Talk:Guatemalan Civil War/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

IOB report on support for death squads

See this edit: [1]. That is not what the IOB report states: "Funding issues The funds the CIA provided to the Guatemalan liaison services were vital to the D-2 and Archivos. This funding was seen as necessary to make these services more capable partners with the station, particularly in pursuing anti-communist and counternarcotics objectives. The CIA, with the knowledge of ambassadors and other State Department and National Security Council officials, as well as the Congress, continued this aid after the termination of overt military assistance in l990. There have been public allegations that CIA funds were increased to compensate for the cutoff of military aid in 1990. We did not find this to have been the case. Overall CIA funding levels to the Guatemalan services dropped consistently from about $3.5 million in FY 1989 to about l million in l995."

Please quote what statement in the report support your change.Ultramarine (talk) 09:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The close liaison relationship the CIA maintained with the Guatemalan security services helped to counter the communist insurgency in Guatemala and to combat the flow of illegal narcotics through Guatemala to the United States. For example, cooperation between the Guatemalans, the CIA, and the Drug Enforcement Administration resulted in the seizure of forty-eight metric tons of cocaine from 1990 through 1993 as it was being shipped through Guatemala to the United States by Colombian drug cartels. After these seizures, the amount of narcotics transiting Guatemala appears to have dropped dramatically. The CIA's liaison relationship with the Guatemalan services also benefited US interests by enlisting the assistance of Guatemala's primary intelligence and security service--the army's directorate of intelligence (D-2)--in areas such as reversing the "auto-coup" of 1993 and protecting US citizens at risk, including the 1994 rescue of a kidnapped American girl. Because the D-2 was widely considered to be the elite within the Guatemalan military and government, the station also often requested and received administrative and logistical assistance from the D-2 on behalf of the embassy.

The human rights records of the Guatemalan security services--the D-2 and the Department of Presidential Security (known informally as "Archivos," after one of its predecessor organizations)--were generally known to have been reprehensible by all who were familiar with Guatemala. US policy-makers knew of both the CIA's liaison with them and the services' unsavory reputations. The CIA endeavored to improve the behavior of the Guatemalan services through frequent and close contact and by stressing the importance of human rights -- insisting, for example, that Guatemalan military intelligence training include human rights instruction. The station officers assigned to Guatemala and the CIA headquarters officials whom we interviewed believe that the CIA's contact with the Guatemalan services helped improve attitudes towards human rights. Several indices of human rights observance indeed reflected improvement--whether or not this was due to CIA efforts--but egregious violations continued, and some of the station's closest contacts in the security services remained a part of the problem.

No statement that the CIA funded deaths squads. No doubt you can find other sources making this claim but it is incorrect to state that this is what the IOB report found.Ultramarine (talk) 09:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The report states that the CIA funded the D-2 and the Archivos. It is widely accepted that the D-2 and the Archivos directed death squad activities, and is referenced in the quote you cited above. The edit states "The funds the CIA provided to the Guatemalan liaison services were vital to the D-2 and Archivos, {this part is Ultramarine's text} the military intelligence agencies that directed death squad activities.{this part is my text}" What part about these statements is not correct? I do not claim here that the "CIA funded death squads." This is your interpretation. I state that the IOB affirms that the CIA funded agencies that directed death squad activity. The IOB report came about in part because of revelations that the CIA had several war criminals on its payroll.Notmyrealname (talk) 14:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

That is still not what this source says. No mention of death squads. Add another source alleging this if you want to. Why did you remove that aid levels were dropping? Why did you change the statement regarding the 1993 coup when report states that "the CIA's liaison relationship with the Guatemalan services also benefited US interests by enlisting the assistance of Guatemala's primary intelligence and security service--the army's directorate of intelligence (D-2)--in areas such as reversing the "auto-coup" of 1993""In the face of strong protests by Guatemalan citizens and the international community (including the United States) and--most importantly--in the face of the Guatemalan army's refusal to support him, President Serrano's Fujimori-style "auto-coup" failed."Ultramarine (talk) 14:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It is an undisputed fact that the D-2 and the Archivos directed death squad activity. The IOB report states "he human rights records of the Guatemalan security services--the D-2 and the Department of Presidential Security (known informally as "Archivos," after one of its predecessor organizations)--were generally known to have been reprehensible by all who were familiar with Guatemala. US policy-makers knew of both the CIA's liaison with them and the services' unsavory reputations." My addition was a point of clarification to readers unfamiliar with these agencies. Please explain how this is unverified. It is only unverified if you can provide any reputable source that claims that these agencies were NOT directing the death squads. I rephrased the statement to clarify that CIA gave millions of dollars of direct aid to these agencies after the White House had ended overt aid because of gross human rights violations (including the beheading of an American citizen by the army). I'm really not sure what your point is.Notmyrealname (talk) 15:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

