Talk:Covert United States foreign regime change actions/Archive 4

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Archive 4

Inclusion criteria

Some people seem to have issues with basic English language so I will try to make it as clear as possible. Article is titled "Covert United States foreign regime change actions" So what would something require for inclusion? Really simple:
1. regime change action
2. by United States
3. that is covert operation
Farewell Dossier? No regime change action, just ordinary Cold war espionage and counter-espionage. Iraq 2002-2003? Iraq War was about as overt invasion as it can get, every war includes covert operations, should we add covert operations and espionage against Axis powers here? Somalia 2006? Internationally UN recognized government was called Transitional Federal Government while Islamic Courts Union was rebel group. Supporting legal recognized government against rebels is exactly opposite to "regime change action".--Staberinde (talk) 17:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Also it should be noted that there is no "alleged" in title. So every crap that PressTV spits out does not qualify, only clear cut cases with reliable sourcing.--Staberinde (talk) 17:29, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Editors should not use this article as a WP:COATRACK for all kinds of other cherrypicked criticisms which aren't regime change, or aren't covert, or aren't by the united states. bobrayner (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Its proven fact that the US sponsored syrian rebels making the ground work for groups like Isis. John McCain even was photographed with them as he thought they would be normal opposition at the time

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/09/18/alleged-isis-photo-controversy-engulfs-sen-john-mccain/ same story in ukraine again US money both state and private money from US sources like from Georg Soros sponsored the euromaidan and ukrainian oposition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422503916&v=2y0y-JUsPTU&x-yt-cl=85027636#t=447 and this is all branded as some conspiracy theory by western media, if you are 22% of the world economy its very likely that you have lot of fingerprint in major events.--Crossswords (talk) 12:06, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

This incoherent rant doesn't really address specific points of dispute. We aren't suggesting deletion of article here, just disputing specific additions.--Staberinde (talk) 15:49, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I've been watching this mess for a few weeks now, and thought I should weigh in. I tend to be an inclusionist with respect to such a list, but I have to say that the deletions here seem more or less legitimate. The only one that I am still unsure about is the Iraq war; yes, all war involves covert operations, but most wars tend not to involve destabilization of the regime in question before war is actually declared, and the deleted text deals with that period. IMO te Iraq war section fits our current criteria. Vanamonde93 (talk) 01:33, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, wars aren't really "declared" nowadays anyway, things just get called wars then shooting gets so intensive that various euphemisms don't cut it anymore. Actions against Ansar al-Islam obviously don't count as that was just another rebel group, not ruling government/regime. The rest of the covert actions in Iraq seem to be just supporting main Iraq campaign, like identifying targets for initial air attack. I don't really see how they can be considered regime change action separately from open invasion phase.--Staberinde (talk) 15:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Edit war by Taospark

Over the past few days Taospark has been reverting multiple editors. In their last edit summary they said: No consensus was reached and the edits were not justified in Talk. Work on the individual sections instead of starting an edit war.. Their previous edit summaries claimed that the multiple editors who were undoing their changes were "proxying" for each other.

This is problematic for several reasons. First, while technically there has been no 3RR violation, Taospark is clearly edit warring against multiple editors. It takes some chutzpah to accuse others of "starting an edit war" in that situation. Second, I don't see a single comment by Taospark on the talk page. So not only are they edit warring but they have not participated, initiated, or contributed to any discussion. On the other hand, the editors whom Taospark is reverting have discussed the issue on talk. It is false (and again, takes some chutzpah) to claim "consensus" for one's reverts in such a situation.

In this case, per BRD the burden of consensus is on the user trying to restore the contentious material. Please do not restore until you convince others that it belongs in the article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

___

1. I reverted your original edit war with other users going back several months, which was unjustified.

2. Why am I seeing a talk by one user, a revert by a second user, and a message on my talk by a third user?

3. I've yet to see any proof this is a consensus and not a proxy edit war.

4. The reasons for reversion were clearly laid out for each section in my edit notes, which none of you three has addressed.

5. The Soviet Russia section has valid multiple sources.

6. The Iraq 2002-2003 section has multiple references and refers to action recognized by the US government as a covert action to the extent that they awarded Intelligence Stars.

7. The Somalia section refers specifically to CIA backing of one faction to oust the de facto regime there and is also sourced.

