Talk:United States involvement in regime change

CIA funding for Taliban and Arab fighters in Afghanistan

Someone deleted the assertion that CIA funds were used by the ISI to train Tabliban and Arab foreign fighters to fight the insurgency war against the Afghan govt and the Soviet army backing it in the 1980s. The deleter wrote that this was refuted by the article "Allegations of CIA assistance to Bin Laden." I am trying to head off an edit war. The following are two unrefuted paragraphs from that article (in the section entitled "Agreements"

Sir Martin Ewans, noted that the Afghan Arabs "benefited indirectly from the CIA's funding, through the ISI and resistance organizations," and that "it has been reckoned that as many as 35,000 'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan at an estimated cost of $800 million in the years up to and including 1988."

Some of the CIA's greatest Afghan beneficiaries were Arabist commanders such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who were key allies of Bin Laden over many years. Haqqani—one of Bin Laden's closest associates in the 1980s—received direct cash payments from CIA agents, without the mediation of the ISI (Charlie Wilson described Haqqani as "goodness personified"). This independent source of funding gave Haqqani disproportionate influence over the mujahideen, and helped Bin Laden develop his base.

Response to some objections:

1. Unsourced. Please explain what you believe to be not fully supported.

2. Unrelated to the article. The CIA was funding the jihadis, including the Arab fighters, and allegedly including Osama, in an effort to overthrow the Afghan govt, which they eventually did. What could be more related than that?

3. Coatrack. The identity of the fighters who were being supplied by the CIA (through the ISI) to overthrow the govt is essential to the primary theme of the article.

Generally, if you delete and fail to respond substantively here on FB, then you are not acting as a responsible WP editor should. --NYCJosh (talk) 22:51, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

The quote you provided above is far more nuanced than your original claim that "Supplies and training for the Afghans, including jihadis who later became known as the Taliban, and for some Arab foreign fighters, including Osama bin Laden, were channeled through the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan." Maybe if you could attribute the allegation and include opposing views, we could have acceptable encyclopedic text, but it's still not clear to me why this article should dive into unverified allegations at all. I also have to ask, since it's not apparent from your edits, what would you consider the best reliable source that lends credence to the unverified bin Laden–CIA connection theory?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:54, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Glad we are moving toward agreement. In answer to your two questions:

1. Why go there? The question of how the US toppled the Afghan govt and the Soviet occupiers is key to the theme of US regime change. So the question that is answered is: who received US funding to get the job done? Was it just indigenous Afghan fighters or also foreign Arabs? Who were the instruments of the US' RC?

Obviously, the issue of funding for Al Qaeda and Osama is also very important for US history given subsequent events. This article is a US history article. To fail to mention the funding, even if it were not central to the "instrument of RC" issue, would seem disingenuous in an article about US history.

2. Support for statement? From the same article you had cited, "Allegations of US Assistance to Osama bin Laden"

In a 2004 article entitled "Al-Qaeda's origins and links", the BBC wrote:

During the anti-Soviet jihad Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.

Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary in the UK from 1997–2001, believed the CIA had provided arms to the Arab mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden, writing, "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the '80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan." His source for this is unclear.

So we've got THE UK foreign sec (Robin Cook) statement as cited in The Guardian stating it as factual, not as an allegation, AND a separate BBC source that states it as allegation. Since we've got one RS stating it as factual we can state it as factual. The BBC source saying it is an allegation does not downgrade the Robin Cook statement. It adds to the degree of certainty, does not diminish it. (Imagine we have two witnesses: Witness A says I know event X happened, while witness B says I think event X happened. Witness B strengthens Witness A's testimony and our confidence, does not diminish it.)

Plus we've got the general background of $800 million in CIA support for 35,000 Arab fighters that I quoted above, so we know that there was plenty of American money being used to train tons of Arabs.

Now let's consider the CIA denial in the same article. First, the same article has several sources saying the CIA channeled the funds through ISI and that the ISI actually did the training of the fighters in Pakistan and that CIA did NOT control who got the training. So it makes sense for the CIA to be trying to cover its behind (CIA doing CYA) after Osama starting attacking American targets in the mid 1990s but how could it even know who the heck the ISI was funding at the time? No one claims that CIA was screening whom the ISI was funding or even was notified about whom the ISI was training. In fact, the CIA at the time likely would have had no objection to training many of the Arabs who went on to become Al Qaeda. Why would it, given the Arabs were volunteering to fight the bad old Russkies at the time and before they attacked US targets? Remember, Osama turned anti-American when the US "heathens" were allowed to establish a military presence in the holyland of Mecca and Medina in the lead up to the 1991 Gulf War (still years away). The denial doesn't seem credible given the uncontroverted lack of knowledge by the denier. So while I would usually support including a US govt denial, even if it's suspect and self-serving, in this case the denial doesn't even appear to be plausible and thus doesn't appear to merit inclusion.--NYCJosh (talk) 20:17, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Your argument is incoherent. "How could [the CIA] even know who the heck the ISI was funding at the time?" How could the British foreign secretary from 1997 to 2001, writing in a 2005 opinion piece for The Guardian, know who the ISI was funding during the 1980s? If this former British foreign secretary, seemingly making a passing and (in your own words!) "unclear" statement with no elaboration in a single opinion piece is the most definitive statement supporting the alleged bin Laden–CIA connection that you were able to find in nominally reliable sources after searching, then it seems clear that Cook's opinion is WP:UNDUE for this article. Obviously, if you could demonstrate that secondary sources such as terrorism experts or bin Laden biographers generally agree that bin Laden was trained by the ISI (which, as far as I know, they do not)—or even by the CIA directly—that would be a completely different matter.

BTW, per WP:RSOPINION, opinion pieces like Cook's generally cannot be used on Wikipedia without attribution; they are RS only for the author's opinion. That's a good thing, because Cook's article also contains the well-known disinformation that "Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians." Again, that's not content that you're going to find in mainstream RS scholarship on al Qaeda, and looks like something Cook pulled up from Global Research. You seem to be relying on very unreliable sources rather than experts like Bergen and Coll.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

By the time Cook was in power, Western intel had learned a lot about Osama's history and activities because Osama was one of the most wanted international terrorists in the world, having attacked Western targets in several countries in the 1990s. It would be surprising if Cook did not know Osama's detailed history year by year, including who had funded him, when and how, his connections past and present to state intelligence operations, like that of the ISI, etc. By way of contrast, Osama was not an enemy of the US in the 1980s, so there would be no reason for the US even to try to prevent the ISI from funding him, just as the ISI was funding tens of thousands of other Arab jihadi volunteers ready to fight the Soviets.