"Deaths squads" is still not what the source says. "Reprehensible" and "unsavory practices" is not a synonym. You cannot just add material not in the given source. Again, add another source with your allegations regarding death squads. Why did you remove that aid levels were dropping? Why did you change the statement regarding the 1993 coup when report states that "the CIA's liaison relationship with the Guatemalan services also benefited US interests by enlisting the assistance of Guatemala's primary intelligence and security service--the army's directorate of intelligence (D-2)--in areas such as reversing the "auto-coup" of 1993""In the face of strong protests by Guatemalan citizens and the international community (including the United States) and--most importantly--in the face of the Guatemalan army's refusal to support him, President Serrano's Fujimori-style "auto-coup" failed."Ultramarine (talk) 15:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I have provided a source, the court judgment of the Inter American Court on Human Rights, that the Guatemalan government was a party to. The Guatemalan government doesn't even dispute that these agencies were directing death squad activities. I made an appropriate and accurate edit. Please stop pushing your POV. The statement you cite above does not support your edit that the CIA "helped stop" the auto coup. Looking at it more closely, it doesn't say anything specific at all regarding this. Please keep your edits in line with the text.Notmyrealname (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You make it look like that is what the IOB report states. Please give proper attributions so one can see who is making what claims. The CIA by enlisting the aid of D-2 helped reverse the coup. That is what the IOB reports states. Why did you remove that aid levels were dropping? Ultramarine (talk) 15:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You have now removed all references to the 1993 coup. Clearly not NPOV. Any concrete objection to adding this quote "the CIA's liaison relationship with the Guatemalan services also benefited US interests by enlisting the assistance of Guatemala's primary intelligence and security service--the army's directorate of intelligence (D-2)--in areas such as reversing the "auto-coup" of 1993""In the face of strong protests by Guatemalan citizens and the international community (including the United States) and--most importantly--in the face of the Guatemalan army's refusal to support him, President Serrano's Fujimori-style "auto-coup" failed."Ultramarine (talk) 15:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