8. The Ukraine section has been left deleted until any other user can proffer information.

Please do not engage in a revert war as I've supplied ample cause each and every single time, while none of the three user accounts have done so. -Taospark (talk) 06:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

When lots of different people disagree with you, there are two possible courses of action:

A. Stop, because you don't have consensus.

B. Hammer the revert button anyway, complain that everyone else is edit-warring.

Option A is a wise and policy-compliant choice. I see you chose option B. That is not good. bobrayner (talk) 06:52, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Look, it's not up to all the users that you're edit warring against to "prove" that they're not "proxying". That's basically a weak excuse for reverting against consensus.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I love how guy who's last 50 edits include stuff from 2008 makes references to proxying and regards disagreeing users who all have far more solid recent edit history as "three user accounts". I would note that talkpage reasoning was provided by myself already on 21st January [1], and I have referred to it repeatedly in my edit summaries since then, just Taospark has been blatantly ignoring that. Those same points are still valid as no proper rebuttal has been delivered so far.--Staberinde (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

You've all been engaging in an edit war for months before this hammering in your own biases acting in concert, that is not consensus or dealing maturely with the material to any degree. Far more importantly, the content you've targeted is specifically relevant to the article and has multiple reliable sources; hammering the revert button and ignoring that is your choice. - Taospark (talk) 02:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Taospark, you've been reverting multiple editors on a regular basis essentially without discussion. You didn't say anything on talk until I started this section, then repeatedly asked you in edit summaries to respond. YOU are the one who's edit warring. Consensus appears to be against you. Dismissing consensus as "proxy editing" or other such excuses won't work. The problem with the content is that it's off topic. While there are sources there, the info is about American foreign policy in general, not "covert regime changes". Other editors can see this. You can't. The problem is with your perception, not theirs.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

None of which justifies your edits or edit wars against multiple users. I've already made a proper case for why the content relates directly to the article and qualifies, you've made no proper discussion or justification in all that time. - Taospark (talk) 02:21, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's be crystal clear here. I have NOT "edit wars (sic) against multiple users". User:Staberind has NOT "edit wars (sic) against multiple users". User:bobrayner has NOT "edit wars against multiple users". Users AmritasayaPutra, Vanamonde93, TheTimesAreChanging and perhaps some others have NOT "edit wars against multiple users". They all disagreed with YOU. YOU are the only person here who is engaged in a drawn out edit war against multiple users. YOU are the only person here who is trying to bully through your preferred version against consensus. YOU are the only person here who has not used the talk page until pretty much forced to do so.

And yes, my explanation above is a perfectly fine explanation for removal of the material. It doesn't fit the scope of the article. It violates WP:UNDUE, WP:COATRACK and WP:SYNTHESIS.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Taospark, for goodness sake leave off arguing over who is edit-warring, and respond to the content issues raised in the section above. Marek, I wouldn't mind a response there, either. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

That's what I've been sticking to above and in my edit summaries, as I believe the deletions fit the content properly. I'm also not sure why Marek is accusing me of an edit war with you as you seem to have talked him down from his much larger deletion spree before I even touched this article but I've requested mediation here. - Taospark (talk) 05:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• I never edited this page before, but quickly looked right now. One of the obvious problems: some of the "operations" were very much open, not covert operations. Yes, there are certain "sources" about secret war against Soviet Russia, such as that one, but they do not belong here. Fixed. In other words, describing Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War as a covert operation for "regime change" by US is a crude mischaracterization. Yes, that was an "allied intervention", but not a covert operation. My very best wishes (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• "Consensus appears to be against you." You're using the assumption that Taospark is proxying to assert a contrary consensus. I'm not Taospark. And I agree with him. You guys aren't even talking about the content that is being removed, just about who is sockpuppeting whom. Why should Taospark's material be removed? 172.248.34.88 (talk) 03:00, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Removing a whole bunch of OR, off topic, and other crap.

The name of the article is "Covert United States foreign regime change actions". Instead the article just goes on and on describing ... the fact that US has a foreign policy. There was a whole bunch of original research, bad sourcing (dead links or sources which do not support the text) and off topic text (which has nothing to do with either regime change and/or nothing to do with any "covert" action). I removed this.