I was citing the article you had cited. I didn't do any other poking around. The Guardian quoting Robin Cook is a first rate source. Your personal opinion about the origins of the name Al Qaida is both not notable and irrelevant to this issue.

We have a prima facie case for inclusion, so if you can provide a source that contradicts Cook, other than implausible US CYA denials, please let us know.--NYCJosh (talk) 22:16, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Again, my sources are Bergen and Coll. If your position is that the Cook Guardian opinion piece is reliable for unattributed statements in Wikipedia's voice to the effect that "Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians," I would consider that a non-starter. However, you are welcome to take the matter to WP:RSN if you think that I am misapplying WP:RSOPINION.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:06, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Please re-read Bergen and Coll in the "Opposing view" section of the very WP article you cited. They say there that there is no evidence of CIA or other American officials having contact with Osama or with Al Qaida, or of "direct relationship" with Osama (according to Coll). They do not deny that the ISI, which received hundreds of millions of dollars from the US for the sole purpose of training the anti-Soviet insurgency, funded Osama or had contact with him.

In fact, Bergen quotes an ISI official as saying: "It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers' money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment....It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan."

So your Bergen and Coll do not contradict Cook on this point. CIA/US officials may have had no direct relationship, but the ISI could very well use US money for the funding, as Cook states. Your discussion of another statement by Cook is beyond the scope of this discussion.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:32, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror (2003), pp. 59–61, states:

It is often said that bin Laden was funded by the CIA. This is not true, and, indeed, would have been impossible given the structure of funding that General Zia ul–Haq, who had taken power in Pakistan in 1977, had set up. A condition of Zia's cooperation with the American plan to turn Afghanistan into the Soviets' 'Vietnam' was that all American funding to the Afghan resistance had to be channelled through the Pakistani government, which in effect meant the Afghan bureau of the Inter–Services Intelligence (ISI), the military spy agency. The American funding, which went exclusively to the Afghan mujahideen groups, not the Arab volunteers, was supplemented by Saudi government money and huge funds raised from mosques, non-governmental charitable institutions and private donors throughout the Islamic world. Most of the major Gulf-based charities operating today were founded at this time to raise money or channel government funds to the Afghans, civilians and fighters. In fact, as little as 25 per cent of the money for the Afghan jihad was actually supplied directly by states.*  ... It is a mistake to overestimate the contribution made to the war in Afghanistan by the Arabs. Many Afghan mujahideen fighters, of whom there were somewhere between 150,000 and 250,000 fighting at any one time, saw the volunteers who came to join them from the Middle East as a liability. There were only a few hundred fighting at any one time and their contribution to the 'jihad' in military terms was negligible. The Afghan Arabs rarely fought in discrete groups and were usually deployed as small detachments attached to the various mujahideen factions. There was never an 'Arab' or 'International' brigade as such. Many volunteers merely turned up in Peshawar, made their way over the border and attached themselves to a commander. Estimates of how many Arabs took part in the ten-year combat vary. Some are ludicrous. Former CIA officials stationed in Pakistan at the time say it was a maximum of 25,000. It is likely that less than half of the volunteers actually saw combat, spending their time instead in support activities away from the frontlines.

(*That's a fascinating and clarifying statistic, which should be added to the main Soviet–Afghan War.)

NYCJosh, you have an interesting original research argument about how Burke could definitively prove a negative in this case, given that "The Afghan Arabs rarely fought in discrete groups and were usually deployed as small detachments attached to the various mujahideen factions," but the burden of proof is actually the other way around. You have failed to provide high-quality reliable sources that affirmatively state that bin Laden was personally aided by the ISI (let alone by any Western intelligence agency), and I don't believe that any such RS exist. It's also clear that GPRamirez5's "as many as 35,000 'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan" statistic, which you cited above, is very much open to question. (I may have to update Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden accordingly when I have the chance.) In any case, if you were merely interested in providing readers with a neutral overview of the ISI and CIA covert operations in Afghanistan, you would specify that Zia's government allocated most resources to seven mujahideen factions—popularly known as the Peshawar Seven—with disproportionate funding going to hardline Islamist commanders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Ignoring all of that and focusing instead on the militarily insignificant Arab volunteers, and specifically on unsubstantiated assertions regarding bin Laden, appears to misrepresent the primary thrust of all RS on this topic in an attempt to poison the well against the ISI and CIA.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

TheTimeAreChanging, you have shifted from citing Coll and Bergen to your new source, Burke. The section of Burke you cite fails to explain how he knows that Osama received no American funding. Is it based on some uncited CIA denial? I doubt he there on the ground monitoring the ISI throughout the entire relevant period. If you have the book you cite, perhaps he provides a footnote on this.

I have been citing the Cook source supporting the proposition. Cook as UK foreign sec had access to all kinds of sources and his factual assertion does not need further footnoting.

I have no objection to including also the funding for the seven mujahideen factions, Gulbuddin, etc. But as I noted, the funding for Osama is important not just for the sake of completeness but also because of Osama's subsequent outsize role in US history. It feels disingenuous to deny readers this important piece of info. --NYCJosh (talk) 22:10, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Having received no reply or objections in about a week, I assume consensus has been reached.--NYCJosh (talk) 02:57, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

A discussion dying out after few or no editors supported your edits does not indicate that you have consensus, Josh.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:35, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

References

1959 Iraq

This was deleted despite multiple RSs. Please provide objections, if any, based on WP rules.--NYCJosh (talk) 02:57, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The CIA, working with Egyptian intelligence, attempted to assassinate Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim, a nationalist Iraqi Army brigadier, who had seized power in the 14 July Revolution that had overthrown the Iraqi monarchy. CIA and Egyptian intelligence recruited Saddam Hussein as an agent and the operation was set for October 7, 1959. The assassins botched the hit, only wounding Qasim in the shoulder and arm and killing Qasim's driver. Also, Saddam's calf was accidentally grazed in the incident. The CIA and Egyptian intelligence helped Saddam and other assassination attempt participants escape, Saddam being helped to flee to Cairo, where Saddam remained an agent in close contact with the CIA.

