Talk:International sanctions against Iraq

/Archive 1

Culpability polemics throughout the article

The recent edits to the lede inserted more "culpability" material. It made me realize how permeated the article is with it. Persistently, if the article points out where the sanctions did harm, a comment is inserted that says how bad Saddam was and that he is to blame. Thinking about it, I don't think it is appropriate at all. I think it's playing to a vilification of Saddam Hussein to excuse anything negative that happened, but this article is supposed to inform about the sanctions. There's an whole Saddam Hussein article to inform Wikipedia readers what sort of person he was. Beyond the scattered, repeated instances of blaming we even have an an entire extensive "culpability" section. I don't think this stuff is germane to the article, and perhaps it is time to clean the house of it. Any comments? DanielM (talk) 02:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The regional disparity is a such a big part of the story that it belongs in the lead. (But I've removed anything "blame" from the lead for now.) And since it is such a big part of the story, researchers are bound to try to draw some conclusions from it. (Readers may read on from the lead to see what conclusions different researchers have drawn.) This belongs on the page too. BTW Daniel, weren't you the one who renamed that section "culpability"? I think I'd earlier named it something like "regional effects". That being said, I don't know what could be more germane than culpability for such a tragedy. DougHill (talk) 03:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the blame game with which the article is riddled is based more on political polemic than scholarship. The Spagat article recently linked as a reference is a case in point. It's way more polemic than scholarship. It makes heavy use of speculation and surmise and repeatedly makes psychological plays to readers' suspicions. If I entitled the section "Culpability," it's because that's what it was. It didn't become that because I gave it the title. As I said above I am concerned about the effect of these persistent tones and undertones and believe they are undermining the accuracy and usefulness of this article in informing Wikipedia readers about the sanctions. I hope that others comment in this discussion. Maybe it is time for an Rfc WP:rfc. DanielM (talk) 11:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• So then we agree that "culpability" is a legitimate concern of the page?
• The article has long has a polemic against the sanctions, when in fact the sanctions did not exist apart from the regime's response to them. This was only started to be clarified in the article.
• Michael Spagat is a scholar with impressive academic credentials who published an important article. The page must change in response to it, just as it must change again when criticism to his article is published.
• The regional disparity is a big brute fact. It it the "who" and "where" that belongs in the lead. I'm OK with keeping the interpretations of this fact later in the article. DougHill (talk) 16:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

To answer briefly, we know who is culpable for the sanctions: the U.N. Security Council. The culpability for harm wrought by the sanctions is a secondary issue that should be covered secondarily and to the extent non-fringe viewpoints are found. To say that the sanctions did harm to Iraqis, what you above appear to characterize as "polemic against the sanctions," is not polemic but consensus. Finally and briefly, the article has structural problems and needs overhaul, and we could use the input of more editors as to how to go about this. DanielM (talk) 12:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

• Even that culpability is not so clear cut: we must consider the U.N. Security Council's alternatives before blaming them.
• The culpability I was discussing that for that harm that occurred during the sanctions, as discussed in the article's "Culpability" section.
• Cortright, Rubin, and Spagat (in The Nation, The New Republic, and Significance (journal) respectively) are hardly fringe viewpoints. They are WP:RS that need to be considered in the article. So there is no consensus (that the sanctions, and not the government response to them, were to blame).
• I am in complete agreement in desiring the input of more editors. DougHill (talk) 21:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Culpability is a legal and moral concept, not a factual concept. Under certain types of laws and schemes of morality, everyone is culpable and under others, no-one is culpable. In an encyclopedia, the focus should be on facts. It may usefully be stated once that Saddam was the dictator of Iraq and therefore a major factor in the imposition of sanctions, but it does not otherwise help understanding the impact of sanctions to keep repeating that it was his "fault". Take the case of a child dead of cholera because of restrictions on the import of chlorine. The immediate cause of death was probably dehydration; the cause of that diarrhea; the cause of that, a micro-organism in the drinking water; the cause of that ... ultimately the regression encounters a person who knowingly made the last clear choice, and that person is classically considered more responsible than any other. In the case of the water-purification chemical sanctions (assuming the truckers and desk clerks were "merely following orders") the last clear choice was (on the evidence) with the American officials who interpreted the UN Resolution to bar dual-use materials. They may have felt impelled to do so because Saddam was such a very bad man that "it was worth it" to risk hundreds of thousands of lives, but that is an affirmative defense to the legal or moral culpability; it does not abjure it. Far better for this article to pass over such philosophical issues in favor of plain facts, clearly stated; let readers make their own moral judgments. rewinn (talk) 04:30, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Casualty Estimates In Lede

There is a unit of measure problem in the casualty estimates in the lede. Ranges should use the same unit of measure to make sense: either civilians or children. A range from X civilians to Y children is confusing. Since children are necessarily civilians, the latter is the better UOM even though it may somewhat understate the maximum estimate. When more inclusive figures (adults and children) are available from reliable sources, they may be put in. Please keep in mind this is a highly sensitive subject and let us discuss calmly in good faith. There is no intent to minimize or to exagerrate, only to have the best possible article. rewinn (talk) 05:47, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

No POV-Pushing In The Lede, Please

The inclusion of one POV in the lede to explaining away hundreds of thousands of deaths is POV-pushing and not permitted, unless contrasting explanations are also including ... which swiftly converts the lede into the main article. So don't do it. Especially don't do it with a source that is not an expert on the subject, but merely an economist. You might as well cite an auto mechanic. rewinn (talk) 05:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

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Culpability

"under these frameworks, including rights-utilitarianism, moral Kantianism, and consequentialism"

Should that read, "according to utilitarian, Kantian, and consequentialist ethics"? External link isn't working.

Notreallydavid (talk) 03:09, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

After the sanctions ended what happened to the $11,000,000,000 that Kuwait was owed by Iraq? Did we keep it or the Iraqis? 75.68.248.198 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:32, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

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please do not simply disappear relevant text without detailed explanation (in particular, of discussion of chlorination Iraqi water supply during sanctions)

TheTimesAreChanging simply disappeared text discussing Iraqi water treatment vulnerabilities because it did not suit the argument he wished to advance. Additions and edits are not exercises in polemics; this aims to be an encyclopedia, so do not do not simply disappear relevant text without detailed explanation.

Simply passingly calling disappeared passages (without even having the courtesy of identifying them) "unreliable" is lazy scurrilousness, in this case with obviously tendentious aims: to replace what had been presented with a view that suited TheTimesAreChanging.

This is the source cited as unreliable--a statement from David Sole, President of the Sanitary Chemists & Technicians Association-UAW Local. 2334 at the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20081203113830/http://www.iacenter.org/iraqchallenge/water.htm.

We can await with suspense what TheTimesAreChanging (or someone else, if not a sockpuppet) will come up with to discredit this source.

Further, the opposing view (along with further deletion of the fact that the need for chorline, whose importation had been banned by the relevant sanctions) ignored the relevant point. The basic point did not concern money. It concerned materials needed for the sterilization of the water supply. Importation of those materials was banned by sanctions. If you do not have any understanding of the fundamental issues pertaining to an article, please do try to be clever, disappearing text and substantive issues, substituting tendentious sources, etc.

Although the blockquote (and article by) Rubin nowhere addresses the relevant point, the source he cites will nonetheless be retained after undoing disappeared text. TheTimesAreChanging's attempt to editorialize that Rubin's article "eviscerates" a point that it does not even address just makes him look silly. Mention of the Intifada is moreover totally unrelated, and makes drive-by removal of relevant text and its replacement with irrelevant bashing of Saddam Hussein look still more idiotic and transparently motivated.

To anyone who sees this bullet item, please watch this article to ensure that these relevant materials are retained for comprehensiveness and accuracy Alfred Nemours (talk) 05:55, 14 July 2017 (UTC)