The fact that there may be sources is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for inclusion. Another obvious necessary condition is that the text actually be about what the article title says it is about. This wasn't the case with a good chunk of this article. Volunteer Marek  05:24, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Many nations "have a foreign policy" without attempting to overthrow the governments of other nations. That sort of "foreign policy" is more consistent with being a Rogue State. If another nation were attempting to impose a "regime change" on the U.S., we would consider it an act of war, and rightly so. 55 Gators (talk) 18:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

That was not my point; my point is that even if your arguments are valid, deleting 36kb of text essentially at one go makes it really difficult to verify what you are saying, and so I would have appreciated you discussing it first, and taking it step by step. I agree (obviously) that relevance is necessary, but relevance is a debatable thing on many an occasion, while a lack of sources is not; blanking unsourced text, and blanking irrelevant text, are very different ball games. For instance, you deleted a bunch of "see also" entries, with the reason "prune SA farm," with no rationale as to why you kept the ones you did. In any case, since you seemed inclined to be bullish about this, I will go over the changes individually. I don't doubt that you are right for the large part; I do expect us to disagree on some things. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:48, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

No problem. Just being WP:BOLD. Volunteer Marek  14:31, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the cleanup done by Volunteer Marek except for few places where I may like to discuss... but the bigger concern comes because of the title of the article having "Covert actions" for "foreign regime change"... if we stick to the letter of it; there is little chance of putting back any of the content which was (duly) removed. --AmritasyaPutra^T 08:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

AP, you frequently accuse me of stalking, and then turn up here to disagree with me on a page you have never edited, in a topic area that haven't been involved with? The hypocrisy is just amazing! VM, I'll get back to you in a short while, busy over the next two days. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:08, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

??? Any response to the comment-on-content above? --AmritasyaPutra^T 00:54, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

It is difficult to take those seriously, because you clearly came here after a glance at my contributions this morning, but for what it's worth look at my reply to Marek. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:26, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I see. No response to my comment. --AmritasyaPutra^T 04:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Marek, if you delete Angola because Reagan announced it on the radio, why don't you delete Afghanistan, when Reagan invited mujahideen to the White House? All of the Reagan Doctrine stuff from Nicaragua to Poland and Afghanistan to Cambodia was well-known at the time. Likewise, none of our recent actions in Libya or Syria were covert. Moreover, everything the CIA does is overseen by both the executive and legislative branches, and even the coups in Iran and Guatemala were known to have been CIA operations by the contemporary press, with barely a fig leaf of plausible deniability. If the point of this article is that these were all secret CIA operations ignorant Americans have never heard of before, then the whole thing could and probably should be deleted.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:47, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Nicaragua actually fits the scope of this article. The other stuff doesn't. I do think that this article might be deletion worthy. Volunteer Marek  22:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

It would seem that the "covert" nature of the operations here is in question; at the same time, there is more than enough material here for a more specific article than the US foreign policy one. What would you suggest to resolve this? Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why section on Poland was removed. It is well known fact that CIA funded covertly Solidarity seeking to overthrow Polish government at the time and can be sourced by mainstream sources, even from USA itself.In fact I even recall a CIA official stating such in BBC documentary.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

This page is synthesis and a POV fork. All of the same material can be found in more specific articles. If we are merely trimming the article and not deleting it outright, deciding what to trim could indeed be construed as rather arbitrary.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

The section on Poland is irrelevant as it was neither covert nor a regime change. The trims are not arbitrary. We remove the stuff that 1) does not fit with the scope of the article (in other words, just because US has *a* foreign policy, does not make something a covert regime change) and 2) stuff that's not based on reliable sources. Deleting this article would probably be preferable. I see there was an AfD there once but it had enough votes for "Keep but improve" that it was kept. This improvement did not take place. Maybe it's time to go back to AfD. Volunteer Marek  00:35, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

"The section on Poland is irrelevant as it was neither covert nor a regime change", scholarly books on the subject and articles by Pulitzer Prize journalist named it as covert and regime change. As do intelligence officials in USA. Besides your own very emotional opinion you brought no arguments towards your wholesale blanking of reliable sources.Anyway there are dozens of reliable sources naming actions in Poland by CIA as covert, including US intelligence representatives.It's really not something you can argue against VM, it's just a well established information on international history, which nobody disputes.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 01:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Refrain from making personal attacks along the lines of "your own very emotional opinion". And don't revert blindly. Volunteer Marek  01:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I go the impression that naming Springer publication and Pulitzer Prize winner publication as "junk" and deleting almost whole article is a very emotional response.Perhaps in the future instead of engaging in mass blanking of sourced articles you should start discussions on talk pages first, using rational arguments instead of phrases like "junk". It would certainly improve the tone of discussion.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 01:49, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Except I never named those publications "junk". Refrain from making false accusations. Deleting junk (other junk, which this article was full of) from a crappy article is not a "very emotional response". Drop the patronizing rhetoric and insulting insinuations.

Looking at the Daugherty source, it does look like Poland would qualify. Now, if you could just add text which accurately reflects what the source says. And if you could stop trying to use additions of other information to perform and mask multiple blind reverts. Volunteer Marek  01:57, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Took me a while to get around to this. Going through the changes one by one, and re-adding the material that seems appropriate to me.

