Talk:Carolyn Wood

This article was nominated for deletion on October 14, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

Sources?

I have edited the article to address specifically the wording of "slowly beaten to death" and the claim that"the doctor who performed his post-mortem said his legs were so badly injured they would have had to have been amputated, if he had lived". I can't find any sources to verify the amputation claim, but would be comfortable for this to be reinstated if sources can be found. Anybody?? --Cactus.man [[User talk:Cactus.man|

✍]] 10:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I read it in the New York Times :Army Details Scale of Abuse of Prisoners in an Afghan Jail

The attacks on Mr. Dilawar were so severe that "even if he had survived, both legs would have had to be amputated," the Army report said, citing a medical examiner.

It also says:

But among those mentioned in the new reports is Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, the chief military intelligence officer at Bagram. The reports conclude that Captain Wood lied to investigators by saying that shackling prisoners in standing positions was intended to protect interrogators from harm. In fact, the report says, the technique was used to inflict pain and sleep deprivation.

Since the NYTimes requires a subscription to read articles that are more than about two weeks old, that link above should not work. I don't know why it does. -- Geo Swan 12:12, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I am also not sure why the link works, but it seems to, no complaints here. That is one reason why I didn't list sourcewatch.org in the external links. It just gives protected NYT page links for the sources. Seems reasonable to me to to cite this 'working' source in the article though. --Cactus.man [[User talk:Cactus.man|

✍]] 12:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Isn't Jehl a Controversial Source

Given that the secondary news articles cite to the Congressional Record, which is an original source online, why not use the CR instead of an article by Jehl at the NY Times. Jehl appears to be on a right-wing NYT watch list [1] and after their own sourcing scandals, the NYT itself is no longer considered an unimpeachable source, even by moderates. If this article were to survive AfD, then it will have to be re-written due to POV. Why not go back to the original public domain sources and avoid stories by writers with an agenda? Joaquin Murietta 14:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I found a link to the entire testimony quoted by the NY Times. The NY Times quotes from the Senate Armed Service Committee hearing are, IMO, completely fair in their representation of its discussion of Wood's role. I'll add it later tonight.

You haven't explained why we should put more trust in your site that monitors the NY Times than we would in the NY Times itself. -- Geo Swan 23:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

POV clean up needed

Essentially this article, like all the others, sources from the press releases of defense counsel. Those press releases end up in the newspapers. This is not a criticism of Clive, he is doing what lawyers do. The issue is whether an encyclopedia loses credibility by becoming a megaphone for one point of view. Joaquin Murietta 23:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm reverting both images that have been posted. One is an obvious smear, although ironic since it is Captain Wood who is fighting modern day Nazis. The other is from an unknown source. The tag claims that it's a promotional image but without a source there can be no promotion. And since it was posted by the same user who posted the smear, I have doubts about its integrity. -- Randy2063 16:31, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

The image of the blond woman with Captain's bars is Captain Wood. I recognize her from the recent CBC documentary on Abu Ghraib. I suspect that the image is a screenshot from that documentary. I wrote a note to the person who posted it, recommending the use the screenshot tag, not the promotional tag. -- Geo Swan 21:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Bio stub issues

The bio facts are totally missing. The Bronze star mention doesn't identify if this is a combat-v or not. Date of birth is missing. Education is missing. Joaquin Murietta 23:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

My recollection is that Captain Wood has been described as being 34 years old. (unsigned comment)

questioning the disputed facts notice

The disputed facts notice says:

"The dispute is about Pre-trial detention in Guantanmo Bay."

Wood is said to have played a central role in the Bagram abuse scandal, and in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. But her only involvement in Guantanamo Bay was her discussions with General Miller and his aides when he came to offer his advice from Guantanamo to American forces in Iraq.

The disputed facts notice says:

"Accuracy and NPOV issues exist with respect to the republishing of press releases and other statements issued by defense counsel on behalf of a group of clients.."

I'd like to invite more specificity here. Much of the article is based on court martial testimony, not defense counsel press releases. -- Geo Swan 23:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to invite more specificity here. -- Why not say, I invite instead of I'd like to invite. Joaquin Murietta 23:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

If you have links to the court martial testimony, put them here--------------------------->

• Whose court martial?

