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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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
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)
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
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.
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)
"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)
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)
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. Rick K 05:45, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, let the war begin. I've just blocked him. Rick K 05:53, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Actually, no he didn't, I jumped the gun. I'm unblocking him. Rick K 05:55, 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)
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)
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)
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)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
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)
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
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.
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)
"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)
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)
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. Rick K 05:45, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, let the war begin. I've just blocked him. Rick K 05:53, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Actually, no he didn't, I jumped the gun. I'm unblocking him. Rick K 05:55, 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)
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)
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)
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)