Talk:William Francis Buckley

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on March 16, 2015, March 16, 2019, and March 16, 2024.

changed the piece regarding the circumstances of his death

I changed the piece regarding the circumstances of his death, see 'Den of Lions' by Terry Anderson

According to the article, Islamists are members of "fundamentalist, puritanical Islamic revival movements". Do we know for certain that the people who kidnaped Buckley were puritanical? Are all terroristic Islamic political movements Islamist?

Yes, indeed, User:Khym Chanur, part of the definition of terroristic Islamic political movements is that they are "Islamist"? Not much room for a quibble here. Not every facet of 'Islamic' culture, however, is 'Islamist' User:Wetman

However, the Wikipedia difinition for Islamist includes "puritanical". Are all terroristic Islamic political movements necessarily puritanical? If not, then the definition for Islamism needs to be changed. -- Khym Chanur 07:22, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)

- where is the source for the idea that he was taken to Iran and tortured by "Imad Mugniyah"? Why then would Iran go to all the trouble to take his remains and dump them by an airport road in Beirut?

Cause of Death

I've modified blatant mistakes in this biography. Although this story has been told in several books, there is no substantial evidence that Buckley was tortured for 444 days and then killed. On the contrary, public archives of the National Security Council show that he died of natural causes after his kidnapping, and that Hezbollah announced an execution afterwards (like for the French hostage Michel Seurat). Please see the reference I've added and if you disagree I can send you the NSC document. JB 021607

Natural causes doesn't pass the smell test for me. You say you have a source. 156.56.193.97 01:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Convenient how there is no mention of his treatment as a captive. A minimal amount of research, or interviews with released Hezbollah hostages will reveal poor treatment. --unsourced

Hmm, everything I've read indicates that he died of either pneumonia or cardiac arrest, to which he was no doubt made susceptible due to the sustained application "Torture Lite" practices which the CIA/DoD (or umm excuse me, certain "bad apples" operating under the auspices of same) deem to be just hunky-dory when dealing with the Enemies of Freedom. I'll leave it to others to pull up footnotes, but anyway, to say that he was either executed or "tortured to death" (without the qualification that death was probably unintended, as he was certainly highly valuable as a bargaining chip) is pure propoganda. Whiskey Pete 02:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, he was susceptible to cardiac arrest or pneumonia. Like catching a cold or the measles? It is more accurate to say the torturing lead to death. If Hezbollah does it, then captured Hezbollah agents are eligible for the same treatment. Angry bee (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

implausible assertion, re: CIA retaliation

I'm taking the liberty of removing this assertion from the main article:

The CIA retaliated on 8th March 1985 by planting a car bomb with the intention of assassinating Hezbollah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini. Fadlallah escaped unhurt but at least 80 people were killed in the explosion. This was followed by more kidnapping of Westerners and the hijacking a month later of a TWA airliner. ^[1]

not because it'd be out of character to the CIA (or "The Secret Team", or whoever) to have done this, but simply because it sounds as if either the contributor who added this, and/or the author of the book in question, is confused about the timeline here -- Woodward et al assert that this carbombing was a retaliation for the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, not the Buckley killing, and anyway Buckley was still alive by June 1985, and believed to have been alive as late as October, 1985. Whiskey Pete 21:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC) ... and Fadlallah is NOT Hezbollah's spiritual leader: Khomeyni and Khamenei are. As a matter of fact, Fadlallah is even very likely to disagree with the doctrin of velayet et-faqih, on which Hezbollah was built. JB 032607[reply]

Peraino, Kevin (2008-02-16). "The Death of Terror's Pioneer". Newsweek. Mugniyah … is suspected of … 1984 kidnapping of the CIA's Beirut station chief, William Buckley. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Bakri, Nada; Bowley, Graham (November 3, 2008). "Top Hezbollah operative is killed in Syria". The New York Times. The United States have also asserted Mughniyeh was behind the torture and murder of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984 … {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
"Profile: Imad Mugniyah". Council on Foreign Relations. Experts believe he is the main architect of nearly all of the major operations conducted by Hezbollah. They include: … kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s, including that of William Buckley, a CIA station chief, in 1984. … {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |deadurl= (help)
Schuh, Trish (February 21, 2008). "Inside Hezbollah Leader Imad Mughniyeh's Funeral". Esquire. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |deadurl= (help)
OMER-MAN, MICHAEL (2012-03-11). "This Week in History: CIA agent kidnapped in Lebanon". Jerusalem Post. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |deadurl= (help)
Stein, Jeff (January 31, 2015). "How the CIA Took Down Hezbollah's Top Terrorist, Imad Mugniyah". Newsweek. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |deadurl= (help)
Goldman, Adam; Nakashima, Ellen (January 30, 2015). "CIA and Mossad killed senior Hezbollah figure in car bombing". The Washington Post. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |deadurl= (help)

~~ Xb2u7Zjzc32 (talk) 01:32, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Darwish, Adel (1991). Unholy Babylon, The Secret History of Saddam's War. Victor Gollenz Ltd London. ISBN 0-7881-5108-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) pg 64

Place of birth

Is it Medford or Bedford? 21:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Do people like Buckley get to have a life and death beyond the military?

Anything more personal about him? Just a question. LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 05:14, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They can have a briefly stated education and a very brief family arficle. His wife's name, names of children. Just so it is clearly focused on Buckley and not on his (for instance) alma mater. Student7 (talk) 18:38, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We aren't interested in his hobbies, for example! Student7 (talk) 18:39, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because he wasn't human, of course. Just another robot built in a some factory to complete some list of tasks before termination. Am I right? Angry bee (talk) 06:14, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather see his hobbies than the names of family members who could be put in danger. Mannanan51 (talk) 01:59, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the same, reading this, but of course wondered that as a spook, he would have kept his family, if he even had one, as undercover as possible, so his personal life as an adult wouldn't exactly be all over sources that Wikipedia could find. Remember, Wikipedia is a volunteer thing, so who would want to go to the trouble of digging up his personal life? Billyshiverstick (talk) 04:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Casey and Shackley

I have removed the following passage from the article:

William Casey, who was by then the director of Central Intelligence, asked Ted Shackley for help in securing Buckley's release.^[1] Three weeks after Buckley's abduction, President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 138. This directive was drafted by Oliver North and outlined plans on how to get the American hostages released from Iran and to "neutralize" alleged "terrorist threats" from countries such as Nicaragua.^[2] This new secret counter-terrorist task force was to be headed by Shackley's old friend, General Richard Secord. This was the beginning of the Iran–Contra affair, which culminated in the exchange of missiles for the release of hostages.^[1]

First of all, spartacus-educational.com is not a reliable source per various discussions at WP:RSN and the second and third sentences do not have anything to do with Buckley. Secondly, this is not even close to an accurate representation of Shackley's involvement with Iran-Contra or the attempts to release Buckley. As the Iran-Contra report notes on pp. 88-89, Manucher Ghorbanifar told Shackley in late 1984 that it might be possible to release Buckley. Shackley forwarded that information to the State Department, but they had already rejected the ransom plan. In March 1985, Michael Ledeen asked Shackley (in Shackley's words): "You spend a lot of time covering the Middle East. Have you got any bright ideas on how to get the hostages out?" Shackley told him about the report that he filed with the State Department (see pp. 202-203 of Shackley's testimony). TIME mentioned all of this here. Also see Shackley's account published in The Washington Post. -Location (talk) 16:12, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]