• Press reports initially said that 28 GIs were under investigation. Charges are being laid against them slowly. 14 have been charged, so far.
• list from the Dallas Fort Worth Star Tribune

• Sgt. James P. Boland, of the reserve 377th Military Police Company in Cincinnati
• Spc. Brian Cammack, of the 377th MP
• Pfc. Willie V. Brand, of the 377th MP
• Sgt. Anthony Morden, of the 377th MP
• Sgt. Christopher W. Greatorex, of the 377th MP
• Sgt. Darin M. Broady, of the 377th MP
• Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, commander of the 377th MP
• Staff Sgt. Brian L. Doyle, of the 377th MP
• Sgt. Duane M. Grubb, of the 377th MP
• Sgt. Alan J. Driver, of the 377th MP
• Spc. Nathan Adam Jones, of the 377th MP
• Spc. Glendale C. Walls, of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion from Fort Bragg, N.C.
• Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, of the 519th MI Battalion
• Sgt. Joshua Claus, of the 519th MI Battalion
• Pfc. Damien M. Corsetti, of the 519th MI Battalion
• Geo Swan 16:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Date?

• Ongoing. The last charge was laid just a couple of weeks ago. -- Geo Swan 16:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Who were the judges?

• Various. -- Geo Swan 16:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• where was it helt?

• Those in Captain Wood's old outfit were, I believe, court-martialed in Fort Bragg. -- Geo Swan 16:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Which branch of military?

• Army -- Geo Swan 16:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• What was result?

• Various. Many had the charges dropped. There were some fines. The harshest sentence so far was five months imprisonment, reduction in rank to private, and a bad-conduct discharge. Only seven have finished their courts-martial. -- Geo Swan 16:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Was it open to the media?

• I believe so. -- Geo Swan 16:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Links or URLS to transcript of proceedings (as opposed to press releases)

• I have already provided a number of specific links to the passages in official inquiries that address Captain Wood's role.

Joaquin Murietta 23:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Rename this article?

(As of today: Rename - 2, As is 2) Joaquin Murietta 16:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC) Comment moved below Joaquin Murietta 16:05, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Please vote or comment here on renaming this article to The case against Carolyn Wood

1. Rename It is now November and this article is still posted for cleanup. Most of the information in the article is an argument that Carolyn Wood has broken the law. There has been no effort to create a true bio for Carolyn Wood. In the past month, new, poorly-written, articles have been created on the Guantanamo Bay, the prisoners and the lawyers, soldiers and other people involved. I have rewritten a bunch of them, particularly the shoddy stubs about "prominent" lawyers, but this Wood article should perhaps be renamed "The case against Carolyn Wood'? Of course she has never been been charged or court-martialed, but the new title would be a more accurate representation of the true subject of this article. Joaquin Murietta 16:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• Are there any precedents for JM's suggestion of renaming an article about someone in this way? I don't think that JM's new name suggests a neutral point of view.

• Rather than use innuendo, I would prefer that JM state their concerns about other's contributions in a civil, specific manner. I have assured JM, many times, that I will give any serious, civil, specific questions they have serious, civil, specific answers.

• In the interests of transparency and clarity I will point out something JM neglected to record here. On October 14th JM initiated an {afd} on this article. The justification they gave was that it did not conform to the NPOV policy. This was a violation of wiki policy. A perceived POV is not grounds for deletion. Further, they had made no attempt to identify which parts of the article they thought did not conform to a NPOV. Several people asked them why they initiated an {afd} over perceived POV. But they did not attempt to answer.

• Less than two hours after the result of the {afd} was a keep, they applied an inaccurate and inappropriate {accuracy} tag.

• Wood has practically nothing to do with the unfolding Guantanamo scandal. Her only tie to Guantanamo is that she would have met Geoffrey Miller, the commandant of the camp in Cuba, and his team, when they visited Abu Ghraib.
• The {accuracy} tag complains about republishing defense counsel press releases. But the documents cited in the article are not defense counsel press releases. They are the reports of official US military inquiries.

• JM is also the contributor who applied the {cleanup} tag. I believe that the proper use of these tags oblige a contributor to set out, in a civil, serious, specific manner, why they apply. -- Geo Swan 17:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Rename It would be more honest, as this has become a loonfest kangaroo court. But you might as well stay out of this, JM, at least for the moment. We can hope that those who read this article will recognize its extreme nature for what it is. There will be time enough to do some editing in the weeks to come. -- Randy2063 19:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

In response to a remark about the above post, I should clarify that there was no insult intended in my use of the term loonfest. It applies to no one in particular. I'm seeing it as one article in a tide of propaganda. Contrast this to the one on Juma Mohammed Abdul Latif Al Dossary: He generally gets a presumption of innocence while she gets a presumption of guilt. If we were to study only Wikipedia, we might get the impression that most prisoners in this war are innocent, and that it's Carolyn Wood who belongs in prison.