Spamming sources that don't support your claims is unhelpful and disruptive. It gives the impression that you are trying to mislead readers. Polemicist Patrick Cockburn, reviewing a 1997 book by the highly unreliable Said Aburish for The Indepedent, states: "In 1959 a party member named Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, aged 22, had tried to assassinate Gen Kassem in Baghdad, but had been wounded in the leg." That's it. The famous 1959 assassination attempt is never mentioned again anywhere in the article; the article does not support any of the wild claims that you attribute to it. In his PBS interview, the highly unreliable Aburish (citing no evidence) alleges that "There is very good reason to believe that Saddam Hussein was in contact with the American embassy in Cairo when he was in exile." However, Aburish says nothing about CIA involvement in the earlier assassination attempt. Again, you have misrepresented the source. (Aburish actually contended that any pre-exile contacts between U.S. intelligence and Saddam were impossible.) The Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq mailing list email by a random person that you are citing as a reliable source is limited to events in 1963, and contains absolutely zero reference to anything in your paragraph above.

The famous 1959 assassination attempt was reenacted on Iraqi television for decades under Saddam's rule and has been discussed in numerous sources, but there is actually just one source that alleged an American role in the plot; namely Richard Sale in UPI, April 10, 2003. Hence this WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim lives or dies based on the credibility of the one source. You list numerous derivative "sources" based on Sale's account to make it seem like Sale's ridiculous allegations are well-supported, but this is merely a distraction: Obviously, a Boston Globe op-ed that opens with "UPI reported on April 10, 2003 ... " cannot "corroborate" Sale. Similarly, that the activist group Global Policy Forum hosts an archived link of Sale's article does not make it any more reliable.

Sale's article was ignored by every other news outlet when it was published and I have not seen it mentioned in a single academic source on Iraq besides Gibson's 2015 Sold Out? (and I happen to have several on hand). It is important to emphasize the following point very strongly, because GPRamirez5 has been tag team edit warring with NYCJosh out of his own personal dislike for me despite a manifest lack of competence and knowledge of the relevant literature in this case: Yes, there has been some scholarly discussion of allegations that the CIA played a role in the first Ba'thist coup of February 1963 going as far back as Batatu's 1978 The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (although it was highly sporadic and limited until those allegations suddenly gained widespread currency in the mid-2000s due to the Internet and the U.S. invasion of Iraq) ... but the notion that the CIA hired Saddam to gun down Qasim in October 1959 is virtually impossible to find in any serious source. And here is what Gibson—the only academic to discuss Sale's report in depth—has to say on the matter:

On October 1, the NSC [National Security Council] invited both Jones and Armin Meyer (the NEA [State Department Bureau of Near–Eastern Affairs]'s director) to brief the council. Relying on the report, they explained that the SCI [Special Committee on Iraq, active 1959–1961] had reached three main conclusions:

1) dramatic action by the U.S. in Iraq was not desirable; 2) restraint by the Arab countries [was] the best means of restraining Iraq; [Qasim] should be encouraged through third parties to maintain an independent Iraq which would resist the communist threat.

Jones reported indications of an impending assassination attempt on Qasim, but suggested that these could be "Communist provocations." Commenting, Director Dulles told the council that Nasser had "urged the assassination plotters not to move too fast" and might "be laying plans to intervene in the event chaos ensues." Reflecting a lack of concrete intelligence, he predicted that the assassination attempt could occur "in the next two months." America's spy chief was wrong. On October 7, the Ba'th Party thrust itself into Iraqi politics for the first time, when an assassination team led by a young Saddam Hussein attempted to kill Qasim, striking him in the shoulder but not killing him. He spent the next six weeks in the hospital recovering.

Despite claims to the contrary [Gibson, of course, cites Sale in his footnote here, because there are no other sources for this claim besides Sale], the body of evidence available does not suggest that the United States was directly complicit in the attempted assassination. First, the SCI analysis makes clear that the communists would be the primary beneficiaries of covert action against Qasim. Second, just days before the attack, Allen Dulles predicted that it would occur within the "next two months," not a week. Third, the SCI and NSC had just reaffirmed the nonintervention policy. Fourth, the SCI had raised concerns that Qasim's assassination could lead to a communist takeover. Fifth, while the CIA was preparing for the contingency of a communist takeover, it had previously indicated that it had few assets that could influence a post-Qasim Iraq. Finally, the CIA was not confident that pro-Nasser elements could even carry off a coup, which proved accurate.—Source: Gibson, Bryan R. (2015). Sold Out? US Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds, and the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-137-48711-7.

Furthermore, Gibson (p. 26) notes that the U.S. "had also taken steps to discourage Jordan and Iran from 'taking military action' against Iraq" during Qasim's hospitalization.

While I appreciate that NYCJosh added a citation to Gibson after I cited the latter here, it is disingenous for NYCJosh to pretend that Gibson is a proponent of Sale's theory. If we were to include Sale, then we would have to include an additional sentence to the effect that "Scholar Bryan R. Gibson challenged the veracity of Sale's report, citing declassified documents that indicate the CIA was blindsided by the timing of the assassination attempt on Qasim and that the U.S. National Security Council 'had just reaffirmed [its] nonintervention policy' six days before it occurred." But given that Sale's reporting remains uncorroborated, FRINGE, and UNDUE, it's hard to see why it would merit inclusion here at all. This article purports to provide a general overview of U.S. foreign policy over the past two centuries. If NYCJosh or GPRamirez5 can produce a single (1) academic overview of U.S. foreign policy similar in scope to this article that includes anything related to this topic, then we can compromise and include two sentences on Sale and Gibson. Otherwise, it should be obvious that this article is being abused as a COATRACK and has increasingly devolved into NYCJosh's shockingly poorly-sourced blog. With only three editors commenting, there remains no consensus for any of it.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 13:35, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The Gibson quote documents what the majority view is, by his own admission. Considering that your middle name used to be WP:FRINGE, TheTimesAreAChanging, you ought to be conscientious about this.

I don't find your arguments convincing, especially since you've recently been caught labeling a reportage piece as an opinion piece, and claiming a direct quote "misrepresents" a source.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

GPRamirez5 is cherrypicking a single sentence from the introduction to make a very disingenuous assertion about "academic consensus," without actually doing any research. In the introduction, Gibson writes:

It is accepted among scholars that the CIA tried to assassinate Qasim in the Fall of 1959; tried to "incapacitate" him again in 1960; and finally, assisted the Ba'th Party in its overthrow of his regime in February 1963. ... However, a careful examination of a wide range of documents and interviews raises important questions about the veracity of these claims as to whether the CIA was behind the 1963 Ba'thist coup.—Source: Gibson, Bryan R. (2015). Sold Out? US Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds, and the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan. p. xvii. ISBN 978-1-137-48711-7.