(we seem to be having edit conflicts here) As per your suggestion, I have included the a source for the description about the D-2 directing death squad activities. This is nowhere disputed by the IOB report. The citation makes it clear who is making that claim. The report only lists the level of covert aid given at the start and end. It is not known what the levels were in the middle. You can include the precise amounts listed if you prefer, but don't make a claim that you can't support. Read the text of the IOB report more carefully. They do not say that the CIA support "helped stop" or "helped reverse" the auto-coup. They say that the CIA "enlisted" the D-2 to oppose the auto-coup. They do not state that this was decisive, and in fact they state that there was "strong protests by Guatemalan citizens and the international community." You are making a claim that is not supported by the IOB text.Notmyrealname (talk) 15:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I do object. The claim that the CIA support helped stop the auto-coup is a vague one, and very marginal to the report. You are giving it undue weight.Notmyrealname (talk) 15:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You text is misleading by implying statement to the report not made. Please attribute death squads allegations to who made them in another paragraph. The report clearly states that aid levels were dropping. We can quote the exact text if you prefer "Overall CIA funding levels to the Guatemalan services dropped consistently from about $3.5 million in FY 1989 to about l million in l995.". Obviously we should present an NPOV version. Not one only with US critical arguments. The CIA and US support for stopping the coup is mentioned in several places. The exact quotes I gave above can be cited to avoid any claims of citing the report falsely.Ultramarine (talk) 15:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You added "for instance by encouraging the D-2 not to support the attempted auto-coup by president Jorge Serrano Elias in 1993". That is an incorrect description. The report stated "reversed", not "not to support".Ultramarine (talk) 15:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I have put in text that more accurately reflects the contents of the IOB report about this "The report claims that at the later stages of this conflict the CIA tried to lessen the human rights violations, for instance by encouraging the D-2 not to support the attempted auto-coup by president Jorge Serrano Elias in 1993". The report states that funding dropped from $3.5 millin in 1989 to "about" $1 million in 1995. It does not say what the levels were in the middle. It is accurate to say that they gave millions of dollars in aid after overt funding was halted due to ongoing gross violations of human rights, including the beheading of an American citizen by the Guatemalan Army.Notmyrealname (talk) 15:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Your text regarding the coup is incorrect. The report stated "reversed", not "not to support". Any objection to quoting the exact text regarding this instead to avoid problems? I have not made any claim regarding aid levels in the middle. Any objection to quoting the exact text regarding this instead to avoid problems? "Overall CIA funding levels to the Guatemalan services dropped consistently from about $3.5 million in FY 1989 to about l million in l995." Your statement regarding death squads is misleading by implying statement to the report not made. Please attribute death squads allegations to those who made them in another paragraph. Best would be a paragraph about the role of the military intelligence organization in the human rights section.Ultramarine (talk) 15:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose we could say the following -- The authors of the IOB report claim that ""the CIA's liaison relationship with the Guatemalan services also benefited US interests by enlisting the assistance of Guatemala's primary intelligence and security service--the army's directorate of intelligence (D-2)--in areas such as reversing the "auto-coup" of 1993"" However, I think my current rendering gives the reader a more useful understanding of the content than quoting an isolated sentence. In any case, it must be followed with a brief description of the undisputed role of the D-2 and the Archivos at the time of the funding. I would encourage other editors to chime in with their opinions. The same goes for the funding quote. Since no information is given about funding levels during FY 1990 through FY 1994, it is impossible to know exactly what the authors of the report mean. If we do include the quote, it needs to include the context that this aid occurred after the Bush Sr. administration had cut off overt funding due to the continued high levels of human rights violations, including the Guatemalan army's beheading of Michael DeVine. I still think we need to have a section collecting all the various reports about all US funding to Guatemala during the period of the war, as well as support and training. Again, it's important for other editors to be involved in this process.Notmyrealname (talk) 01:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

To resolve this I have changed the text to direct quotes. Moved the statements about the D-2 and Archivos human rights vioalations to the appropriate section for Guatemalan human rights violations. If you have more sourced information to add, then please do so.

New addition by Ultramarine

That last addition was quite sloppy and contains several problems. You quote Louis S. Segesvary as though that person wrote the piece in question when they in fact did not (which is why in the middle of a supposed quote from that person we suddenly see "Segesvary also writes"). The actual author is Virginia Polk. You should cite this source in an inline citation so readers can see you are quoting something from 1985. I assumed this was published by the Heritage Foundation? It's hard to tell, but then again that's to be expected in a source which states at the outset "Archived document, may contain errors." Half of the passage you quote criticizes one AI briefing from 1983 which I don't believe we use in the article. I'm not sure why a sentence from 1985 criticizing a report from 1983 is relevant in this article when we don't even cite the latter report. What would be relevant is the U.N. "Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala" from 1984 referenced in your source. The report itself is what we would really want, not a secondary source's characterization of it which seems misleading on the face (it says the UN report found that one incident was fabricated, but says nothing about what the rest of the report says). Also pretty much the whole paragraph is a quotation - you might try putting some of it in your own words since it does not read very well.