1) Lead; most removals seemed fine, but the point about democratic governments has been made by a ton of authors (Grandin, Winn, Blakely, Joseph, etc, etc) not to mention the source itself; it should stay.

2) Re-added Russian civil war; source seems to call it covert, and from what I know it wasn't known among civillians here. The section on active military intervention is only there for context, so trimmed that.

3) National Endowment section; not a state agency, so off topic. Leaving it out.

4) Congo; the relevant parts here are CIA opposition to Guevara's forces, their plan to assassinate Lumumba, and their support to Mobutu. I am reinstating those paragraphs, with a couple of other sentences for context. The vast majority of the section is off topic.

5) Ghana; First part is utterly irrelevant; allegations seem relevant, considering where they are coming from.

6) Argentina; the section needs to be written, so reinstating with an expansion template

7) Poland; no regime change even attempted, so irrelevant?

8) Cambodia seems a priori to be an open armed intervention. If there was, in fact, covert assistance (which wouldn't surprise me) it can be added later. Ditto Angola, Afghanistan.

9) Haiti is borderline; leaving it out for now.

10) Gaza seems to have trivial covert action; if more sources are found, they can be added later, not my area of expertise.

11) Somalia seems very relevant; covert CIA assistance to one faction of the internal war.

12) CIA doesn't seem to have actively taken sides in Libya, so leaving that out.

13) Reinstating the Syrian section; copy-edit and condense if you like, but removing two paras is not the best way to do that.

Vanamonde93 (talk) 08:41, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

2) Russian civil war - not relevant. There was some intervention but its main purpose was to either a) extract the Czech legion from Russia or b) protect arm depots and some territories from being taken over by Germans. The fighting with Bolsheviks was almost incidental. There was also nothing "covert" about it. So not a regime change, not covert.

4) Congo - There was support for one faction over the other. I don't think there was enough to label it "covert regime change". I'm willing to be convinced on this one but I need to see very solid support from sources.

5) Ghana - these are essentially conspiracy theories, which don't belong in there per WP:UNDUE.

6) Argentina - not a covert regime change. The CIA learned of the coup before it occurred and basically decided not to warn Peron about it. That's about it.

11) Somalia - willing to be convinced. But remember that there is this word "covert" in there. Nobody's questioning that US intervened with purpose of changing the government. Wasn't very covert though.

12) Syria - maybe.

Agree on the rest.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, I actually meant the current dispute about Somalia Iraq and Russia, down below. But I will get back to you on this, give me a brief while. Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Edit war by Taospark

Over the past few days Taospark has been reverting multiple editors. In their last edit summary they said: No consensus was reached and the edits were not justified in Talk. Work on the individual sections instead of starting an edit war.. Their previous edit summaries claimed that the multiple editors who were undoing their changes were "proxying" for each other.

This is problematic for several reasons. First, while technically there has been no 3RR violation, Taospark is clearly edit warring against multiple editors. It takes some chutzpah to accuse others of "starting an edit war" in that situation. Second, I don't see a single comment by Taospark on the talk page. So not only are they edit warring but they have not participated, initiated, or contributed to any discussion. On the other hand, the editors whom Taospark is reverting have discussed the issue on talk. It is false (and again, takes some chutzpah) to claim "consensus" for one's reverts in such a situation.

In this case, per BRD the burden of consensus is on the user trying to restore the contentious material. Please do not restore until you convince others that it belongs in the article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

___

1. I reverted your original edit war with other users going back several months, which was unjustified.

2. Why am I seeing a talk by one user, a revert by a second user, and a message on my talk by a third user?

3. I've yet to see any proof this is a consensus and not a proxy edit war.

4. The reasons for reversion were clearly laid out for each section in my edit notes, which none of you three has addressed.

5. The Soviet Russia section has valid multiple sources.

6. The Iraq 2002-2003 section has multiple references and refers to action recognized by the US government as a covert action to the extent that they awarded Intelligence Stars.

7. The Somalia section refers specifically to CIA backing of one faction to oust the de facto regime there and is also sourced.

