User:WeldNeck/Hanley Repy

A response to characterization of by edits by the AP's Charles Hanley.

My Hanley has an extreme WP:COI in his efforts to remove any work from Robert Bateman who documented many serious issues with the AP's original reports. Mr Hanley has gone so far as to write to Bateman's publishes and threaten them over the publication of Bateman's book on the subject.


 * WeldNeck, it is difficult to disentangle what you understand from what you don’t understand about the No Gun Ri Massacre, but surely you must know that this Bateman business is a ridiculous red herring. His wild, baseless attacks on the AP occurred over 13 years ago and were debunked then, and since then two government investigations, a South Korean inquest-style commission, tons of journalists and some genuine scholars have studied and reported on No Gun Ri. That, not AP reporting of 1999, is the basis for the WP article, an article that you have been furiously busy debasing with untruths drawn from nothing but your own wishful thinking.


 * You long ago exhausted this contributor’s patience with your refusal to engage rationally when presented with the facts. I won’t engage you any longer in a point-by-point discussion (your dissembling list below), since you ignore the most obvious evidence that you’re wrong. But we’ll try just one more thing: Will you remove the sugarcoating qualifiers that you have arbitrarily added to mentions of the “shoot civilians” orders, orders that bear no such conditions? Will you understand that you don’t even know what orders are being referred to? In the article’s intro, it’s “No refugees to cross the line. Fire everyone trying to cross the line”; and "consider civilians as enemy" and “take action accordingly”; followed by “civilians moving around in the combat zone will be considered enemy and shot.” Short and simple, no “ifs," "buts," or “whens,” as in your invention, “when they were suspected to be North Korean forces.”


 * How about it? Charles J. Hanley 20:04, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Far from wild and baseless, Bateman's dissection of your work was found to be completing my many notable individuals. I understand why you see them as a red herring, your professional reputation and credibility is at stake. But this is exactly why you have a WP:COI when it comes to this.


 * You are not presenting me with facts, you are presenting me with your opinions on the subject and they have as of yet to sway me.


 * The orders you speak of: there is context you are not including. This is intentional on your part, it plays into the sensationalism of your work, no if and or buts about it. WeldNeck (talk) 20:26, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Late last year, Hanley wrote a nine-page letter to Stackpole Books, the Pennsylvania publisher bringing out Bateman's book this month, saying it would be a "grave mistake" to publish Bateman's "diatribes and defamations." A copy of the letter, filled with personal attacks against the author, was made available to The Chronicle. The letter is the kind of dark threat that gives free speech experts the chills -- "an effort at prior restraint," said Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists -- not to mention the fact that in this case, there is a certain reversal of roles. "It's ironic for a journalist, someone whose livelihood is protected by the First Amendment, to be seemingly threatening to curtail the speech of a military person," said James Naughton, president of the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Fla. "The way matters like this tend to get resolved over time is for people to be able to make their own judgments about which version of events holds up on examination. More access to publishable versions, rather than less, seems to be desirable." At Harvard, Bob Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, said that books about events that happened 50 years ago draw "on the memories of many people who may or may not have been participants. So it's a subject of continued historical and scholarly investigation. Think of all the versions we have of events leading up to Pearl Harbor." "It seems to me to be out of bounds for one author to try to short-circuit the publication of another author's book," said Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. "It's extraordinary and alarming."

As for Hanley's specific objections, I will address them one at a time:


 * Falsified the descriptions of U.S. Army orders on shooting refugees by adding nonexistent “sugarcoating,” qualifiers such as “when they were suspected to be North Korean forces,” and “if warranted,” conditionals that are not in the orders.

The context is provided in the documents. Read them in their entirety if you do not believe me.


 *  Warned repeatedly that the official U.S. Army history (see pp. 121-181) doesn’t identify “infiltrators” as anything other than uniformed enemy soldiers penetrating gaps in U.S. lines, he nonetheless deceptively loaded up the article’s Background with irrelevant "infiltration" episodes, as though they involved refugee infiltrators and justified the No Gun Ri refugee killings.

Ehhh, wrong.

From Appleman, the official US Army historian of the Korean conflict.

"The large numbers of Korean refugees crowding the Yongdong area undoubtedly helped the enemy infiltrate the 1st Cavalry Division positions. On 24 July, for example, a man dressed in white carrying a heavy pack, and accompanied by a woman appearing to be pregnant, came under suspicion. The couple was searched and the woman's assumed pregnancy proved to be a small radio hidden under her clothes. She used this radio for reporting American positions. Eighth Army tried to control the refugee movement through the Korean police, permitting it only during daylight hours and along predetermined routes."

