Iran), would be very welcome - they're well documented. Unfortunately, there aren't too many well documented non-INC cases in the 90s. There's the Olympic team torture, and there were lots of death penalty cases (although I don't think that counts as "murder", and most weren't political prisoners). Also, Iraq had your typical harsh arab security service, which used as standard practice beatings, hanging from hooks, electric shock, humiliation of prisoners, confinement in bad conditions, etc (all common in the middle east - even Israel); the only major difference is that they widely used it for minor crimes as well (Iraq even had a feared traffic police ;) ). It was, in this respect, more reminiscent of the security service of countries like Uzbekistan, worse than countries like Saudi Arabia, but better than countries like North Korea (who have literal concentration camps where prisoners are worked/starved to death). --Rei

OK I've done it. Hope the results are acceptable to everyone! We now have two pages:

Human rights abuses in Saddam's Iraq
Human rights abuses in post-Saddam Iraq

The new pages link to each other. I hope this will encourage NPOV! The change from 'Torture and murder' to 'Human rights abuses' is for two reasons:

I hope the new term will also encourage NPOV
it covers a wider range of crimes against humanity than 'Torture and murder'

I haven't had time to add any content to either page, apart from a brief mention of US tactics at the siege of Fallujah (on the post-Saddam page).

russell_j

Good job on the split! Indeed, I suggested doing this myself a couple of times above, but I got too bogged down in keeping the page from being a pure anti-US spiel (despite the problems you note, before it was even more slanted and one-sided against the US) and battling trolls to take the time out to do that. Some of the copy needs to be worked over now that it's in its new form, but I'm an eventualist about that. One thing that might be helpful is to note that Iraq was a closed society and so "hard" proof of abuses was harder to come by (hence the imputed value of the Chalabi reports) than in the relatively open occupation. -- V V 07:40, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Just a note: The imputed value of the Chalabi reports is due to the fact that he admitted that the INC put forward people who were lying. When asked about whether he deliberately misled the US, he excused it by referring to the INC as "heroes in error" and claiming that it's not important why the US invaded, only that they're there and Saddam is gone. They put out people like "Curveball" and Hamza to give reports which were pure fabrication, and we were so desperate for bad things about Iraq and Saddam that we bought it. Let's not forget that Chalabi is a many-count felon who embezzled money in the largest banking scandal in Jordan's history, and fled the country in the trunk of a car; he used the money to found the INC, and has been on the dole for over 300k a month personally from the US.

Do you think Saddam's government was *less* oppressive during the 1980s? Yet, what happened back then was well documented. Now that the US is (kind of) running Iraq, there have been lots of accounts by locals who had no incentive to lie (although in some articles, people got paid for their interviews, so you need to be careful). And certain pre-war accusations seem to have held true, such as the allegations of torture of the olympic team. I just want to make sure that wikipedia isn't spreading false information, when there is plenty of true information out there.

P.S. - Good job with the split! --Rei

Thanks for those positive comments about the split! Today I have changed the page names again, to use 'situation' rather than 'abuses'. I believe this is more NPOV because:

It doesn't prejudge the state of human rights in Iraq at the time in question (pre or post Saddam). The reader is invited to read about the human rights situation and make his/her own mind up whether it was/is good or bad.
It opens the way to include the fact that there have been some human rights improvements in Iraq since the invasion (notably more press freedom, although the CPA has undermined that by trying to shut down Sadr's paper).
It opens the way to include the single positive thing that I have ever heard anyone say about human rights in Saddam's Iraq - the position of women in society was actually quite good for a middle eastern country. Witness the fact that one of the top WMD scientists was female. Of course, for those women who fell foul of the regime, the human rights situation was not very good at all... ::((

Hope people are happy with this... Russell_j

[edit] Title and content in article don't correspond

Wow. I'll like to add to the above that it opens in a way that'll make the scrupulous reader who found this entry by using an internet search engine double check as to a) whether or not he/she has clicked on the intended link b) whether or not Wikipedia.org is an encyclopedia as opposed to a tabloid rag.