In general this is not a very good source, and I again recommend you get some books from the library instead of googling and finding inaccurate transcripts of reports from 1985 (by some unknown person) that make the kind of claims you are looking for. At the very least, clean it up so you cite it properly and don't quote the wrong person. I've ordered some books, downloaded some articles, and will probably start working on improving this article with good sources some time next week. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The article uses an 1984 HRW report in several places without mentioning the age. Should be corrected. Thanks for pointing out the problem with author. As stated the Amensty report is mentioned as an example of frequent misreporting regarding the human rights situation.Ultramarine (talk) 23:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what you're referring to with respect to HRW but I see reference to "A series of reports in the early 1980’s" in the article text. If there really was "frequent misreporting" then we probably would not have ended up with 200,000 deaths and a conclusion from the Historical Clarification Commission that over 90% of the deaths came at the hands of the state. If you want to cherry pick reports from the mid-1980s that defend the Guatemalan government knock yourself out. Of course the commission set up to investigate the issue and just about every scholar who has examined it disagrees with the source you cite. I'm planning on largely rewriting this at which point your sources, and quite possibly the HRW sources, will not be needed. I'm not going to bother will small fixes until then.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The commission itself has been criticized. Will add something on this soon. Please discuss your proposal in a Sandbox before making major changes.Ultramarine (talk) 23:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll obviously discuss it here when the time comes, and possible work on stuff in a sandbox as well. Of course the commission has been criticized (what hasn't?) but if you're seriously questioning the idea that 200,000 people died or that the government was responsible for the vast majority of those deaths then you are going to need some damn good sources.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ultra-I hope you start taking your own advice about discussing significant changes in a sandbox or on the talk page before adding them. Your overall style if unnecessarily pugalistic.Notmyrealname (talk) 00:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ludicrous. If you are going to cite transcripts of tendentious obscure reports from rightwing American political pressure groups, are you also going to cite obscure transcripts of tendentious reports from, say, leftwing Latin American political pressure groups? Of course not. Some "policy analyst" citing a US consular official with a manifestly obvious interest in denialism (ie, he should probably be in the dock at the Hague, and he probably knows it) claims that Amnesty didn't do enough research (even though everything they said was subsequently confirmed in the 1990s) and that some unspecified rumoured massacre (he doesn't say which one) didn't happen, and that he never saw any bayonets, so thus nobody was bayoneted, and thus presumably nobody was killed. This is like citing Fred Leuchter on a page about the Holocaust. (Hey, that also was about fighting Communists, right?) 64.231.61.126 (talk) 01:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Material deleted without reason

The following was deleted from the article by an anon, who gave no edit summary:

Between the years of 1966–68 alone some 8,000 peasants were murdered by the U.S. trained forces of Colonel Arana Osorio. Sociologist Jeffrey M. Paige alleges that Arana Osorio "earned the nickname "The Butcher of Zacapa" for killing 15,000 peasants to eliminate 300 suspected rebels."ref>Jeffery M. Paige, Social Theory and Peasant Revolution in Vietnam and Guatemala, Theory and Society, Vol. 12, No. 6 (Nov., 1983), pp. 699–737 </ref

Unless a reasonable defence of the edit is made, I'm going to revert. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 19:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Too much OR

At many points, the article is quite weak. There are somewhat WP:OR-based, irrational, conspiracy-theory-type assumptions that the CIA and Ronald Reagan are to blame. Their roles as portrayed in the article seem way overblown and misconstrued, like something out of 1980's era USSR Pravda. It was a mistake to link to this article from the mainpage. --Firefly322 (talk) 13:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing to change actually. Truth is, the US is responsible for destroying the thriving democracy this country had back then. Jacobo Arbenz was beloved all over Guatemala. Bad President? My balls. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.49.173.14 (talk) 19:14, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

U.S. media depiction

I've removed this section since it details reporting on the 1954 coup, not on the civil war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.120.227.59 (talk) 11:31, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree, there's too much OR and not enough coverage of both sides.

Crasshopper (talk) 09:52, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

A simple, simple question

In 1961, the U.S. government began aiding domestic repression in Latin America. In that year, under pressure from the Pentagon, the Latin American military role was changed from "hemispheric defense" to "internal security"; U.S. assistance programs were retooled to strengthen the hold of the local military forces over there own people. For 20 years, the Pentagon has lavished training and equipment on the Latin American military, both at bases in the United States and at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in the former Panama Canal Zone..........

Why the hell can't anyone on the internet spell "their" right...even when it's a verbatim quote of a correctly spelled article from a major newspaper?

WTF?

God forbid these people ever have to figure out how to spell "they're" to save their lives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eric12 (talk • contribs) 00:29, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Some information in this article has been purged.

As anyone looking into the history of this article can see, I have restructured and edited this article quite extensively. Prior to these edits, this page contained a large amount of information, but seemed to convey very little about the actual events of armed conflict and more about United States cold-war policy in Central America.

This article provided extensive details about related events that have their own articles (such as the US-backed 1954 coup). That sort of information belongs in the articles made specifically for it, not here. Additionally, the content seemed much too politicized and referenced potentially biased historiography. The objective is to present objective information about these historical events, not convey an ideological view on them.

