Talk:Edward Peck (American diplomat)

Paratrooper

The "military service" section is very short, and at the moment it consists solely of "He served in the US Army as a paratrooper." A shufty with Google suggests that he retired either as a First Lieutenant, or a Captain; that he served in two world wars; and that according to the man himself,[1] "I was a paratrooper two and one-half years before the discovery of the parachute." Does he have an official biography somewhere, so we can say e.g. "he served from YEAR to YEAR in REGIMENT and fought in WAR and WAR, being discharged in YEAR"? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 01:08, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

No sources for any military service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.157.161 (talk) 08:11, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

9/11 Conspiracy?

Why is there a 9/11 conspiracy theory navigation bar at the bottom of this page? It implies a whole lot about Edward Peck's politics that seems unfounded. Bobbygalaxy (talk) 00:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I have removed it. TheslB (talk) 04:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Wright on Peck

I spent a lot of time looking and have yet found any source on the web – let alone a reliable one – which directly quotes Peck as ever saying “America's chickens are coming home to roost”. According to Google, nowhere on the web does the phrase appear with Peck without also mentioning Wright. That no one has ever quoted that phrase of Peck’s but Wright is strong evidence that Wright was at best paraphrasing Peck. That is certainly his right as a pastor, but it means Wright can’t claim he is simply using someone else’s words.

If anyone has any source which directly quotes Peck on this issue please let me know. Anyone with a Lexis account should be able to check the original transcripts. The burden of proof is on Wright defenders to show he is quoting verbatim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.43.98.223 (talk) 19:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

If you wish to remove the material, you need to find a source that discredits what reliable sources have said about Wright's statement on Peck. Drawing a conclusion from not being able to find a source is original research and not allowed on Wikipedia. Please read this article on reliable sources, this article on original research, and this article on verifiability for more on why the rationale for your edit is not acceptable. TheslB (talk) 19:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

“you need to find a source that discredits what reliable sources have said about Wright's statement on Peck.” Did you hear the entire sermon? It is clear that Wright was paraphrasing Peck and not quoting him. What reliable sources are you referring to? Please name a “reliable” person who said such a thing. If anything, that very claim should diminish their reliability. They simply misinterpreted Wright’s remarks, and haven’t brought a shred of evidence to support it.

The claim that Wright is quoting Peck directly is unsubstantiated, and there is strong evidence against it. Someone here must have a Lexis account, and in 2 minutes they can prove that Peck never used those words.

I read your links and they support me. You must provide a reliable source that says Wright was quoting Peck verbatim. You haven't done so. In fact, you haven't even proovided a reliable source who even claims such a thing, let alone one which links to a hard source such as a transcript. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.43.98.223 (talk) 19:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The segment from the sermon Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. gave is as follows, found here:

“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost."

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”

According to the CNN article, titled The full story behind Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9/11 sermon, "One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation." Please note that drawing any conclusion from not finding something in a Lexis-Nexis search (or a Google search) is original research and not allowed on Wikipedia. TheslB (talk) 20:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

N: Even Wright's defenders concede that "coming home to roost" was not a verbatim quote. Personally I think Wright never implied that it was an exact quote, and I'm somewhat shocked that others understood the words differently.

http://www.newshounds.us/2008/04/26/fox_characterizes_reverend_wright_a_liar_without_providing_the_facts_that_supposedly_contradict_him.php in response to http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/57496 etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.43.98.223 (talk) 22:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Ombudsman Column

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler, discussing Bill Moyer's interview of Jeremiah Wright, in a column on May 1, 2008 wrote:

Actually, Peck never used the phrase about chickens coming home to roost. His answers were more nuanced. There is, apparently, no transcript available of that interview with Peck so I can’t link to it. But Fox News did provide a video copy of the interview to me and I include a portion of a transcript that we made here so you can read what it was, exactly, that Peck said during the interview with Fox’s David Asman.