If this is an encyclopedia article on the "human rights situation in Iraq," then a) explain what you mean by the "human rights situation" in the intro b) proceed from there to sketch the historical backgrounding c) characterize this "situation" over time (if I assume correctly that you're dealing with Iraq the sovereign nation-state, the timeframe is 1920-present). 172 20:54, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I see that the article has just been moved to "Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq." This is a good excuse for not having any content on 1920-1968, but the focus of the existing coverage is still far more narrow than what is afforded by the title. The coverage would match, say, an article on "torture and murder" in Saddam's Iraq (the title before the page was moved initially), not the "human rights situation" overall. Moreover, the existing content fails to delineate the range of coverage entailed by its intended function, that is sketching the "human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq over time.

The text here can find a more fitting home without having to go through modifications in State terrorism#State-specific examples. Until there's an author ready to draft a proper, contextualized overview of the "the human rights situation," this page should be a blanked, ::leaving only a stub for the time being. The stub could include a link to a related topic, e.g., "See State terrorism in Iraq." 172 21:52, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to see what happens if I move the content to State terrorism and redirect the page to Politics in Iraq. 172 23:03, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It looks like a mess. There's easily enough information here for an article, and not all torture is terroristic (some may be intended to extract information, for instance). -- V V 02:09, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's not a perfect fit anywhere, but it goes better in State terrorism. 172 05:01, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

172: I don't know what exactly your problem is. There is a ton of accurate, relevant commentary in this page. Instead of building on it, you pretty much are throwing it all away. This is wrong. Furthermore, you're doing it on a weekend, when few people are present to complain. This page has been being actively worked on, and your intrusion here to delete the entire page is not welcome. Please be constructive, or go elsewhere. At the very least, give it a week for people to comment. --Rei

I did not "throw it away." Nor did I even address problems with the content in and of itself. I moved the content to State terrorism#State-specific examples, where it is more fitting. I moved the content to that entry so that it would not have to go through major modifications. 172 07:47, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You completely missed the point. I'm not surprised, you seem to be fairly new to this article. there are two articles, and they're a pair: Iraq before Saddam, and Iraq after Saddam. You don't just change one and delink them - you've made a mess of it. Now there are lots of dangling links all over the place. That's why I'm rv'ing. And you still didn't catch the "wait until the week to let other people have a chance to speak before such major edits". Dramatic uninvited changes are not welcome. --Rei

Ideally, there should be a pair of articles (or better yet, three articles starting off with Iraq between 1920 and 1968). But coverage of the human rights situation under Saddam hadn't existed before my changes, just as it did not exist afterwards. The content simply did not match the title (see my comments above).

Once again, I did not delete the page Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq. It was redirected to an article with a link to an article where the old content can still be found. If someone's ready to write a broader article on human rights under Saddam, he/she can easily go back to the old content on torture and murder and reintegrate it into an article that can be posted on this page.

Even though Wikipedia is a work in progress, posted work should be usable. If you'd like to rewrite the article here, I created a temp page ate Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq/temp. 172 05:46, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

172, we don't want a temp. This is NOT an article about state terrorism. This is an article about human rights. This is NOT an article about the politics of Iraq. It is an article about human rights. It needs some work, but the solution is NOT to break the pair of articles that have been worked on by many people, NOT including yourself. The solution is to be constructive and add in elements that you feel are missing. If you are not going to be constructive, leave.

