User talk:Geo Swan/Comparison of Iraq War to the Algerian War

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Hello. There are quite a few comparison pages in Wikipedia (mostly on technology topics) so I thought this would make a solid addition. Please help me expand it. Hendrixski 21:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This article needs more credible information and there just isn't much to compare. There is a reason many historians have not     published academic articles on this subject.  This article probably needs to be deleted.--CompScientist 00:42,  12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hello. I disagree. Alistair Horne in his preface to the 2006 re-issue of "A Savage War of Peace, Algeria 1954-1962" explicitly draws a comparison between the two conflicts. Highly recommended. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoggyks (talk • contribs) 23:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if this is a valid comparison but it sounds promising and is an effective way of teaching historical lessons. Posters should familiar themselves with other modern war histories that focus on cultural parrallels.  See especially Iriya Akira, "Power and Culture," 1981 and John Dower, "Cultures of War," 2010. --Stephenlang (talk) 00:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Disputed facts
"Iraq, on the other hand, is an autonomous country, with massive US military presence certainly, but with no American colonialization taking place or even being contemplated."

In this passage in the article there is an opinion based statement that the US government has no colonial or imperial goals in Iraq. The style of occupation by the USA is certainly different to the style of occupation by France BUT it is highly disputed how disimilar their goals were. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.178.202.45 (talk) 03:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * One could argue that Iraq has an autonomous government, with an accompanying argument regarding the boundaries of that government's power and thus the extent of the government's autonomy.


 * The country itself has not been autonomous since the early nineties when the treaties resulting after the first American-led invasion were signed. When other countries legally are empowered to check your weapons and restrict your skies... the sovereignty is gone. --35.13.82.61 (talk) 20:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's still a clear statement. None of the talk of stealing Iraqi resources has been backed up.  Even if the Iraqi oil law benefits corporation, it still benefits the people infinitely more that the previous situation with the Bathist dictatorship. There are Kurds, socialists and communists elected in the parlament, people previously persecuted by Saddam.  So it is clear that the political autonomy of Iraqis has gone up not down.


 * The other element of colonialism is completely nonexistant. There aren't any Americans or British, except former Iraqi exiles, who intend to settle permanently in Iraq taking Iraqi land.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.170.231 (talk) 23:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The assertion that "None of the talk of stealing Iraqi resources has been backed up..." Sorry, this is wildly incorrect.  Paul Bremer, the US appointed administrator for Iraqi had access to $20 billion in Iraqi oil funds -- which he squandered on US contractors -- who got paid even when they failed to accomplish the tasks they were contracted to perform.  In the final months of Bremer's regime, when he realized his term was ending, he engaged in a huge fire-sale, that left the Iraqi treasury bare when his term was up


 * Eight billion dollars was spent with absolutely no bookkeeping to back it up. The paperwork to back up the rest of the expenditures was highly questionable.


 * Bremer's first decree was that the Coalition Provisional Authority would set up an internal accounting system, with double-entry bookkeeping and monthly reconciliations. But he never took any steps to do so.


 * In theory Bremer's expenditures were supposed to be run past a committee that had some respected Iraqis sitting as members. I read the minutes of this committee, and it was a cruel charade.


 * In theory, in order to get UN approval for the occupation, Bremer was to meet with a committee appointed by the UN. I read the minutes of those meetings too.  That committee kept bugging him for the reports of the monthly internal auditing.  He just blew them off.


 * At the end of a year accounting firm KPMG was called in to do an external audit. Their report was late, because (1) there had been no real accounting prior to their arrival; (2) Bremer and his senior deputies blew them off -- wouldn't meet with them.


 * They found the CPA handled Iraq's funds as if it was a huge $20 billion petty cash fund.


 * One of the key points that committee appointed by the UN kept making -- the committee he was supposed to defer to -- was when were the meters going to be repaired on the oil pipelines? Bremer stalled.  He kept promising that the meters were being repaired.  So, during Bremer's administration, US oil companies had repaired the pipelines, were using them to ship billions of dollars of Iraqi oil -- with no accounting.


 * So the claim that the stripping of Iraq's resource, when under US occupation, can't be documented -- its nonsense.


