Talk:Peter Arnett

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[edit] The Iraqi interview controversy

This is not correct. The firestorm of controversy had to do with Arnett saying that his reports to the United States were helping to strengthen opposition to the war. -- Zoe

Source? -- Branden
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/71883p-66599c.html: Arnett, who had been freelancing for MSNBC, set off a firestorm Sunday when he told an Iraqi interviewer that the U.S. war plan had failed and that reports of casualties are used in the U.S. to fuel anti-war protests
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/April%202003%20News/1%20news/Arnett%20fired%20over%20Iraq%20remarks%20aljazeerah.info.htm: "So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war and who challenge the policy, to develop their arguments," Arnett said.

-- Zoe

Cool, thanks! -- Branden

[edit] Wikipedia is not a newspaper

Is Wikipedia a newspaper, a magazine of current affairs, a soapbox, or is it an encyclopedia? The current article on Peter Arnett looks entirely like a Sunday supplement article in an American newspaper. The single interview held recently is devoted a majority of the space, whereas the reason Peter Arnett became a household name by reporting directly from Baghdad during the first Gulf War is not mentioned at all? Please stop this nonsense, and cut the interview bit down to a couple of sentences. -- Egil 06:43 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

If you have some elaborations to add about Arnett's career, the Wikipedia would be the richer for it. Please add to the article. -- Branden
I tend to agree; it may be the familiar case that the real problem is not too much information about one aspect but not enough info about other aspects. -- Infrogmation 08:51 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)


[edit] move to operation tailwind

This ought to be moved to operation tailwind since it doesn't have to do with Peter Arnett. Also this paragraph makes this sound rather conspiratorial.

When seven of the veterans whose testimony had been used in the report were tracked down, six said they had been misrepresented. The seventh had recently developed health problems which were a result of exposure to organo-phosphates, of which Sarin is a type.

[edit] Operation Tailwind

It seems to me that Operation Tailwind is underemphasized in this article, considering the pivotal effect it had on his career. -Joseph 17:07, 2004 Sep 10 (UTC)

[edit] Strong POV

The article as it stands is very strong POV, The "The Baby Milk Factory Controversy" and other criticisms constitutes 80 to 90% of the article. That is certainly not WP:NPOV. I'll try to find a good tag that describes the situation. -- Egil 19:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

many articles are overboard on the criticism section. I did the best that I could to sumarize, what was at the time, a pretty big deal. TDC 20:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi I've just read the article and I think that when the matter of censorship is in question no censorship should be exercised. I cant see any opinionation, point of view or bias here. -barf

This is about tag cleanup. As all of the tags are more than a year old, there is no current discussion relating to them, and there is a great deal of editing done since the tags were placed, or perhaps there is a consensus on the discussion page, they will be removed. This is not a judgement of content. If there is cause to re-tag, then that of course may be done, with the necessary posting of a discussion as to why, and what improvements could be made. This is only an effort to clean out old tags, and permit them to be updated with current issues if warranted.Jjdon (talk) 22:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Destroy the village in order to save it" quote

Does anyone have a source for the exact phrasing of this quote? In Vietnam War (as well as Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War) it's written "it was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it", and in this article it's written "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Not by itself a very important point, but it highlight the lack of good references and looks rather unprofessional if one (as I did) read the articles one after the other. MMad 23:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


MMad,

His own reference to the quote can be found here (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12795678&method=full), in an article which he wrote for the Daily Mirror on 1 April 2003, "This War is Not Working".

[During the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, I entered a US-held town which had been totally destroyed. The Viet Cong had taken over and were threatening the commander's building so he called down an artillery strike which killed many of his own men. The Major with us asked: "How could this happen?" A soldier replied: "Sir, we had to destroy the town to save it."]

I found a web page that made the following claim: "...the story was first printed in The New York Times on 8th February 1968. The wording was 'To save the town, it became necessary to destroy it' and, yes, it was an unnamed major who was credited..." I haven't verified this information, but I'm familiar with the alternate wording used here. I found it here at snopes.com -- MiguelMunoz 21:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I question the neutrality of the accusation that this quote was fabricated. First of all, the two people who call it a fabrication, Victor Davis Hanson and Mona Charen, are both hawks who disagree with the quote's sentiment. Also, I believe the quote came out of the Tet offensive, and while I don't have a reliable source yet, my understanding is that the village in question, Ben Tre, was caught between Viet Cong forces and US forces, and probably received damage from both sides. The claim that it was destroyed by the Viet Cong ("hostile Vietnamese forces") is highly suspect. They were unlikely to destroy a village of their own people. They were also far more popular in South Vietnam than the US Military. Even the phrase "hostile Vietnamese forces" is biased. -- MiguelMunoz 22:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The article also doesn't mention the fact that many people feel that Peter Arnett is a leftist subversive traitor.70.216.193.49 06:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

"We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it” " - that's original phrase, and it's not Arnett fabrication. See here about the story behind it. 195.248.189.182 07:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Osama Bin Ladin Interview.

Article incorrectly states that "In March 1997, Arnett was able to interview Osama bin Laden, as the first Western journalist to do so." The British Journalist Robert Fisk interviewed him in 1993, so clearly Arnett was not the first. He might have been the first do so on TV (Fisk is a newspaperman). I will delete "as the first Western journalist to do so." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk#9.2F11.2C_Osama_bin_Laden.2C_and_the_war_in_Afghanistan Jalipa84.153.71.250 21:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Girlfriend

I can't believe Peter's girlfriend's name is in his infobox! First, is this notable? Second is it referenced? ThreeE 02:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)