8. The Ukraine section has been left deleted until any other user can proffer information.

Please do not engage in a revert war as I've supplied ample cause each and every single time, while none of the three user accounts have done so. -Taospark (talk) 06:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

When lots of different people disagree with you, there are two possible courses of action:

A. Stop, because you don't have consensus.

B. Hammer the revert button anyway, complain that everyone else is edit-warring.

Option A is a wise and policy-compliant choice. I see you chose option B. That is not good. bobrayner (talk) 06:52, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Look, it's not up to all the users that you're edit warring against to "prove" that they're not "proxying". That's basically a weak excuse for reverting against consensus.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I love how guy who's last 50 edits include stuff from 2008 makes references to proxying and regards disagreeing users who all have far more solid recent edit history as "three user accounts". I would note that talkpage reasoning was provided by myself already on 21st January [2], and I have referred to it repeatedly in my edit summaries since then, just Taospark has been blatantly ignoring that. Those same points are still valid as no proper rebuttal has been delivered so far.--Staberinde (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

You've all been engaging in an edit war for months before this hammering in your own biases acting in concert, that is not consensus or dealing maturely with the material to any degree. Far more importantly, the content you've targeted is specifically relevant to the article and has multiple reliable sources; hammering the revert button and ignoring that is your choice. - Taospark (talk) 02:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Taospark, you've been reverting multiple editors on a regular basis essentially without discussion. You didn't say anything on talk until I started this section, then repeatedly asked you in edit summaries to respond. YOU are the one who's edit warring. Consensus appears to be against you. Dismissing consensus as "proxy editing" or other such excuses won't work. The problem with the content is that it's off topic. While there are sources there, the info is about American foreign policy in general, not "covert regime changes". Other editors can see this. You can't. The problem is with your perception, not theirs.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

None of which justifies your edits or edit wars against multiple users. I've already made a proper case for why the content relates directly to the article and qualifies, you've made no proper discussion or justification in all that time. - Taospark (talk) 02:21, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's be crystal clear here. I have NOT "edit wars (sic) against multiple users". User:Staberind has NOT "edit wars (sic) against multiple users". User:bobrayner has NOT "edit wars against multiple users". Users AmritasayaPutra, Vanamonde93, TheTimesAreChanging and perhaps some others have NOT "edit wars against multiple users". They all disagreed with YOU. YOU are the only person here who is engaged in a drawn out edit war against multiple users. YOU are the only person here who is trying to bully through your preferred version against consensus. YOU are the only person here who has not used the talk page until pretty much forced to do so.

And yes, my explanation above is a perfectly fine explanation for removal of the material. It doesn't fit the scope of the article. It violates WP:UNDUE, WP:COATRACK and WP:SYNTHESIS.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Taospark, for goodness sake leave off arguing over who is edit-warring, and respond to the content issues raised in the section above. Marek, I wouldn't mind a response there, either. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

That's what I've been sticking to above and in my edit summaries, as I believe the deletions fit the content properly. I'm also not sure why Marek is accusing me of an edit war with you as you seem to have talked him down from his much larger deletion spree before I even touched this article but I've requested mediation here. - Taospark (talk) 05:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• I never edited this page before, but quickly looked right now. One of the obvious problems: some of the "operations" were very much open, not covert operations. Yes, there are certain "sources" about secret war against Soviet Russia, such as that one, but they do not belong here. Fixed. In other words, describing Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War as a covert operation for "regime change" by US is a crude mischaracterization. Yes, that was an "allied intervention", but not a covert operation. My very best wishes (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• "Consensus appears to be against you." You're using the assumption that Taospark is proxying to assert a contrary consensus. I'm not Taospark. And I agree with him. You guys aren't even talking about the content that is being removed, just about who is sockpuppeting whom. Why should Taospark's material be removed? 172.248.34.88 (talk) 03:00, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Can we find a better title for this article?

"Regime change action" appears to be a neologism, since it rarely appeared in Internet search results until after this article was published. Is there a more common phrase to describe this article's subject? Jarble (talk) 01:03, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The whole thing is mostly original research and a coatrack, so the answer is probably "no". Which doesn't mean the present title is satisfactory at all.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the proper word is coup. As you can see, almost every section in the article and the "Main article" lines for them includes the word coup or coup d'état. But in the title are euphemistically summarised as "actions". Also, the title includes the word "regime", which is pejorative, while some of the deposed governments were democratically elected. --emijrp (talk) 21:40, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

@Emijrp and Volunteer Marek: Of course, it is often difficult to distinguish covert regime change actions from overt ones. Should this article be merged into United States involvement in regime change? Jarble (talk) 02:19, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:23, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Seconded Alyxr (talk) 18:18, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I would argue against the merger, simply because such an article would be absolutely enormous, and would require material to be split off. Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:21, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

conspiracy theorist wording?

in the Syria section, it's described as "forced regime change" as though the US is using force, rather than the reality that it's aiding a side of the Syrian civil war, a war which is not even mentioned in the entire section. 68.227.167.123 (talk) 22:40, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

well, went ahead and changed it to more objective wording. Adamsmo (talk) 09:22, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 March 2015

Shouldn't the 1989 invasion of Panama be in this list?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama

50.206.82.151 (talk) 00:02, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Not done: No. That was direct, overt military action. The 2nd paragraph of the lede of this article explains as much and links to the invasion of Panama:

"These actions were sometimes accompanied by direct military action, such as following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq in 2003." Cannolis (talk) 01:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Removing a whole bunch of OR, off topic, and other crap.