I'm calling a vote. You know where I'm casting my vote, where 172 is casting their vote, and where VeryVerily's vote is (if I'm wrong, please correct me). That's 2:1 in favor of keeping the article and improving it. Who else is going to vote? --Rei

P.S. - VV, it's nice being on the same side of the issue for once. If you (or anyone else) need any help getting reliable, reasonably confirmed info about Saddam for the article, I'll be glad to help. Amnesty has some really good stuff on Anfal that I've run into before that covers the entire course of the ethnic cleansing campaign, and there's lots of documents on other things. We can also use some of the interviews that have been conducted with people post-war (as long as they weren't paid for their testimony or have any other major conflicts of interest). --Rei

The article still exists and you can still improve it. If you want to broaden the focus of the article, thus changing it from an article on torture and murder to the broader human rights situation, you don't even have to edit the content on State terrorism. You can use the Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq/temp page, which I created for the sake of writers here. Until then, temporarily the existing content fits better under State terrorism in Iraq as opposed to human rights in Iraq. 172 21:22, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Rei,

This was not a page protection. You don't even have admin status, so you cannot even protect pages to begin with. And had you actually been an admin you'd be in even worse shape, though. Any admin would've been "de-sysoped" within minutes for protecting his version of the article in the middle of a revert war. Now will you please cut it out with the phony page protection and finally provide a reasonable counter-argument to my comments on the talk page? 172 21:17, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We're taking a poll, 172. Will you stop it until then? What right do you think you have to come in here and start radically changing things against the wishes of the people here? Especially when your changes- to quote another user - "It looks like a mess. There's easily enough information here for an article, and not all torture is terroristic". Wait for the poll. Why can't you do that??? Because you're currently losing? Is that why?

Quit begging the question. The title said "human rights situation in Iraq" but the coverage was far too narrow to belong here for the time being. 172 21:46, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

And we can *fix that*. Why didn't you just ask us to *fix* things that you don't like instead of *completely changing* things? List the things you think should be changed, and as long as there is general agreement on them, we will fix them. Shortly. --Rei

And what are these "arguments" that you've put forward? Where did you explain how human rights are equivalent to terrorism? Where did you explain why the pair of articles should be split up, and this article should be redirected to "politics"? How are human rights "politics"? How is torture "politics"? This is probably one of the most ridiculous restructurings that I have ever seen. What made you feel that you have to come in here and do it? --Rei

Where's the poll? I don't see a poll. One user saying that he and someone else constitutes a poll is not how the process works. 172 21:46, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Then make it an official process. We already know where three people currently stand. It's running two to 1 against you. If you want to formalize it, go ahead. --Rei

This is not a contest. We are editing and writing an encyclopedia article. I'm not saying a negative word about the content that I'd moved. I was only commenting on the lack of correspondence between the content and the title. This really shouldn't be a big deal. It's still just as easy to use the old content as a basis for an article on the human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq as before. 172 22:03, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

1) It is still just as easy to use the old content as a basis for an article on the human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq as before Not really, when you're constantly rv'ing the article.

2) I will *gladly* work to fix the problems, if you spell them out. Saying "I already did that" isn't very productive, now isn't it? If I could tell where you've done it, I wouldn't be asking you to spell it out, now wouldn't I? I want an enumerated, non-vague list that I can check off. --Rei

1) Use Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq/temp.

2) See my first set of comments above.

1) Why should I use the temp? The temp is outdated: In case you haven't been looking at what you've RV'ing (which I assume you haven't), I've been making changes to the article to try and make it fit its title better (mainly in the header). Even if that weren't the case, it is pretty dumb to use the temp when the whole point of a wiki is that you edit the article and your changes show up right away. This isn't SubmitPotentialChangesToTheEditor-Pedia.

2) I'm copying what you listed at the beginning; there still are unanswered questions, as I will enumerate below.

1) If you'll look, I already changed the header. That point is already addressed.

2) "Human rights", as I mentioned to you before, is described by the merriam-webster dictionary as being a collection of basic rights with the three ones enumerated as freedom from unjust imprisonment, execution, and torture. That is what this article is about. So that "point" of yours is invalid. Explain what, precisely, you want changed there.

3) Historical background: That can be done, although it wouldn't make sense to go back to before Saddam took power

4) Situation over time: Before you jumped in and threw this article into disarray, we were discussing doing just that. You've set this article back half a week already. If you keep up this rv'ing, what you want to happen (and what we want to happen) will never occur.