It follows with the closest thing to a transcript that would seem to exist for this interview. It is rather short, while it appears Peck's interview went on both before and after the excerpt. Why Fox News is able to provide a copy of the video to one person but not make a complete transcript available is a question not answered. TheslB (talk) 03:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Flotilla description

It seems odd not to mention that the flotilla mission Peck was on when raided by the IDF in international waters was carrying humanitarian aid. The way it is worded may create the impression that Peck's mission was a military operation trying to run the blockade for offensive purposes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.131.209.50 (talk) 16:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 28 October 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to to Edward Peck (American diplomat) and Edward Peck (British diplomat)  — Amakuru (talk) 10:29, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

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• Edward Peck → Edward L. Peck
• Edward Peck (diplomat) → Edward H. Peck

– There are two diplomats named Edward Peck, and I doubt either one would qualify for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. So per WP:WORLDWIDE, the Edward Peck namespace should serve as a disambiguation page.

Furthermore, plenty of news media and scholarly sources do use their middle initials, so there is a case to use the "First M. Last" formats I propose per WP:NATURALDIS. On the other hand, per WP:INITS alternate titles could be Edward Peck (American diplomat) for this Peck, or Edward Peck (British diplomat) for the person in Edward Peck (diplomat).

Examples of sources that use "Edward L. Peck" about the American diplomat:

• "Washington Talk: The Foreign Service" 1987 New York Times article
• American Ambassadors in a Troubled World (1992 book)
• "Why U.S. Ambassadors Should Be Career Professionals", article from the Foreign Service Journal in 2017
• "Ambassador Edward Peck Points Up Mistakes in U.S. Middle East Policy" from the May 2003 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Although the headline omits his middle initial, the body introduces him as "Ambassador Edward L. Peck".
• Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror, 2013 book by Erik Prince
• US diplomats' letter to Bush as reprinted by BBC News online in 2004 has Peck signing as "Ambassador Edward L Peck, former Chief of Mission in Iraq and Mauritania"

Furthermore, a Google search of "Edward l peck" "Foreign service" returns 2500+ search results, compared to "Edward Peck" + "Foreign Serivce" returning 800.

Examples of articles that use "Edward H. Peck" to refer to the British diplomat:

• Britain’s Cold War in Cyprus and Hong Kong: A Conflict of Empires 2016 book
• Großbritannien und die DDR 1955-1973: Diplomatie auf Umwegen 2003 book in German
• Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam 1999 book

However, there seems to be a better case for using Edward Peck (British diplomat) due to WP:COMMONNAME. Obituaries by The Guardian [2], The Telegraph [3], and The Scotsman[4] use only "Edward Peck". Furthermore, "Edward Peck" + British diplomat returns 10k+ google hits comapred to 1k for "Edward H. Peck" + British diplomat. Arbor to SJ (talk) 17:40, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

• The small number of hits for "Edward H. Peck" is unsurprising because the "First M. Last" style is very rare in the UK, though common in the US. It's notable that the three hits quoted are all from non-Britsh writers (two American, one German). However, as the proposer says, neither article qualifies for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, so if someone types "Edward Peck" in the search box, it's not obvious that they're likely to be looking for one rather than the other. Therefore, the articles should be named in consistent style: either "Edward L. Peck" and "Edward H. Peck" as proposed, or "Edward Peck (American diplomat)" and "Edward Peck (British diplomat)", but not "Edward L. Peck" and "Edward Peck (British diplomat)". — Stanning (talk) 13:56, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Agreed. The American diplomat is also commonly known as "Edward Peck", based on the C-SPAN video database [5] of his appearances on the network. The on-screen graphics generally use "Edward Peck". Arbor to SJ (talk) 18:08, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
• Move to Edward Peck (American diplomat) and American Peck (British diplomat) as common names. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:06, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm sure you meant Edward Peck (British diplomat). Arbor to SJ (talk) 17:05, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
• Use parentheticals. I agree with pretty much all of the above. The British diplomat especially is not well enough known by his middle initial to use it in the title and it is better to be consistent with both. Jenks24 (talk) 10:05, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.