The name of the article is "Covert United States foreign regime change actions". Instead the article just goes on and on describing ... the fact that US has a foreign policy. There was a whole bunch of original research, bad sourcing (dead links or sources which do not support the text) and off topic text (which has nothing to do with either regime change and/or nothing to do with any "covert" action). I removed this.

The fact that there may be sources is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for inclusion. Another obvious necessary condition is that the text actually be about what the article title says it is about. This wasn't the case with a good chunk of this article. Volunteer Marek  05:24, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Many nations "have a foreign policy" without attempting to overthrow the governments of other nations. That sort of "foreign policy" is more consistent with being a Rogue State. If another nation were attempting to impose a "regime change" on the U.S., we would consider it an act of war, and rightly so. 55 Gators (talk) 18:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

That was not my point; my point is that even if your arguments are valid, deleting 36kb of text essentially at one go makes it really difficult to verify what you are saying, and so I would have appreciated you discussing it first, and taking it step by step. I agree (obviously) that relevance is necessary, but relevance is a debatable thing on many an occasion, while a lack of sources is not; blanking unsourced text, and blanking irrelevant text, are very different ball games. For instance, you deleted a bunch of "see also" entries, with the reason "prune SA farm," with no rationale as to why you kept the ones you did. In any case, since you seemed inclined to be bullish about this, I will go over the changes individually. I don't doubt that you are right for the large part; I do expect us to disagree on some things. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:48, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

No problem. Just being WP:BOLD. Volunteer Marek  14:31, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the cleanup done by Volunteer Marek except for few places where I may like to discuss... but the bigger concern comes because of the title of the article having "Covert actions" for "foreign regime change"... if we stick to the letter of it; there is little chance of putting back any of the content which was (duly) removed. --AmritasyaPutra^T 08:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

AP, you frequently accuse me of stalking, and then turn up here to disagree with me on a page you have never edited, in a topic area that haven't been involved with? The hypocrisy is just amazing! VM, I'll get back to you in a short while, busy over the next two days. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:08, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

??? Any response to the comment-on-content above? --AmritasyaPutra^T 00:54, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

It is difficult to take those seriously, because you clearly came here after a glance at my contributions this morning, but for what it's worth look at my reply to Marek. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:26, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I see. No response to my comment. --AmritasyaPutra^T 04:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Marek, if you delete Angola because Reagan announced it on the radio, why don't you delete Afghanistan, when Reagan invited mujahideen to the White House? All of the Reagan Doctrine stuff from Nicaragua to Poland and Afghanistan to Cambodia was well-known at the time. Likewise, none of our recent actions in Libya or Syria were covert. Moreover, everything the CIA does is overseen by both the executive and legislative branches, and even the coups in Iran and Guatemala were known to have been CIA operations by the contemporary press, with barely a fig leaf of plausible deniability. If the point of this article is that these were all secret CIA operations ignorant Americans have never heard of before, then the whole thing could and probably should be deleted.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:47, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Nicaragua actually fits the scope of this article. The other stuff doesn't. I do think that this article might be deletion worthy. Volunteer Marek  22:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

It would seem that the "covert" nature of the operations here is in question; at the same time, there is more than enough material here for a more specific article than the US foreign policy one. What would you suggest to resolve this? Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why section on Poland was removed. It is well known fact that CIA funded covertly Solidarity seeking to overthrow Polish government at the time and can be sourced by mainstream sources, even from USA itself.In fact I even recall a CIA official stating such in BBC documentary.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

This page is synthesis and a POV fork. All of the same material can be found in more specific articles. If we are merely trimming the article and not deleting it outright, deciding what to trim could indeed be construed as rather arbitrary.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

The section on Poland is irrelevant as it was neither covert nor a regime change. The trims are not arbitrary. We remove the stuff that 1) does not fit with the scope of the article (in other words, just because US has *a* foreign policy, does not make something a covert regime change) and 2) stuff that's not based on reliable sources. Deleting this article would probably be preferable. I see there was an AfD there once but it had enough votes for "Keep but improve" that it was kept. This improvement did not take place. Maybe it's time to go back to AfD. Volunteer Marek  00:35, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

"The section on Poland is irrelevant as it was neither covert nor a regime change", scholarly books on the subject and articles by Pulitzer Prize journalist named it as covert and regime change. As do intelligence officials in USA. Besides your own very emotional opinion you brought no arguments towards your wholesale blanking of reliable sources.Anyway there are dozens of reliable sources naming actions in Poland by CIA as covert, including US intelligence representatives.It's really not something you can argue against VM, it's just a well established information on international history, which nobody disputes.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 01:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Refrain from making personal attacks along the lines of "your own very emotional opinion". And don't revert blindly. Volunteer Marek  01:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I go the impression that naming Springer publication and Pulitzer Prize winner publication as "junk" and deleting almost whole article is a very emotional response.Perhaps in the future instead of engaging in mass blanking of sourced articles you should start discussions on talk pages first, using rational arguments instead of phrases like "junk". It would certainly improve the tone of discussion.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 01:49, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Except I never named those publications "junk". Refrain from making false accusations. Deleting junk (other junk, which this article was full of) from a crappy article is not a "very emotional response". Drop the patronizing rhetoric and insulting insinuations.

Looking at the Daugherty source, it does look like Poland would qualify. Now, if you could just add text which accurately reflects what the source says. And if you could stop trying to use additions of other information to perform and mask multiple blind reverts. Volunteer Marek  01:57, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Took me a while to get around to this. Going through the changes one by one, and re-adding the material that seems appropriate to me.

1) Lead; most removals seemed fine, but the point about democratic governments has been made by a ton of authors (Grandin, Winn, Blakely, Joseph, etc, etc) not to mention the source itself; it should stay.

2) Re-added Russian civil war; source seems to call it covert, and from what I know it wasn't known among civillians here. The section on active military intervention is only there for context, so trimmed that.

3) National Endowment section; not a state agency, so off topic. Leaving it out.

4) Congo; the relevant parts here are CIA opposition to Guevara's forces, their plan to assassinate Lumumba, and their support to Mobutu. I am reinstating those paragraphs, with a couple of other sentences for context. The vast majority of the section is off topic.

5) Ghana; First part is utterly irrelevant; allegations seem relevant, considering where they are coming from.

6) Argentina; the section needs to be written, so reinstating with an expansion template

7) Poland; no regime change even attempted, so irrelevant?

8) Cambodia seems a priori to be an open armed intervention. If there was, in fact, covert assistance (which wouldn't surprise me) it can be added later. Ditto Angola, Afghanistan.

9) Haiti is borderline; leaving it out for now.

10) Gaza seems to have trivial covert action; if more sources are found, they can be added later, not my area of expertise.

11) Somalia seems very relevant; covert CIA assistance to one faction of the internal war.

12) CIA doesn't seem to have actively taken sides in Libya, so leaving that out.

13) Reinstating the Syrian section; copy-edit and condense if you like, but removing two paras is not the best way to do that.

Vanamonde93 (talk) 08:41, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

2) Russian civil war - not relevant. There was some intervention but its main purpose was to either a) extract the Czech legion from Russia or b) protect arm depots and some territories from being taken over by Germans. The fighting with Bolsheviks was almost incidental. There was also nothing "covert" about it. So not a regime change, not covert.

4) Congo - There was support for one faction over the other. I don't think there was enough to label it "covert regime change". I'm willing to be convinced on this one but I need to see very solid support from sources.

5) Ghana - these are essentially conspiracy theories, which don't belong in there per WP:UNDUE.

6) Argentina - not a covert regime change. The CIA learned of the coup before it occurred and basically decided not to warn Peron about it. That's about it.

11) Somalia - willing to be convinced. But remember that there is this word "covert" in there. Nobody's questioning that US intervened with purpose of changing the government. Wasn't very covert though.

12) Syria - maybe.

Agree on the rest.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, I actually meant the current dispute about Somalia Iraq and Russia, down below. But I will get back to you on this, give me a brief while. Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Good discussion Dame Etna (talk) 13:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Recent Deletions

Marek, I'd prefer it if you discussed some of those. Both Syrian actions, the Indonesia section, and the Ghana section, show evidence of covert action aimed at regime change. In some cases the action failed, which is not reason to remove it from here. I've kept the removal of Argentina and the blog (how the heck did that get in in the first place, I wonder.) Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:46, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Obviously, CIA has been deeply involved in a number of overt military operations and somehow involved in many other cases. However, we should include here only cases when an operation has been planned and executed primarily by the CIA, such as in Cuba, Afghanistan, etc. Therefore, I would agree with these removals. Having only a limited covert support (as in nearly all open military operations) does not qualify. These are open military operations. Openly providing weapons also does not qualify as a covert operation. And we talked about this above in relation to the Russian Civil War. If we spoke about "a regime change" (no matter overt or covert), they would qualify. My very best wishes (talk) 13:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