This article has been restructured to focus more specifically on the events of the conflict. Additionally, information about foreign involvement has been limited to that which is directly relevant. More objective and reliable sources have been provided, such as links and citations to recently declassified documents and intelligence sources, as well as official statistics and statements provided by credible international organizations. Superfluous information which is not directly relevant to the purpose of the article has been deleted. Information has also been consolidated and reorganized into a more logical sequence. It still needs some additional edits, but it is faring much better than it was, especially with respect to neutrality and quality of information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Milexpert101 (talk • contribs) 02:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

How about the CIA's role in Arbenz's overthrow?

"It was mostly fought between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups mainly supported by Mayan indigenous people and poor peasants." The Mayan indigenous and poor peasants were those most victimized in the Civil War, who suffered the greatest human rights violations and made up the majority of the desaparecidos. The rebel groups were made up of people pissed off at Arbenz and the Guatemalan government for the land reforms (which aimed at greater equity, uplifting the impoverished rural Mayans.) They were armed and trained by the CIA years earlier in order to overthrow what the US wanted to believe was a communist government (actually the first legitimately and democratically elected leader in Guatemala). After the overthrow of Arbenz, these groups just sort of hung around, retaining the American arms and the desire for radical change, only now in the form of ethnic violence. They also became more porous, and absorbed paramilitants (the lines often blurred between the army and the rebels) as well as those who aimed to exert force against the indigenous population, which had been the target of racism for centuries. What ensued can safely be called ethnic cleansing. You seem to have a slightly pro-American interventionalist bent. I also noticed that you used shockingly few Guatemalan sources. After a very enlightening lecture on this very subject this past May in Guatemala City, the professor and pastor said, "The best way you can help us in Guatemala is to listen, and try to understand." 64.25.221.233 (talk) 05:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

This article's narrative...

...strikes me as slightly questionable. Who determined the names/organization for each section? How do we know that the period 1974-1976 is best characterized as "Mass movement for social reforms", while 1976-1980 is "Persecution of the mass movement"? I'm concerned that the overarching storyline presented in this article may include a degree of editorializing that may not be fully supported by reliable sources.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:15, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

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Move & Title

The article needs to be moved back as the current title violates our article naming policy which doesnt allow for titles on two distinct topics, and because "Mayans" is not the correct way to refer to Maya peoples. A better proposal for a new title should be made and discussed before further moves. The article of course needs to describe both the war and the genocide, but it may be appropriate to create a new article on the Maya genocide and move split some of the material out to that article. This is however something that would require discussion and some actual article as opposed to simply a drive-by article move.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:17, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I've restored the consensus title as the user who changed it has been making OR changes to multiple articles surrounding the subject of genocide. As you say, the change in title was WP:SYNTH, and other methods of handling genocide components (such as WP:CONSPLIT) are in order, and WP:PROSPLIT protocols followed. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 10:19, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

"Supported by" needs to be sourced

@Milexpert101: I am seeing a lot of sourcing problems in the info-box, where information should be impeccable. Soviet support was not sourced at all, and a quick search of the literature yielded nothing, so I deleted that. Cuba and Nicaragua are sourced to a declassified intelligence brief, clearly a compromised primary source. If quality secondary sources can be found, this primary source can be kept as a backup. Otherwise, they need to be removed from the box entirely. Mexico is listed as a logistics supporter of the Guatemalan army without a source, however, the same intelligence brief says that they are a suspected supporter of the rebels: either way, Mexico's role is also unsourced. Iran's role is unsourced. Guccisamsclubs (talk) 02:12, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

also, dates of the support should be provided. It is unlikely that the rebels got any support from Nicaragua in the early 1980's (if they got any real support at all). Cuban support is also unspecified in the article, aside from the rebel leaders escaping to Havana in the 60's and undergoing "training", whatever that means.Guccisamsclubs (talk) 02:19, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Times, can you please chill for a second so we can have a normal conversation.