While Gibson's phrasing could be better, in context it's clear that he's talking about the specific "scholars" he cites in the footnotes for each of those three assertions (including Sale for the 1959 assassination attempt), not making a generalized statement about "academic consensus." The latter interpretation would make no sense because many of the sources for these claims are vague and contradictory (e.g., Sale reported that the CIA was not behind the 1963 coup). Elsewhere in the book, Gibson employs a similar formulation with greater specificity:

It has been suggested that the CIA "masterminded" the Ba'thist coup [here Gibson cites Aburish], but other sources, like Peter Hahn, have observed that no declassified US documents support this claim. To resolve this debate, a number of factors need to be considered.—Source: Gibson, Bryan R. (2015). Sold Out? US Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds, and the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-137-48711-7.

Again, in context there is no implication that Aburish rather than Hahn is closer to the putative "academic consensus" on this point. But even if it were possible, in good faith, to misinterpret Gibson as saying that "most" scholars believe the U.S. played "some" role in the coup itself (without there being much agreement on what, exactly, that role was), Sale's article on the 1959 assassination attempt is only loosely related to the coup allegations. Given that Sale has been almost entirely ignored by mainstream sources and academics, it's simply not possible that there is an "academic consensus" endorsing the veracity of his article. If GPRamirez5 thinks otherwise, then he needs to show rather than tell that academics favorably citing Sale exist, because I haven't been able to find any.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:27, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

References

1963 Iraq

This, too, was deleted, despite many RSs. Please provide objections, if any, based on WP rules.--NYCJosh (talk) 03:03, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

After its earlier attempts failed to assassinate Prime Minister of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim (sometimes written as Abdel Karim Kassem), the authoritarian leader of the regime, US agents in Cairo, Damascus, Tehran and Baghdad summoned forces hostile to the Iraqi regime and orchestrated what became known as the Iraqi Ramadan Revolution. The coup was led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi-wing. The CIA established an operations center in Kuwait to orchestrate the coup. The operations base in Kuwait intercepted Iraqi communications and transmitted via radio secret orders to the coup plotters. On February 8, 1963, the day of the start of the coup, secret orders were transmitted from Kuwait to the coup leaders. Qasim was shot and his body was shown on Iraqi television. The US provided weapons to the new Ba'athist despots and the CIA provided the Ba'athists with lists of Iraqi political opponents, including communists, targeted for execution, resulting in a bloodbath led Saddam Hussein that killed thousands of Iraq's educated class and other civilians. The Ba'athists then governed Iraq for several decades.

"Many RSs," Josh? Like what, exactly? A New York Times op-ed prominently labelled "opinion"? A url ending in .org? A Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq mailing list email by a random person? The American Spectator? ProCon.org? A deadlink to Salon's "35 Countries Where the U.S. Has Supported Fascists, Drug Lords and Terrorists"? A Boston Globe op-ed by two nonspecialists? No!—those are all highly unreliable, FRINGE, spam, garbage sources. (In fact, the aforementioned Sale may be one of the better sources in the citekill above, although NYCJosh carefully avoided the part where Sale writes: "In February 1963 Qasim was killed in a Baath Party coup. Morris claimed recently that the CIA was behind the coup ... but a former very senior CIA official strongly denied this. 'We were absolutely stunned. We had guys running around asking what the hell had happened,' this official said.") Here is what RS actually state:

• Hahn, Peter (2011). Missions Accomplished?: The United States and Iraq Since World War I. Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780195333381. Declassified U.S. government documents offer no evidence to support these suggestions.
• Gibson, Bryan R. (2015). Sold Out? US Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds, and the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. xvii, 58, 200. ISBN 978-1-137-48711-7. However, a careful examination of a wide range of documents and interviews raises important questions about the veracity of these claims as to whether the CIA was behind the 1963 B'athist coup. ... In sum, barring the release of new information, the preponderance of evidence substantiates the conclusion that the CIA was not behind the February 1963 B'athist coup.
• Citino, Nathan J. (2017). "The People's Court". Envisioning the Arab Future: Modernization in US-Arab Relations, 1945–1967. Cambridge University Press. p. 222. ISBN 9781108107556. Although the United States did not initiate the 14 Ramadan coup, at best it condoned and at worst it contributed to the violence that followed. (emphasis added)

Although there are earlier academic sources like Little's 2004 American Orientalism and Wolfe-Hunnicutt 2011 that are sympathetic to the idea that the CIA may have played some role in the coup or its aftermath, based on evidence that they acknowledge is purely circumstantial, no RS supports any of this nonsense from King Hussein of Jordan about the "operations center in Kuwait." (One thesis, by William J. Zeman, did attempt to verify it through both declassified documents and radio logs, and found—you guessed it—nothing!) That's because there remains absolutely no evidence to substantiate Hussein's allegations against the Ba'th (which served the political purpose of deflecting from Hussein's own well-documented ties to the CIA), and serious sources aren't going to make wild claims in the same hysterical style preferred by NYCJosh, but invariably acknowledge uncertainty and complexity. Moreover, the sources listed above appear to represent an emerging academic consensus: Gibson 2015 (p. 57) cites Hahn 2011 but greatly expands on Hahn's analysis; Citino 2017, in turn, accepts Gibson's conclusion that the CIA did not attempt to "incapacitate" Qasim but rather Mahdawi in April 1962 as fact, and bases his entire chapter on Mahdawi around that conclusion. Moreover, while Wolfe-Hunnicutt (albeit with the caveat "that the details of American covert activity in Iraq remain shrouded in mystery, given the limits of available documentation") previously emphasized that "Washington's support [for the coup], on the other hand, (whether material or merely moral) was significant to the ultimate historical outcome," he appeared to back off from such claims in his favorable 2016 review of Sold Out? for The Middle East Journal, stating instead that "the United States has been deeply involved in Iraq since the 1980s." Similarly, Salim Yaqub cites Gibson as "the most detailed and comprehensive study to date of U.S.–Iraqi relations from the late 1950s to the 1970s." Any one of these scholars should be sufficient to WP:TNT NYCJosh's FRINGE spam—let alone all of them.

BTW, according to declassified documents cited by Gibson (pp. 52–54, 57–58, 200), the State Department was warning U.S. diplomats to avoid antagonizing Qasim as late as February 7, 1963—one day before the coup—as doing so could have prompted him to completely break relations with the U.S. and thereby jeopardized a major CIA operation that had penetrated a top-secret Iraqi-Soviet surface-to-air missile project and was yielding crucial intelligence, particularly on Soviet anti-aircraft technology. While the U.S. had been notified of earlier, aborted Ba'thist coup plotting in 1962, these same documents contain no hint of awareness that Qasim would be overthrown in a violent coup 24 hours later. To say the least, this sequence of events does not suggest U.S. involvement.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:26, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

TheTimesAreAChanging, you've got to be kidding. Basically, you're saying that based on your OR, you are in position to disqualify each of the many sources. Cockburn--he is a "polemicist." The Boston Globe--written by non-specialists, so it's "garbage" and "fringe." (Unlike you, I presume, an expert based on your own OR.) Veteran US State Dept staffer Roger Morris published in the NY Times--that's just his opinion. PBS--that's an unreliable source. Slate--oh, the link is broken. King Hussein--no he had a political agenda. UPI--that's just one source. I won't go on with the remaining sources.