None of the removals except Syria involved overt US action; none of them including Syria involved overt US military action. Per BRD, establish consensus here before removing them again. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:40, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with My very best wishes. Some of the content doesn't actually belong in an article about covert regime change. bobrayner (talk) 17:23, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Bob, Best Wishes, the title of the article suggests that we are not limited to "covert regime change." The article is about cover regime change actions. The regime change need not be covert; how many ever are? Even the Guatemalan coup was not covert; US assistance to the coup was covert. The article is a collection of covert US attempts to change the government of other countries, and the removed content certainly fits the bill. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:39, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I think this entire page is problematic, an original synthesis based on the relatively recent expression "regime change". What we actually need here is a List of CIA operations (now included in the page about CIA) and United States military deployments. This and yet another page on the same subject, United States involvement in regime change look to me as POV forks. Now, speaking about the specific changes under discussion, I do not have a strong opinion about this beyond something already said above. My very best wishes (talk) 22:46, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I think I agree with your principle, but not it's application. "Regime change" might be a relatively new term, but it's referring to an idea that is not new or strange, the concept of changing the government of a country without annexing it (very broadly speaking). So you have the armed interventions (military deployments) and the covert interventions (this page). The CIA page needs to cover everything the CIA did; many of its activities were not targeting regime change. Conversely, many of these activities involved more than just the CIA. You're right about the POV fork, though, United States involvement in regime change looks merge-able to me. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:21, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

There were literary hundreds operations by US to influence world's events. Singling out just a few of them here as operations for "regime change" looks POVish and propagandistic to me. My very best wishes (talk) 04:23, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't quite see what you're getting at; these aren't military operations, that's why they're in this article. As for propaganda, there are a number of sources that examine US intervention across nations, occasionally across continents. The article may not use those, but they do exist. Try Walter LaFeber, for one. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:07, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I am trying to tell that materials you added in the last edit do not belong to this page, and perhaps this entire page should be merged to other, more informative, neutral and encyclopedic pages, such as Timeline of United States military operations and a similar list of operations by the CIA. I also have an additional question about your last edit. What word "Kieving" means and where it came from (sources)? My very best wishes (talk) 16:01, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I understand your larger point. I did not get your last comment but one; the number of US military operations is irrelevant here, because this page does not cover them. We are describing covert (often CIA) actions intended to change a foreign government, a topic which has received sufficient coverage to make it notable and not synthesis. Even a quick search with a academic database proves this. I dunno what "kieving" is, I only missed it when I reverted the deletion. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:53, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

This may be a legitimate subject, but a quick look shows a number of problems, some of which would be fixed by removing questionable materials under discussion. Another obvious problem: the intro does not properly summarize content. It tells: "Some contend that the U.S. has supported more coups against democracies that it perceived as communist, becoming communist, or pro-communist". Sure, one can easily find sources that contend anything on the subject, from one side or another. But I do not see any democratic countries on the page. Soviet-occupied Afganistan? Cuba? China in Tibet? Communist Poland? My very best wishes (talk) 02:44, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

There are several democratic governments in that list; Chile under Allende, Guatemala and Arbenz, Ghana under Nkrumah. Diem was elected to power, though he became an autocrat soon enough. Not saying the lead is perfect; it's weaselly for certain, but that has nothing to do with these deletions, and that is an easy fix. The source is reliable, the wording is bad. You seem to have shifted the argument to the problems the page has, which is a discussion I am happy to have. Can I assume that you're not so bothered with those specific sections anymore? Vanamonde93 (talk) 03:33, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I am not bothered with anything, but I agree with two other users that these specific subsections should be removed (see above). This is all. My very best wishes (talk) 04:43, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Now, speaking more about Ghana, I checked the quoted source (Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005), pg. 435), and yes, the book by Christopher Andrew (historian) is pretty much a reliable source (see pp 434-437). It tells that CIA in fact was not involved in this case. This is something claimed by the disposed dictator, and yes, Kwame Nkrumah was pretty much an authoritarian dictator, according to the source. My very best wishes (talk) 19:50, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I too disagree with deletion of sourced material by American users here.That a regime change action failed is not a reason for deletion, it still happened.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:48, 13 June 2015 (UTC)