Talk:Civilians killed in U.S. raid near Balad

NPOV

This title is deliberately and maliciously misleading, to the point of vandalism.

I will assess the rest of the article now. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 21:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

CBS title; "Iraq: U.S. Raid Kills Women, Children". Is that also "deliberately and maliciously misleading"? Please look at sources and read the article before tagging. The US military admits killing women and children + AP has photos and eyewitnesses. Please apologise after you actually read the sources. Neutralizer 22:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Less so. The US did not plan to kill children and women, which your title purports. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 22:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Any more objections Amgine? International 22:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, just a minute... - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 22:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

No, this title dont make sense. I suggest: Journalists and Iraqi police report 11 civilians dead in U.S. raid International 23:00, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added the content which supports the title. The USA is reporting 4 dead. AP has pictures of 11 dead, and a police report of that. Washington Post has a police report of 13 dead. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 23:13, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that the original title was misleading. It simply stated the central aspect of the story. Also, it is simply not true that it implied that the US intentionally killed the women and children, it merely stated as a fact that they were killed. The current title however is "maliciously misleading, to the point of vandalism" as it degrades the victims to the object of a statistical dispute. Truely disgusting! Moreover, the rewrite aims to give prefenrece of the information given by an involved party (the US military) over that given by an independent journalist from a major news agency -- a clear case of POV-pushing. --vonbergm 23:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I support change of current title International 23:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC) And agree that article is pov in favour of U.S. military. International 23:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Done, any objections? International 23:47, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

A lot better. I added a "suspected" and moved the US-army info back into the first paragraph as it relates to information given there. I still don't like the title. The centerpiece of the story is that civilians were killed. How about "Several civilians killed in US military operation". It's a little vague, but the range of the estimate of the number of civilians killed is so large right now that this is probably the most sensible. As the story develops one could make the title more accurate as more coherent information comes in. "Civilians" is better than "people" as it hits at the center of the story and avoids NPOV issues of the emotionally charged "women and children". It seems to that according to US reporting "civilians" is that same as "women and children" as everyone else is labeled a (suspected) terrorist/insurgent/etc.. --vonbergm 00:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The title is still not NPOV. IF you are going to mention the journalists POV the Iraqi POV then you haver to add the US POV. Thats only fair AND NPOV. Jason Safoutin 00:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Why do you claim that the journalists and Iraqi (police ?) reports express their pov and not reported facts? International 00:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Dont know if "Several civilians killed in US military operation" is better without write about the 'military operation'. What about "Journalists and Iraqi police report several civilians killed in U.S. raid" untill full confirmations? International 00:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Why would you suggest that the journalists and Iraqi police's POV/fact are anymore less or more important than the U.S. POV/fact? Jason Safoutin 00:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Because the local officials and the journalists can be considered independent sources, whereas the U.S. military and local insurgents are actively involved in this conflict and have a strong interest in only releasing information favourable to them. --vonbergm 00:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

How about "Several civilians killed in U.S. raid". Shorter, and all sources including the US agree on this, the only diagreement is in the exact quantification of "several". --vonbergm 00:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Its best if titles are a bit more distinctive, as we can never resuse titles, so you should consider using the town's name. Nyarlathotep 00:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

vonbergm: And where do you get that so called fact from?:

• Because the local officials and the journalists can be considered independent sources, whereas the U.S. military and local insurgents are actively involved in this conflict and have a strong interest in only releasing information favourable to them.

Isn't that your POV, thus eliminating the NPOV? Jason Safoutin 00:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Nylarlathotep, good suggestion. How about "Several civilians killed in U.S. raid near Balad"? --vonbergm 00:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I support that title International 00:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I can agree to that. Jason Safoutin 00:38, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

"foreign fighter facilitator"

For accuracy, 2 of the 3 sources say the attack was targeting someone the US military gave this new catch-all label; so I'll change the label of the target from "insurgent" to this one the US military used the most in these articles. Neutralizer 01:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, I missed that. --vonbergm 01:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

insurgent attacks

Please start a new story for other news events. Thanks Neutralizer 04:27, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion to edit article to more clearly show actions insurgents are taking in relation to current US operations. Please see sources for more details.

• Reuters. "US launches air offensive in Iraq" — Al Jazeera, Thursday 16 March 2006, 22:59 Makka Time, 19:59 GMT
• Qassim Abdul-Zahra, AP. "US launches major assault in Iraq" — The Independent, Thursday 16 March 2006

Nova, I agree with Neutralizer that your edit should be an own article. This is about a specific insident. Your claim that I vandalize is very inappropriate. International 11:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Interational and Neutralizer, I have provided two newsources (Al Jazeera and The Independent) that report the insurgent activity as being part of the same conflict re the current US activity. I think that this alone supports the position that they are part of the same story. My concern is that the tone of the article implies that either US forces are attacking insurgents without provocation or that insurgent forces are powerless to responsond to an unprovoked attack. Can you help me understand why reporting of insurgent activity in the same conflict doesn't belong here?--Nowa 13:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

As I see it there is two diferent newsevent. And that article imply "US forces are attacking insurgents without provocation" is not my interpretation. Story is about killed civilians.(cynism mode on) U.S. can attack insurgents anytime, its war. US army and insurgent may kill each other anytime as much they like, wich is what war is about and what is reported on routine. (cynism mode off). And I see a little implication in your edit to justify the U.S. killing of civilians by the reason insurgents do the same. That is povediting in my view. International 13:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

International, who is "rutin"?--Nowa 13:38, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

A cynical friend of mine. International 13:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

International, What I think I hear you saying is that this is an article about civilians that are killed only by US forces in this particular raid. Is that correct?--Nowa 13:41, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Im not sure I understand what you think Nowa, but I guess we have material for a new interesting article here, or two.International 13:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. What title would you propose?--Nowa 13:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Glad its sorted out; Nowaplease start an article covering the insurgents killing civilians but this article is about americans killing civilians; for example, when 9/11 attacks were being reported, noone was included in the story references to US bombs being dropped on Iraq around the same time(if you remember the US was patroling portions of the skies over Iraq then). The other difference is we have admissions from the US they killed these civilians; when these "insurgents" are blamed for bombings there is rarely any proof of who acutally did it (might have been just some Iraqi soldier gone loco or one angry citizen whose family we killed) so we need to word the "insurgent" articles with less certainty,usually, in order to not be specualtive, it seems to me. Neutralizer 14:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)