If I missed any of your points (the reason I asked you to enumerate them), let me know. --Rei

BTW, just so you know, I am waiting for your response to ensure that I have listed and responded all of the points that you were trying to make before I act on them. As soon as I have an affirmative from you, I will begin to address them in the text. --Rei

Uh-oh, edit war in progress. I vote for the Two-Page Solution (echoes of middle east politics :) In other words, the Saddam-era/post-Saddam pages.

I don't quite understand why 172 changed things so that clicking a link that says 'Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq' would take you to a page on Iraq's politics. Human rights abuses are part of politics? Other problems were:

to get to the page on human rights (puzzlingly located under terrorism, even though plenty of human rights abuses do not qualify as terrorism), you had to click a further link.
if the Saddam-era human rights stuff belongs under State Terrorism, so does the post-Saddam era stuff. So we're back where we started, with all the Iraq human rights stuff in the same article, with the same corrosive arguments about balance which that leads to.
the state terrorism article is meant to be a comparative overview of state terrorism in different countries. All the state specific examples are short paragraphs, except for Iraq which is now much longer (and that's without the post-Saddam stuff added in). If all the other countries were edited up to the same length, the article would be enormous, and well over the 32k recommended limit.
sure, there's plenty of work to be done on the page, but if the page isn't there to be worked on, people are less likely to do that work. I contributed to these pages because I found them when looking for information about Saddam's human rights record. I simply wouldn't have found the temp page. So the move to State Terrorism was cutting out a whole class of contributors.

Human rights in Saddam's Iraq is a huge, controversial, and extremely topical subject, it deserves its own page. And there's already enough information on the page to make it useful. IMHO. :) --Russell j 01:38, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

To go some way to addressing the criticisms of this article, I've just merged in the Human rights violations in Iraq article. It dealt exclusively with pre-Iraq war human rights issues, and thus overlapped massively with this. Hope everyone's ok with this!

Please see Talk on Human rights violations in Iraq for more details of the merge.

The section on 'Abuses during the British Occupation of Iraq in the early 20th century' is a bit of a headache, as it doesn't exactly belong here... should we also have a 'Human rights situation in pre-Saddam Iraq' stub? --Russell j 03:53, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I guess the only logical thing to do with the 1920s human rights stuff is create a new page: Human rights situation in pre-Saddam Iraq. Which I've done. Hope people are ok with this. --Russell j 04:14, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. :) Rei 16:09, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Why is "Saddam" being used for the title. I'm quite sure no one is familiar with him. Should "Hussein" not be used?

[edit] Lynch

Why include this line on J Lynch? Lynch has refuted this account, and it didn't occur under what we can call Saddam's Iraq.

[edit] Count Iraq/Iran War

If you were to count Iraq/Iran war into the sum total of deaths. The number inflates to 400,000 deaths. Since ofcourse the war was instigated by the tyrant himself, I think these numbers should be included much like Hitlers invasion of Poland was counted against him.

[edit] Misleading Comparison to World War 2

The U.S. didn't have a choice during WW2 whether to help the Soviets since they were already fighting when the U.S. entered the war. A more apt comparison would be if the U.S. supported the Nazis after they invaded the Soviet Union because they were the "lesser of two evils". After all, the U.S. did support a modern day Hitler who gassed his own people.

[edit] Title: Name

Why does the title of this article not use Saddam Hussein's full name, and instead uses only his first? To use the first name only in an article title seems unprofessional for an encyclopedia. The titles of all sub-categories and articles in Category:George W. Bush for example use either Mr. Bush's full name or solely his last name, and never just his first. Other contents of Category:Saddam Hussein also use his full name, such as Saddam Hussein's novels - (The article Remembering Saddam being a proper exception as this is the title of a documentary). Kurieeto 17:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just noticed Human rights in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, which has used his full name for over a year. I'm going to rename this article in deference to that one. Kurieeto 18:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../h/u/m/Talk%7EHuman_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein%27s_Iraq_88b1.html"

Talk:Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents