User talk:Get-back-world-respect/Why I do not want to become an admin and how this ended in a discussion about Bush's crimes again

Adminship

GBWR, I would like to propose you for a sysop position. Obviously we are diametrically opposed on some issues, but you are intelligent and articulate and a plus to Wikipedia. I understand you might not want to expose yourself to this process, but many editors of diverse views have bceome admins and can't so why you shouldn't, so please let me know what you think. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 17:55, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I already spend too much time here, and I do not see the benefit of being an administrator other than protecting articles form edit wars, and the only edit wars I have seen were about articles where I would hesitate to act because others might accuse me of a lack of neutrality.

Plus, as you know I stand to my convictions on many controversial cases. I see that as fully legitimate and very important in order to achieve an encyclopedia that does not underrepresent certain viewpoints, and I try not to allow my views to make me edit articles in a way that is not neutral. I however think that many people do not want administrators who openly say that the government of the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and Poland should be tried for waging a war of aggression in Iraq or that the bombings of Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were as much a war crime as those of Coventry and London. I already had the experience of people freaking about, in the German version some even called me a Nazi although people like you see me as a nasty "liberal". I openly said that I see a couple of users as a severe threat to wikipedia, and I outraged the pedophile activists here. Although I deem my initiative there as particularly important and guess it would be appreciated by the average user, the average user does not know about such conflicts. The average user will see that I edited a lot in controversial articles and think that this does not make me the ideal administrator. The singer and writer articles I started do not figure prominently in my contribution list as a "lack" of conflicts makes few editing necessary.

The risk to get too much opposition should not make me refrain from trying if I regarded it as important. But what would be the benefit of my adminship for me or wikipedia? Get-back-world-respect 19:14, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The benefit to Wikipedia, IMO, is in appointing skillful editors to positions of trust. It raises the quality of the admin pool and the Wiki to bind good people closer to the project, regardless of politics, as when Eloquence, to cite one example, supported my admin bid. If I thought that you would abuse the position itself (block users you don't like, inappropriately protect pages) I wouldn't have suggested you think about adminship. Let's say I trust your integrity if I don't agree with your politics. You are right that you shouldn't protect pages you are involved in, but you can appeal to other admins, setting out your reasoning, and they can appeal to you.

As a point, no, I don't think you are a "nasty 'liberal'" and I believe you are mistaken in your assessment of me as a "U.S. Conservative." It's much more complicated than that. If I had to label you from what little I know, I would guess you were a "Eurocentric intellectual." I don't mean that as a curse, but that your perspective is honest, but as skewed by your own background and expectations and beliefs as mine might be based on my life experience and nationality. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 20:28, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am glad that you are conservative enough to join my efforts not to allow the pedophilia related articles to become a shame to this project. What fills me with deep sorrow is that you and half of your country's population support wars of aggression and war crimes. I am proud that in Germany it would be impossible to boast with breaking the law by claiming "Our government will not allow our country's destiny to be decided over in foreign capitals." Millions of people all over the world warned you that it was premature to wage a war for weapons of mass destruction. Dozens of governments warned you of the consequences of hatred towards the US in the Muslim world. You ignored both and reaped unprecedented terror.

I speak your language, I consume your media, I have lived on your continent for a year - where I admired the Canadian way of dealing with cultural diversity, something Europeans can learn from a lot. The average European knows English, has heard of some of your media, and many many visit your country. I would appreciate if more citizens of your country showed those signs of interest and respect as well. Get-back-world-respect 21:05, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As a said, a Eurocentric intellectual. Given three wars in the 20th century, there may be a reason Germany saying they will not be dictated to by a foreign power has a special resonance in world politics. As to Canada: wonderful people, wonderful country. I've traveled to quite a few locations east to the Maritimes, the wild country west of Vancouver, even up to Cochrane and (lordy!) Moosonee. It is a place I could happily live if I have a source of income (I don't mind cold). But you need to know that Canadians have a special situation that other countries do not have. They are next to a large powerful nation from whom they have no fear of attack but who they know would be bound to defend them if they were attached. As Richard Clarke noted, the NYC police department is larger than the Canadian army. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 21:26, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What do you count to get three wars in the 20th century?

Your government and your media mislead your people and the rest of the world about weapons of mass destruction the administration "knew" to be in Iraq, as well as about Iraq having played a role in the 9/11 attacks - something known to be untrue, polls however showed the majority of the US population was made to believe it. International law was broken, prisoners abused, an unprecedented amount of terrorism caused, and then your government boasts with not caring for what other governments think? This has a resonance of disgust in the rest of the world, and I see no way to get back the respect at any time soon. This seriously harmed the reputation of the whole western world and caused militants to get support they never could have dreamed of.

I am aware of the condescending view many US citizens have towards Canada, you do not have to remind me. Get-back-world-respect 21:42, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

World War I, World War II, and the Yugoslav war of partition. No sooner did Germany reunite than in backed its former World War II allies in Croatia in breaking up a sovereign nation. This was a European-initiated war that the U.S. got suckered into (again), though Bill Clinton was a very willing sucker. If you can see an American perspective at all, look at the Yugoslav War's justifications in comparison to Iraq. What "imminent threat" was Dictator Milosevic to the U.S.? Where were Milosevic's WMD? Where was Milosevic's support for Al Queda, or his involvement in the bombing of the World Trade Center, or his support for international terrorism? Where was the UN support for that war? Russia was against it (as they were Iraq) but in that case, Russia (and its veto on the Security Council) didn't count. But France and Germany like it fine. So I guess it was OK. And the U.S. bombed the hell out of the Serbs and destroyed much of Belgrade's infrastructure and the peace-loving Europeans loved it. Yes indeed, a great victory for international order and stability. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:02, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the Iraq war, I agree with both of you. The Iraq war is unfortunate, a shame to America. Of course we will not allow any of us to be charged with war crimes, that is ridiculous. Not in Dresden, not in Vietnam, certainly not in our war on Terror. We are too powerful. But the war with Serbia was also unfortunate. Europe should have fought that war, it did not need us. But you asked, and we came. In Iraq we ask, and you do not come. Where is N.A.T.O. in Iraq? But that’s not why I am commenting here. I wanted to comment on Cecropia's idea of nomination.

I have to say; I am amazed that you would suggest GBWR for admin. I think he is only somewhat more likely to win than I was. He has taken strong stances on so many subjects, and annoyed enough people that the "Oppose" votes would simply be too big. I am not certain if I could vote for him, my concern being his grasp of English when it comes to complexities. When I have attempted to discuss with him at length, there were many subtle misunderstandings. Not so rarely, I would say one thing, and he would assume I had said the opposite. IMO this in addition to his strong stances, makes him unsuitable at this time. That said, he is clearly an involved member, and I have no doubt that this is a perfect environment to hone foreign language skills. I myself am actively attempting to learn Deutch, and am considering joining the German wiki. But I am aware of how easily I might be misunderstood there, or to misunderstand others, due to translation issues. For that reason, while I would like to vote for GBWR, I would feel more comfortable voting for him in the future.

Sam [Spade] 22:55, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why do you count the Yugoslav war but not the liberation of Kuwait?

I have to admit that I do not know nearly as much about the Yugoslav war as I know about Iraq - I was rather young when it happened, and it did not raise as much opposition in my generation as had the first involvement in Iraq. We had many refugees here, and although no one was happy with what was done, people knew from direct experience that something had to be done.

What I do know is that horrible thinks happened in Yugoslavia, and when ethnical cleansings happen, action is necessary. One reason why Germany did not act sooner was exactly the German history that made many people feel uncomfortable with intervening in a way that was dangerous to raise the exact propaganda you are spreading Jim, that Germans fought against those they had a history of fighting with. One question, does it not feel strange to you to make that accusation although the US fought on the same side?

The sovereign nation was not broken up by the NATO intervention but was in a war of separation already. Slovenia had already left Yugoslavia when the NATO intervention started. The reason why NATO entered were ethnical cleansings, something that cannot be ignored and that is a legal reason to intervene. The Russian opposition was a serious problem, and there are people who regard the war as illegal because of this. As far as I know, unlike the recent Iraq war, the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was backed by a Security Council resolution afterwards, but I agree with those who say that a court should decide about this. Question here, breaking international is a crime in US law as well, were there courts deciding about this? In Germany, there were immediately complaints at the Supreme Court when the Bundestag had decided to allow the intervention in Iraq. Furthermore, I think that the permanent membership of the WWII allies at the Security Council is anachronistic and lacks any legitimacy, particularly as the permanent members of the Security Council have five of the biggest arsenals of weapons of mass destruction in the world, and weapons inspections do not occur as they should. Hopefully, Kofi Annan will be able to reform this.

Unlike the alleged weapons of mass destruction in and the "direct threat" exposed by Iraq, the ethnical cleansings in Yugoslavia were confirmed. However, the proofs our then Secretary of "Defense", Rudolf Scharping, presented us dubious US information about "concentration camps", and this as well as the war crime of bombing civilians and the Chinese embassy are some of the reasons why Scharping who had once been candidate for chancellor later had to resign.

The massacre at Srebrenica was a horrible event NATO forces were not able to prevent. But while the whole Dutch cabinet resigned when the report confirmed the complete failure, the US administration would not even think of resigning after the events at Abu Ghraib, after it was lectured by its Supreme Court about the basic human right for a fair trial, after it had to admit it had mislead its people about weapons of mass destruction and a connection between Iraq and 9/11.

Shame on you.

Sam, war crimes are not ridiculous but crimes, and those guilty need to be punished.

NATO is not in Iraq because some members of it deem the war illegal and are unwilling to tidy up what your country messed up.

There was one case where I incorrectly accused you of racism not due to language problems but due to an error of thought. Our conflicts certainly were not influenced by a lack of my language skills but by strongly differing values and a mutual impression that the other was not able to express himself or think logically. As English is my second language I lack some vocabulary and occasionally make some grammar mistakes. I however do use dictionaries when I do not feel sure about words, and I do not remember a single case where I misunderstood anything because of language problems. My writing for sure is not perfect, but that can easily be corrected in the articles. And while my style for sure is not brilliant, it is exactly the complexities that I feel I dominate better than many others here. So often do people try here to use subtle differences in wordings in order to twist articles, so often talk pages are dominated by people who lack logical thinking or refuse to debate in an honest way. I regard it as rather helpful to have people who know different languages as every language has its own advantages. In German for example we have the possibility to express highly complicated issues by constructing long sentences with several clauses. Germans can understand such sentences because they are used to them. English natives often find them hard to follow. On the other hand, many Germans lack the skill to express complicated issues with simple sentences as most often used in English.

I stopped this discussion at my user page and moved it here as adminship is no option for me anyways and I prefer my talk page to be dominated by the learning project.

Thanks for the suggestion, Jim. Get-back-world-respect 13:24, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I want to be very clear that I did not mean any insult with the mention about language difficulties, and I strongly agree that those with divergent language backgrounds are some of the very best contributors to the project. As far as our disagreements, I agree they were based predominately on confusion. Let me point out some current confusion:

I am not personally to blame the Iraq war, or any other war. Nor are you I assume.

I think NATO requires France, Turkey and Germany to help in Iraq, and feel all three nations (particularly France) have violated the NATO treaty.

I never said the USA hasn't commited war crimes, only that we will not allow ourselves to be prosecuted. We are simply too powerful.

Sam [Spade] 16:24, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I personally blame every single member of the Bush, Blair, Miller, and Howard administrations for the Iraq war, and I think they should be held accountable for waging a war of aggression by an independent international court, just as Milosevic or the Nazi leaders. I furthermore regard it as utterly immoral to vote for such people. I can agree to differ on many issues, not on such serious crimes that harm our planet so severely.

As far as I know the NATO treaty says countries must help each other when they are attacked or threatened. As we all know, there was no threat from Iraq, and even if it was written in the NATO treaty that members have to join each others wars of aggression and other crimes, international law would make it non-binding.

You do not allow yourselfs to be prosecuted, however the Iraq war helped to make other nations see that it was a bad idea to exempt your citizens from treatment by the ICC and this practice has ended. Plus, when people feel desperate because they think there is a lack of justice and they cannot do anything about it legally, they tend to become radical. Americans die every other day in Iraq, and I hate to say that I believe more attacks are going to happen. I wholeheartedly condemn terrorism, but I think we have to take it by the roots, and what your government does is provoke more. Get-back-world-respect 01:00, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)