"In the meantime, and pursuant to General Walker's order on the 11th, Colonel Murch's 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, had been engaged in helping to clear the enemy from the area south of Yongsan. On the 11th Murch's battalion departed from its assembly area near Masan and rolled north toward the Naktong River. A steady stream of Korean refugees clogged the road. As the battalion pushed its way through this traffic a refugee cart overturned, exposing about fifteen rifles and several bags of ammunition. Approximately twelve North Korean soldiers disguised as refugees accompanying it fled across an open field."


 * Removed attribution from an American expert and falsely ascribed it to South Koreans, a move apparently calculated to weaken this important element.

Which has since been fixed. With all fairness though, Hanley's description makes it seem like the American expert as well as the Korean analyst were both questioning if a particular set of documents had been tampered with. The US analysts is explicit in his confirmation that they were not.


 *  Removed leading Korean War scholar Bruce Cumings from the Further Reading list (a book precisely on these early months of the war) because, WeldNeck said openly, he doesn’t like his political views, calling him a “NORK-phile” (North Korea lover). Cumings was restored [11]. WeldNeck reverted, deleting him again [12], this time openly calling him a “DPRK fanboy.”

Cummings is a DPKR fanboy, its not just my opinion. Cummings own wiki biography documents this extensively. At any rate, Cumings book is still in the reading list and I have no plans on removing him.


 * Removed a key source on the extent of No Gun Ri casualties, a North Korean journalist’s 1950 report that proved a half-century later to be essentially correct. WeldNeck commented, “Are we really quoting a North Korean journalist?” And then, “Nork sources should not be used.”

Although I still dont believe a Nork journalist should be used, it has been restored to the article some time ago and remains.


 * Deleted, without explanation, a well-sourced sentence noting that the killing of the No Gun Ri refugees by the 1st Cavalry Division began on the day the division’s commanding general said (baselessly) he believed half the refugees in South Korea were enemy infiltrators. That sentence was restored [15]. And he again reverted, removing it without explanation [16].

I dont know what Hanley's complaint is ... its still in the article.


 * [17] Removed a well-sourced quote from U.S. soldier eyewitness, clearly because he didn’t like its graphic, convincing nature.

Dont know why Hanley is complaining, the quote from Hacha is still in the article.


 * [18] Twice removed the word “massacre,” obviously to sugarcoat the facts, even though it’s in the article’s title.

Massacre is POV. Manual of Style/Words to watch


 * A sentence noting the Army did not investigate No Gun Ri in 1950 when informed of the massacre;

The Army didnt investigate a lot of things, it seems superfluous.


 * The fact the Army finally affirmed the 1999 media report on No Gun Ri after years of rejecting the allegations

To say the Army "affirmed" the media report is a gross mischaracterization of the actual conclusion of the IG's report.


 * A quote from a U.S. soldier of 1950 saying they had been told to “kill everybody from 6 to 60”;

No RS for this statement.


 * Perhaps most significantly, in two places, the fact that the Army had to acknowledge in 2007 its investigative report of 2001 deliberately suppressed the most highly incriminating document turned up by its researchers.

Where precisely did that IG's report did the Army "acknowledge" that it "deliberately suppressed the most highly incriminating document". I'd love to see that.


 * [21] After WeldNeck inserted spurious material attacking the integrity of Associated Press reporters who first confirmed No Gun Ri, sentences were inserted noting and linking to an AP article refuting the old, baseless allegations, and to a New York Times article quoting Pentagon officials saying the AP article’s central element was confirmed. See Talk. WeldNeck then reverted all [22], removing any challenge to the baseless allegations he favored.

All sourced to multiple WP:RS ... this is the point where Hanley's WP:COI is really getting out of hand.


 * [25] Removed an important, well-sourced quote from an ex-soldier about the motivation for the killings. The quote was restored [26]. He then deleted it again [27], claiming, falsely, it was a misquote.

This one is actually pretty interesting. According to several WP:RS, Herman Patterson was quoted in an AP article describing No Gun Ri as “wholesale slaughter” but he later testified to the US Army that he was actually referring an engagement at the Naktong River and not No Gun Ri. The AP was criticized for distorting Patterson's interviews to support events that his accounts did not.


 * [28] Major errors introduced by WeldNeck in the “Aerial imagery” section were corrected. He then reverted those fixes, restoring the errors [29]. Again, corrections were made [30] and explained in Talk. And again, he reverted to his error-filled, illogically ordered material [31].

These arent really "error" in so much as Hanley just doesn't like them.

WeldNeck (talk) 17:18, 31 October 2013 (UTC)