More generally, your cavalier approach to sources cited, your wholesale repeated deletions of entire sections based on some special knowledge of the truth are inappropriate for WP.Please consider this your friendly warning, assuming good faith.

I also object to your antagonistic tone to me and other editors. --NYCJosh (talk) 18:39, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

References

Academic sources versus newspapers

This discussion stems from a discussion of the UPI source for the 1959 Iraq and 1963 Iraq sections. On the RS noticeboard, an editor wrote that WP RS policy is that an academic source is preferred when assertions it presents as facts are contradicted by a newspaper article. The UPI expose describes its primary sources as: "United Press International has interviewed almost a dozen former U.S. diplomats, British scholars and former U.S. intelligence officials to piece together the following account. The CIA declined to comment on the report."

So any and all factual assertions in the article could ordinarily be included on WP. However, Gibson, was cited as an academic work that casts doubt on the CIA's role in the 1959 assassination attempt.

(1) Access to Primary Sources. Some of the academic sources cited qualify their omission or denial of the CIA role by saying something to the effect that to the best of their knowledge based on their review of documents available, the CIA was uninvolved. The UPI article was based on investigative reporting. Investigative reporting can get info that academics can't usually get. It had access to primary sources to which the academics did not, including actual US officials who participated in the planning or had other first hand knowledge. It would be difficult for an academic to conduct this kind of investigation. Academics (and I know many) typically don't have the training or the budget to find such people, travel to meet them, etc. Even the sources who are found by an investigative team like the UPI are often reticent to go on the record. Journalists are better trained and trusted to handle such off the record conversations.

(2) Evidence based on covert intel documents. Our discussion concerns covert actions, where CIA paper trails are scant, at least to the public. But even internally within the CIA, typically code words are used and CIA station chiefs are given latitude on choice of methods or are given subtle hints. Plausible deniability is always kept in mind to protect US senior leaders. On the other hand, journalists who find former intel officials often can't give their names, and thus the reader never learns their proximity to the events, their titles, etc. Instead the reader just gets "anonymous sources tell UPI."

(3) WP rules. WP rules appear not to have been designed for this kind of investigative reporting on a covert action being contradicted by an academic source. So we are told that an academic source is more credible than a newspaper article, when the two contradict each other. Of course, it usually is and thus the WP RS rule in this regard works well most of the time. So for example if a newspaper article interviews healers who use crystals and their clients and states that many believe in the power of crystals and believe in their efficacy, providing anecdotal evidence, then it's a good idea to give primacy to an academic source that debunks such claims and explains that studies have found zero evidence. (The previous example I made up entirely.) But that's not the case here, since, again, Gibson never interviewed the US officials to whom UPI had access. It follows that the UPI story is far more credible than an academic like Gibson on this issue.

(4) Facts that are not contradicted at all. The UPI article includes facts regarding events not discussed by Gibson or other cited academics. These assertions are uncontroverted. In fact, the Karsh source tends to corroborate one aspect of it. There is no RS rule basis for not including them. It's not a question of having to prove a negative. If an academic source stated that Saddam was living back in Iraq the entire time during which UPI says he was living in Egypt or living as a Sufi who had renounced all interest in politics than that could undermine, as could many other scenarios. --NYCJosh (talk) 17:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Regime change focus

This big and detailed article seems to include several instances of US interventions that did result in regime change, and even some that were not aimed at that. Given the number of (often quite short) articles on adjacent topics, e.g. Timeline of United States military operations or Foreign interventions by the United States, I wonder if some of the material should be taken out of this article and put in them. For instance:

• The 1846 US–Mexico War was a war over territory, not an attempted regime change; it did not result in regime change.
• 1887–1889 Samoa seems more of an imperialist battle for control, rather than a "regime change", although eventually it resulted in loss of nominal independence
• 1898–1901 China was an intervention in which the US supported the existing regime against a rebellion, so seems like it definitely shouldn't be here; it was a regime preservation intervention
• 1914 Mexico was not a regime change intervention
• 1918 Russia the US was attempting to stop Bolshevik regime change; it was a failed regime preservation intervention
• 1946–1949 China the US was attempting to stop Communist regime change; it was a failed regime preservation intervention
• 1946–1949 Greece the US was attempting to stop Communist regime change; it was a regime preservation intervention
• 1948–1970s Italy: this was interference, but it wasn't regime change
• 1955–1960 Laos: this was a regime preservation intervention
• 1958 Lebanon: this was explicitly a regime preservation intervention
• 1965–66 Dominican Republic: this was explicitly a regime preservation intervention, against Communist regime change
• 1980–1992 El Salvador: ditto
• 1991 Kuwait: I think it is quite a stretch to call this a regime change intervention. The US was defending the sovereignty of Kuwait against a foreign occupation, and chose not to continue the war and depose Saddam.
• 1991–2003 Iraq: This might count, though it wasn't a military intervention, but economic sanctions

BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:18, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

You can't discount a regime change simply because it involves civil war. When the USSR sent troops into various eastern European countries, it was also to defend "existing regimes". The Kurds and Shia were in a state of de facto civil war with Saddam Hussein in 2003, but that is the classic case of regime change.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 14:15, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, GPRamirez5, which of the examples I listed are you referring to? I agree, civil war itself doesn't preclude calling something regime change, but preserving existing regimes surely does? I agree, 2003 Iraq is an obvious example of a regime change intervention - but how was the Boxer Rebellion or Kuwait 1991, for example? BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:23, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Most of this disputed, inaccurate, and misleading content has been added by User:NYCJosh using synthesis. I've long thought that cases of the U.S. supporting established governments against insurgent groups, particularly Greece and El Salvador, have no place in this article. I have also previously challenged NYCJosh regarding the criteria by which he determined that the Gulf War but not the Korean or Vietnam Wars is relevant here, but never received what I considered a satisfactory response. (Arguably only the Korean War might belong, given that allied troops crossed the 38th parallel in an effort to remove the North Korean regime, before being pushed back by the Chinese.) Similarly, I share your confusion over what the Mexican–American War has to do with this topic (although I admittedly can't blame NYCJosh for that long-standing content). Where GPRamirez5 is likely correct is with regard to the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:33, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree that regime preservation is not regime change. But, yes, intervention in Russia was attempted regime change because the Bolsheviks had been in power since November 1917, and the Tsar had been out of power since March. In the case of the Korean War, yes, the US was trying to overthrow the North Korean government and unify the country under Rhee. But if that is regime change, WW1 and 2 should be regime change. For example, US troops invaded Germany and helped remove Hitler!--Jack Upland (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The very first sentence of the article is: "United States involvement in regime change has entailed both overt and covert actions aimed at altering, replacing, or preserving foreign governments." So the article was conceived as encompassing actions aimed at "preserving" regimes against hostile foreign forces or in civil wars or popular rebellions. I have added some content based on this guidance.

It would be silly in my view to argue that intervening in a civil war is a regime change action only when it's on the side of one but not the other. The outcome of the civil war will determine the regime and intervening will help determine it. Also, often the opposition/insurgency declares a new govt and there are rival claims to be THE legitimate govt. It wouldn't make sense from a realistic/political standpoint--it would be overly legalistic--to say it's regime change to intervene in a civil war only if the opponents have declared a rival govt.

In WWII, the US was responding to an armed attack against it in self defense so that's not what is usually thought of under this category.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:44, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I think the civil war point is a fair one, and US support for the Whites in Russia is therefore justified. But if the lede encourages us to include regime preservation in an article about regime change, then there's something wrong. The regime change article quite straightforwardly describes it as "Regime change is the replacement of one government regime with another." The defence of existing governments, whether democratic or dictatorial, is not regime change. So it seems to me sensible to more straightforwardly align the lede with the main regime change article and trim out all the examples that don't fit, on a case by case basis. The alternative, if there's a strong reason for the article to be more capacious, is to change the name, which seems silly. At the moment, we risk WP:SYN, unless we can find reliable sources saying these are examples of regime change, which seems unlikely in many cases. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:19, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

In WWII, the US was responding to an armed attack against it in self defense so that's not what is usually thought of under this category I agree with that. But what about when the US was responding to an armed attack against an ally, in particular one it had a treaty obligation towards? This would be the case with the Kuwait Gulf War, and some of the "banana war" interventions in Honduras for example.BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:23, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I am glad we agree about interventions in civil wars.

Not sure to what treaty obligation you are referring regarding defending Kuwait in 1990-1991 or the Honduras civil war. In any case, my comment focused on self-defense against armed attack against the US. But notwithstanding my reservation, if you want to add regime change in Germany (and Japan?) following WWII, I will not stand in your way. --NYCJosh (talk) 15:33, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

As discussed above, I don't think regime preservation is regime change. I agree that the lead is wrong. I don't think it's different in a civil war. I raised WW2 as a reductio ad absurdum, but it seems arguable. I don't know how "self-defence" is relevant. And I don't see how self-defence is different from defence of an ally. Wikipedia is neutral, so we can't say defeat of Hitler is a good thing, while regime change is a bad thing. Perhaps you are arguing that the US wasn't planning on regime change, but just defending itself. However, I think Roosevelt was planning on regime change. Even though Hitler declared war on the US in solidarity with the Japanese, there was no significant threat to the US from Germany, and US forces certainly had no need to go into Europe to defend themselves. There was no attack on the United States proper. Rather, Japan attacked the US imperial possessions in the Pacific. If this is self-defence, why shouldn't self-defence include the defence of a less formal American empire or the defence of a network of allies? The article says there was regime change in South Korea in 1945, but this was an immediate consequence of the WW2. It is inconsistent that the US occupation of Japan is not treated the same way. There was certainly regime change in Germany, which went beyond simply defeating Hitler. The country was divided. In West Germany, there was a process of denazification. The Communist Party was banned, and the SPD abandoned Marxism. The US has maintained a continuous military presence. The regime in Germany after WW2 was clearly different from the Nazi government, but it was also different from the Weimar Republic. And it is odd that the section on post-war Italy ignores the fact that the US had largely created the political system there.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:19, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about any particular conflict here; I can see arguments either way for WWII. (The arguments for WWII, though, tend to suggest almost any conflict other than border skirmishes could potentially be included as they might lead to regime change?) I'm more concerned about the mismatch between the lede and the title, with the former being massively broader than the latter. Can we agree to tighten the lead, and then to remove instances from the article that definitely don't fit the topic, moving any material and citations to Timeline of United States military operations or Foreign interventions by the United States? BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:40, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the lead should be tightened.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:24, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

please notice US gov's involvement in Tibet in 1950s and in Tiananmen in 1989

In 1950s before the rebellion broke out in Tibet, US government, specifically CIA, has supported several guerillas to intensify the riot and assault PLA. Moreover, the shadow of US government can also be seen throughout the whole Tiananmen Incident in 1989. Hence, I suggest the addition of these 2 links into the sidebar. Johnson.Xia (talk) 07:53, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Feel free to propose contributions if you have good sources to support.--NYCJosh (talk) 01:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

And ideally, I think, one that uses the phrase "regime change" to avoid WP:SYN. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:29, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Egypt 2013?

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/07/06/us-backed-coup-hijacks-egypts-revolution/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwray (talk • contribs) 22:37, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Where is Venezuela?

It would be strange if the United States has not involvement in regime change in Venezuela, especially the current crisis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.68.51.117 (talk) 15:30, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Deleting 2005: Iran?

User "185.125.206.135" deleted the section on "2005: Iran", saying "Iran Topic was based on unreliable information and was simply a lie." That article included citations to ABC News as well as a Seymour Hersh article in The New Yorker and an article on Foreign Policy magazine. I did not check to see if the citations supported the claims made here. However, if user "185.125.206.135" feels that section is inappropriate, s/he will need to provide more evidence than a simple claim that it's "a lie." I'm reverting this change for lack of evidence to support the claim. DavidMCEddy (talk) 15:46, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Recentism?