"Meanwhile,
in early 1983, Guatemalan armed forces captured a hidden cache of twenty-four U. S.
made M-16 rifles, twelve of which were confirmed as having originally been shipped from
the United" [edit: States to South Vietnam]" (Source ... NONE)

That's the only evidence I can see regarding Guatemala, and those rusty rifles could have easily come through Nicaragua (i.e. intended for Nicaraguagua) without any Soviet orders to [edit: route them to Guatemala ] . World Affairs is no less of a biased source than William Blum on the US. They'll see everything as Soviet conspiracy, just as Blum in inclined to see most things as a CIA-StateDep conspiracy. If Blum said that some US-supplied rifles went from US client X to US ally Y and finally ended up in country Z (according to some shit he heard from Communist rebels, unsourced), and concluded from that the US had its hands dirty in country Z, would you allow that shit to in the infobox? Guccisamsclubs (talk) 00:15, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

All the weapons for communist guerrillas in Central America went through Nicaragua. If you really think Cuba and Nicaragua needed hundreds of tanks, thousands of military advisers, and ten times as much military aid from the USSR as the U.S. was providing to the rest of Latin America combined for purely defensive purposes, however, I have some prime real estate I'd like to sell you in the Pacific Ocean. In any case, you selectively edited the quote: "twelve of which were confirmed as having originally been shipped from the United States to Vietnam." Gee, I wonder how they ended up in Guatemala?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:28, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Can you give a source on the disparity in military aid? I got your logic from the start but I found it a little wanting: I don't think you'd accept a "gee whiz" argument if it was applied to supposed US covert operations, nor would you accept weak sourcing. How did the weapons get from Thailand to the non-communist rebels to the Khmer Rouge, gee? In fact, you'd only take it on officially official admission, since even Weiner's memo was not enough for you as I recall. Imagine we found such a memo from the Soviet government?

As for reasons for aid to Cuba... It could have been to get the weapons to Ethiopia or Angola or Nicaragua, not necessarily Guatemala. Could also have been the fact that Cuba was under constant threat of invasion (when not under actual invasion) from the the mightiest superpower in world history, one that was following the Monroe Doctrine.

Hope you sort of see my point—we need better sources. BTW I did not selectively edit the quote—it was just a mistake and I knew about the Vietnam angle.Guccisamsclubs (talk) 00:44, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: for possible additional comments. I don't think the sourcing for Soviet support is adequate.Guccisamsclubs (talk) 15:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

As I told you at the time, Winer retracted his claim, making it a rather odd piece of evidence to hang your hat on. To reiterate, it is impossible to support an insurgency—whether the Khmer People's National Liberation Front or the Free Syrian Army—without some of the assistance inevitably falling into the hands of other militant groups—such as the Khmer Rouge or al Qaeda. I have no doubt there was "some leakage." However, I have argued that the evidence for a conspiracy in which the U.S. intentionally supported the Khmer Rouge or al Qaeda is lacking, and that such theories are by no means universally or even widely accepted in mainstream sources, though I have little interest in re-litigating the matter. Finally, yours is not an apples-to-apples comparison: No-one has ever denied that the U.S. supported rebels in Cambodia, whereas you have claimed that nothing short of an official Soviet admission is sufficiently reliable to source Soviet involvement in Central America. All that said, I do not care much about this dispute; regardless of how it is decided, I will still strongly suspect that this article is a POV-wasteland filled with highly dubious statistics, for the reasons outlined above.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:10, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging:I am not going to argue about US policy in Cambodia here, or anywhere else in the near future. The example was an illustration, and I don't think you've read it correctly. The point is not that the US' allegedly intentional military (!) support for the Khmer Rouge is analogous to Soviet "involvement in Central America"(sic). (which you might be overselling-see earlier request for citation). The point is that it is precisely analogous to alleged direct Soviet support for the Guatemalan rebels. If anything, the highly circumstantial evidence for the former is in fact stronger and more notable. Guccisamsclubs (talk) 17:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

In fact, why not add Vietnam while we're at it? After all that's where the carton of rifles allegedly came from, and the curious balance of the info-box would have us believe that it was a major factor in the war. Guccisamsclubs (talk) 16:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

deleted the weakly sourced info from the infobox. if anyone cares to reinstate it they should find better sources. An allegation about the old rifles from the Guatemalan Army (paraphrased in World Affairs, apparently no footnote) is so trifling that it barely deserves mention in the body. It is grossly inadequate for the infobox. BTW, the Spanish article Times cites appears to be a giant pov-pushing coatrack about the Cold War (possibly controlled by a group of right-wing editors for whom the conflict cuts very close to the bone). If any cares to have the USSR and Vietnam reinstated they should find better sources and be prepared to summarize the concrete evidence in the body of the article.Guccisamsclubs (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2016 (UTC)