 * After he returned to the USA Bremer went on the college lecture circuit. I read one college newspaper that quoted Bremer's response to a question from the audience about the missing $8 billion dollars.  His response?  That $8 billion dollars was Iraqi money, not US money, so I suggest you forget about it.  No, I am not making this up.   Geo Swan (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Original research
This article appears to be essentially original research by the author of the article, rather than reporting comparisons made by reliable sources. Note that a similar article for the Vietnam war was deleted back in 2008: Articles for deletion/Comparison of Iraq and Vietnam wars. If better references cannot be found for this article, it will have to be nominated for deletion as well. Robofish (talk) 14:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

calling for discussion
This article was deleted on August 2nd 2012. I requested userification.

The primary justification in the Afd was that the article contained original research. Normally original research is not considered a good reason to delete an article, when the original research portion of the article can simply be excised, leaving a properly referenced smaller article.

I think that was the case with this article -- that if the unreferenced portions had been deleted the remainder would have been a perfectly acceptable article.

FWIW, the closing administrator wrote: "I strongly advise against putting this in main space until it can be better fleshed out."

I'd appreciate the opinions of others as to whether the article, now that the unreferenced portions have been excised, can be restored to article space, or whether it requires further changes first. Geo Swan (talk) 17:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reaching out to me. Too bad you missed the deletion round: Another vote would had tied the comments at least.


 * The closing administrator's comments (and whole stance/action, really; first time I've seen the process up close) puzzled me as they seem to have puzzled you. As far as I could see, "histiography" was a typo of "historiography", a "big word" that had earlier been put in the mix "against" me by Buckshot06 and never explained despite my hint that it seemed a little hi'fallutin'. The closing admin's page says something like "You can write here in [a foreign language]" FW that's worth: Not to be English-lang.-centric/xenophobic but it all struck me as a little perfunctory after all I, for one, had put in. The admin was not involved in the deletion discussion, as may be the protocol.


 * I'd recommend my notes in the deletion discussion to you next. If there's more you think I can do, then, please be in touch (or I'll check back here).


 * Another few notes: (a) I was distressed in the early part of the deletion round to have the fact that the comparison article Vietnam v. Iraq had already been deleted and that was sort of being cited as a reason to delete Algeria v. Iraq. (b) I worked partic. hard on User:Nick-D, including a side-venture to his talk page but at least in that round to no avail. (c) I am glad to see that this "userfication" file includes all the history of the original article. For myself, I didn't want to lose completely from history the work of Hendrixski and other early contributors even though it now (four+ years later) is being deemed unacceptable. You'll prob. have seen Hendrixski has been dormant as an editor since '08.


 * To conclude, I absolutely believe a trimmed-down page like (it looked like, in a brief scan) you'd done here should have a place in Wiki. Glad to see your comment that OR is not a reason for deletion. Noone made that argument last week. Count me in for Reinstate or whatever the vote-categ. would be. Don't know where you'll get the support but wish you luck.


 * Thanks again. Cheers. Swliv (talk) 18:48, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Geoswan (I watchlisted this, as I believe it has a fighting chance of coming back from the dead, so to speak). The reason I suggested you flesh this out a bit more is three-fold: first, by doing so you are avoiding the G4 speedy deletion criteria; second, it will reduce the chance that the article will be brought to AFD again; and third, it will strengthen the article immmensely.
 * It's starting to get there, but a bit more in-depth discussion, sourced, would be useful. For example, you write that several scholars compared torture used in the two wars. A really good idea would be to give examples, like "British military historian John Doe writes that French and American troops both used innovative new torture techniques to interrogate detainees, hoping that they would not have been conditioned to resist properly"
 * BTW, Swliv: an uninvolved editor closing the discussion is the protocol, except if the article was speedily deleted outside of the AFD process. As for "feel free to contact me in [foreign language]", that's because I'm active on that Wiki as well but am usually here (some people don't speak English, after all) — Crisco 1492 (talk)13:42, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Previous three unsigned paragraphs from the administrator who closed out (deleted) the previous article of the same name, for general reference.


 * To admin: I'd suspected, as indicated, it was protocol. I did feel some bad about the language comment. Hope from context it was clear I wasn't being a total buffoon. I still feel -- while I appreciate your encouragement of Geo Swan above -- that we'd be better off if you hadn't deleted the previous article. All that we're talking about here -- except, and this isn't insignificant, for Geo Swan him/rself; tho' s/he or someone'd have come along at some point -- we had before. Anyway, glad you're keeping an eye on it. All best. Swliv (talk) 02:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing out the signature error (I had too many tildes). Regarding the deletion, I believe that the discussion in question warranted it (although I am happy that Geoswan has been able to improve it a bit) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:59, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree to disagree on deletion? OK with me. Cheers. Swliv (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:17, 12 August 2012 (UTC)