I'm a bit worried that the section on Venezuela at the end is getting rather inflated due to WP:Recentism. It is now one of the longest (if not the very longest) section in the article, despite not being more noteworthy than eariler more significant events. I think, as per WP:NOTNEWS, as the situation is unfolding, it is safer to keep it lean and flesh it out if necessary when the dust settles. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

WW2 France

Not sure why it's here.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:12, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

It was a regime change. The US was involved.Adoring nanny (talk) 09:15, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I would suggest one sentence saying the USA helped overthrow Hitler.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:35, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

More is needed, per WP:DUE.Adoring nanny (talk) 10:01, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't see why there can be any objection to including this and giving it more than one sentence (the current four or five sentences seems DUE to me, although it should maybe also mention the US role in the end of the Vichy regime too?) as it is a really clear case of US military action helping to topple regimes (the Nazi occupation government and the Vichy puppet government) and helping impose a new one (the Fourth Republic). The only reason not to would be if we consider overthrowing occupations differently from changes to regimes, in which case we need to get rid of the sections on S Korea, China, Greece and the Philippines. Another grey area would be interference in elections once regimes are established, which is what the final (1948+) para of the Italy section is. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:45, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I guess the problem is there was a lot of "regime change" in and after WW2. Based on that we could have a huge amount of text on this. However, this is well-covered in other articles.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:37, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

So shouldn't we at least link to those articles? E.g. a See also tag at the start of the section? BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:43, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. Just added several.Adoring nanny (talk) 12:58, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Map is inaccurate

The map is inaccurate because it ignores US involvement in the removal of multiple Nazi and Japanese regimes during World War 2, as well as the regime changes in Germany and Japan after WW2. It should be fixed or removed. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:54, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Korea

Korea from 1945 is a case of regime change because the Koreans were willing and able to take over the government once Japan was defeated. If the Americans hadn't intervened, it is clear that a different government would have emerged. The subsequent events up to the installation of Syngman Rhee as President are also regime change as they amount to the prevention of any other government.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:53, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

We should cover actual change. Per WP:Crystal, we should not cover what "would have" happened. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:59, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Change is a constant. The difference is between what would have happened without US intervention and what happened because of US intervention. To some extent the future is always unknowable, but certainly we can say that the US government destroyed the new Korean government that was emerging under Lyuh.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:00, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

As soon as you write about what "would have happened", you run afoul of WP:Crystal. The relevant change in South Korea, the one that actually happened, was from the Japanese Administration to the Republic of Korea. If you look at my preferred version, it does cover Lyuh in a fashion consistent with WP:DUE.Adoring nanny (talk) 11:30, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

But necessarily the concept of regime change includes a recognition of what would have happened without the US involvement. If subsequent events would have happened anyway, then there is no change. Change, of necessity, involves conceptualising alternative realities. But nothing in the text I've added includes speculation about things that might have happened. And, furthermore, the period of Japanese Administration to the Republic of Korea, which you call the "relevant change", is from 1945 to 1948, which is exactly the period my text covers. Your preferred version removes a lot of information about the US involvement between 1945 and 1948, including an explanation of why the Division of Korea became permanent. This means the description of the foundation of South Korea is devoid of an explanation as to why it is South Korea. So a lot of the "actual change" is missed out.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:37, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

If we are going to ignore WP:Crystal, what "would have happened without US involvement" is surely a continuation of Japanese rule. Are you arguing that the article should focus on what would have happened with certain portions of US involvement, but without other portions of US involvement?Adoring nanny (talk) 11:13, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

No, I'm supporting the current text, which doesn't involve any crystal ball gazing, as far as I can see.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:39, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

You've twice attempted to justify the additional material by saying it is rooted in an understanding of "what would have happened", and now you are saying that it doesn't involve any WP:Crystal. The bottom line is that your arguments are self-contradictory, which certainly doesn't meet your WP:Burden as the person who adds or restores material. So I'm deleting it. Please recognize that until you meet your WP:Burden, you should not restore the material. Thank you.Adoring nanny (talk) 22:38, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

You have not identified any crystal ball gazing with the previous text. Since you agree that the regime change stretches from 1945 to 1948, there seems no reason you should object to the description of the US involvement in this process. Do you have any specific disagreement with the text you removed? Also, I don't understand why the US defence of the ROK amounts to regime change.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:42, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

The negotiation business is WP:UNDUE. A negotiation is obviously a complex affair with proposals by both sides. Are you going to go into detail about all of them? Lyuh's assassination was not a US action and is again WP:UNDUE. Regarding Rhee and the Korean war, one was a fight against an uprising, the other against an invasion. However the war is more deserving of inclusion because it was a US action, while what Rhee did was not. Additionally, the Korean War is obviously more WP:DUE. Going into depth about Rhee's assiciations is again WP:UNDUE. Rhee was not the regime; he merely won that election. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:18, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

The failure of negotiation led to permanent division of Korea and the establishment of the ROK; hence it is fundamental to regime change. I don't think the war was regime change; it was regime survival. Rhee's associations are notable. It is also notable that his opponents like Lyuh and Kim Koo were assassinated. He was not simply the guy who won the election.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:56, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

You're missing the point and skipping past the reasons I've explained above. I have nothing to add.Adoring nanny (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

What you're claiming about Jack Upland applies to yourself and read about this regime change that did happen, do not double down on your narrative as to not demonstrate that facts/sources about regime change being ignored: United States Army Military Government in Korea — Preceding unsigned comment added by RBL2000 (talk • contribs) 13:49, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Scope (again)

I want to try to re-animate the discussion from last year here on the scope and focus of this article. The title of the article refers to regime change but the lede and current article seem to include other things, such as regime preservation and election interference. Questions include: 1) should the title change to reflect this wider focus?, or 2) should the lead and article be tightened to keep the focus on the topic signalled by the title? Specifically, 3) should the article include regime preservation (e.g. China 1898, Laos 1955-60)? 4) should it include tussles for imperial territory that didn't involve regime change (e.g. Somoa 1887-89)?, 5) should it include support for liberation from occupying powers (e.g. France 1945, Kuwait 1991)?, and 6) should it include election interference, given that (e.g. Italy 1948+)? If the answer is yes to most of questions 3-6, I'd argue the answer to (1) needs to be yes too. If the answer is no to any of 3-6, we need to make sure appropriate material is moved to Timeline of United States military operations or Foreign interventions by the United States before deletion. In the last discussion, I think three of us argued for removing regime preservation actions and tightening the lede in relation to that, with maybe two editors disagreeing, so not really a consensus. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:03, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

While I tend to agree with this in principle, I take issue with your removal if the Indonesian mass killings from the lede. This was PART on the regime change action, in fact the most significant part, and facilitated and encouraged by the US and its allies for the express purpose of regime change. Giving it more thought, perhaps this is preferable and provides proper context in terms of the scope of the article, especially given the details of how the US was complicit in this regime change are still provided in the body.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• According to this Foreign Policy article by Stephen M. Walt, failed attempts at regime change count as involvement in regime change. See its Suez 1950s section and Yemen 1960s section.

  For the US, he names recent scheming in Somalia, Yemen and Syria as involvement in regime change.

GPRamirez5 (talk) 19:04, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I totally agree that failed attempts at regime change should be included. (Obviously not those two cases, as US wasn't involved, but I don't think that's what you're saying!) My question (3) is about when the US involvement is in regime preservation, successful or failed. BobFromBrockley (talk) 20:22, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• L.A. O'Rourke's book Covert Regime Change, published by Cornell University Press, includes almost all the Cold War examples here under regime change, as presented on a list on page 3. On page 107, it explicitly says that "In 1947, Truman launched the first preventive regime changes of the Cold War to ensure that communist parties would not win democratic elections in Italy and France." So no, those are regime changes not "regime preservations." GPRamirez5 (talk) 21:04, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

IMO the main thing is that the title should drive the content. The phrase "regime change" denotes a change of the regime. So anything that is unambiguously a change of regime should be included, regardless of whether sources describe it as a liberation, a revolution, a coup, or whatever else. Other things you are arguable, such as whether or not an election is a regime change, whether or not attempted regime change should count, regime preservation, and so forth. So on those issues, the main thing is consistency. I don't think it should depend on finding a source that describes one of the above as "regime change". Just try to treat analogous situations similarly.Adoring nanny (talk) 23:07, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• "I don't think it should depend on finding a source that describes one of the above as 'regime change'" Actually, reliable sources is exactly what it should depend on. Any methodology that doesn't find RS refuting the classifications found in the Walt and O'Rourke scholarship is in violation of WP:VERIFY from the outset.GPRamirez5 (talk) 00:12, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Verifiability is not about finding particular words. It's about verifiability of events. For example, suppose you find an article that says "Joe shot John. John died of his wounds the next day." It would be entirely correct to write an article that said "Joe killed John", even though the source didn't use the word "killed". Just apply a little WP:COMMON.Adoring nanny (talk) 01:06, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

• "Verifiability is not about finding particular words. It's about verifiability of events." That's a distinction without a difference: in encyclopedias, words are how historical events are represented. GPRamirez5 (talk) 01:18, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Is it your position that if, for example, a source were to say "The X Government of country Y was deposed by a CIA-supported coup", that this would not be a case of US-supported regime change, since neither the phrase "United States" nor the phrase "regime change" appeared?Adoring nanny (talk) 11:38, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

• No. But ironically that seems to be your position. GPRamirez5 (talk) 01:23, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time assuming good faith here. What is the value of attacking me for supposedly arguing the opposite of what I have been arguing? Adoring nanny (talk) 09:04, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

• I'm sorry if you're feeling attacked, but all I did was answer your question and make an observation about the irony of your thought experiment.GPRamirez5 (talk) 13:19, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

What irony? As I have been arguing, the phrase "regime change" is not relevant. What is relevant is whether or not there was such an event, not the words one uses to describe it. My example was a case of regime change, adequately sourced, but without the phrase. As you appear to agree, at least in the context of the example, the relevance comes from the event, even when the phrase is lacking. If you agree with the example, why the disagreement with saying it in words?Adoring nanny (talk) 14:10, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Venezuela

Jamez42 reverted the addition of post-1998 Venezuela, claiming that "support of opposition is not regime change." Not only is it generally understood to be such, it is widely understood to be the case particularly with the US and Venezuela.. This well-documented material should be restored immediately.GPRamirez5 (talk) 22:59, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@GPRamirez5: The Venezuelan government has accused the US of attempting a regime change for nearly 20 years. As early as 1999, when there were massive mudslides in the north country during the Vargas tragedy, Chávez rejected help from the United States. There are countless accusations of coup attempts, assassination plots, sabotage, etc, most of the times without providing proof. Sadly this has also been used to dismiss or persecute the opposition, including groups financed by the National Endowment for Democracy, and as a scapegoat for protests. My fear is that due to recentism the section is hastly included; the earliest Venezuelan events that the Bloomberg refers to are from 2018, and parallels are only drawn between government recognition, not regime change. In short, this is a lot different from, say, CIA financement or operations. Please notify me the next time I'm involved in the matter. --Jamez42 (talk) 00:22, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

• "...the earliest Venezuelan events that the Bloomberg refers to are from 2018, and parallels are only drawn between government recognition, not regime change." That is blatantly false Jamez42. The Bloomberg article reads "[Maduro's] critics inside and outside the country have talked for years of regime change."GPRamirez5 (talk) 17:24, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

References

@GPRamirez5: Precisely, that sentence doesn't specify any events either. --Jamez42 (talk) 20:43, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

• And let the record show that contrary to these sad arguments, the source for the section was not Chavez, nor any Chavistas, but The Washington Post, one of the most anti-Chavez organs in the hemisphere.GPRamirez5 (talk) 12:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Defining the arguments as "sad" is unnecessary; I ask you to please refrain from it. The Washington Post details about National Endowment for Democracy, USAID and OTI financement, the recognition of Juan Guaidó and the threat of military intervention, not the "coup attempts, assassination plots, sabotage" that I have explained before; in short, regime change. The article was even written this year, which confirms part of my fear about recentism. Namely, the section focused on Guaidó as the sole leader that arised from the student movements, were there have been several others such as Yon Goicoechea, Stalin González, Freddy Guevara, Miguel Pizarro and Daniel Ceballos. --Jamez42 (talk) 16:55, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

• To clarify, User:James42, in your learned opinion, delegitimizing an established government and threatening it with military invasion do not constitute involvement with regime change. A very unique and telling definition.GPRamirez5 (talk) 01:41, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Please treat other users with respect. Thank you.Adoring nanny (talk) 02:21, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Quoting from the article's lead, no "alteration, replacement, or preservation" of said foreign government has taken place. I can argue that the United States has not been the only country to not recognize Maduro as the president of Venezuela, if it helps, and it has been discussed in other talk pages how a military invervention is unlikely. Elliott Abrams even admitted in a prank call that he dismisses the option. In any case, if it is argued that these, indeed, constitute involvement in regime change, then it must be reasoned here. Only one of the four paragraphs of the removed section mentioned "delegitimizing an established government and threatening it with military invasion"; the others did no mention of it whatsoever, meaning that if a section of Venezuela is to be included, it should not talk about of all of its 20 recent years. I also ask to please use a more respectful tone not only in your comments, but also your edit summaries, since this isn't the first time that you have used it. --Jamez42 (talk) 12:51, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

• User:Jamez42, I've treated you with the level of respect appropriate to someone who misrepresented the Bloomberg article as not mentioning regime change. I also notice that you misrepresented The Washington Post article as only mentioning Guaido, when in fact it specifically mentions Stalin González and Freddy Guevara as student leaders—and Washington clients.GPRamirez5 (talk) 11:15, 18 April 2019 (UTC)