That's particularly ironic, given that most of the claims against her are from guards trying to deflect attention after they've been charged with actual crimes. She hasn't, nor does it appear that she should be.

Randy2063 20:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Nonsensical Suggestion

This article is about a person, not a forthcoming trial or pending charge. Your suggestion to rename it is nonsensical and I will not be 'voting'. The subject of the article is the person, not any non existent 'case'. If you disagree with the content, fix it, do not waste time and energy with spurious renaming proposals.

As for your application of the {{Disputeabout|}} tag, you state in the reasoning:

Pre-trial detention in Guantanmo Bay. Accuracy and NPOV issues exist with respect to the republishing of press releases and other statements issued by defense counsel on behalf of a group of clients.

What connection does this article have to any of the matters outlined in your reasoning? Wood was not stationed in Guantanamo, there are no 'defense counsel press releases and other statements' and there is no 'group of clients'. Cut and paste is a powerful double edged sword, use it with care. Please explain clearly exactly where, and what specific content there is in the article that you dispute, with relevant reasons. Failing that, I intend to remove the tag. --Cactus.man [[User talk:Cactus.man|

✍]] 12:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Cactus Man. I agree completely.

Plus, the very phrase, "pretrial detention" implies a highly biased POV.

• The detainees are not being held awaiting trial.
• Only nine of the detainees have been charged. And they were not charged in a real court of law.
• They will be judged using secret evidence their attorney's won't have a meaningful chance to refute.
• Three of the initial JAG attorneys initially slated to serve as prosecutors requested reassignment when the chief prosecutor promised them that all the evidence that would serve to clear the defendants would be classified, so the defense attorneys couldn't get access to it.
• The allegations against some of the detainees, as revealed in their combatant status review tribunals, are laughably, tissue thin.

• "You were traveling wearing a watch from the same manufacturer as that used to manufacture the timers in time-bombs." Yes, like 100,000,000 other innocent people.
• "An alias of your name was found on an al Qaida hard drive". Gareth Hughes, the fellow who provided some of the Arabic versions of the names of some of the people we are interested in, has given us an indication as to how tricky tranliterating Arabic names are.
• "You were friends with someone we had under surveillance".

• To call their detention "pretrial detention" is an insult to the principles of the rule of law and the presumption of innocence. -- Geo Swan 18:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with most of what you say, but the key point in relation to this talk page is that none of these issues relate whatsoever to the Carlyn Wood article. She has no direct connection to the Guantanamo detainees. I think the points you make could well be perfectly valid on the various detainee articles that JM has 'splatter-gunned' with his "pretrial detention" tags, but I don't think that they really apply to this page. It appears that JM has simply pasted his pretrial detention "template" across here without really checking the context. --Cactus.man [[User talk:Cactus.man|

✍]] 19:55, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Misuse of the {disputeabout} tag

JM revised their {disputeabout} tag today.

• JM still claims there are POV concerns with the article.
• Yet JM still has not made a meaningful good faith attempt to specifically identify any POV issues they have about this article in this, or any other talk page.

JM, perhaps you don't realize it, but by slapping on essentially identical {disputeabout} tags to half a dozen articles, without making any meaningful attempt to identify what you consider POV, you are giving the appearance of a lack of good faith.

That is easily fixed. Just start making the effort to be specific about what you think is POV. -- Geo Swan 18:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

1. assume good faith 2. You have not responded to the thoughtful comments I put on several talk pages. 3. When I edit your articles, you get mad and stomp around. 4. I rewrote several of them, but but it takes too much time and your tantrums are wearing. 5. My problem with your articles is that you create dozens of them, mispellings, misplaced commas, dangling participles, and all. Your sources are often the press releases from defense attorneys. Or cagedprisoners.org. There are POV issues. There are spelling issues. The articles need work. Lots of work. Why don't you ask for some formal peer review? Why not write one good article a day instead of five stubs? Joaquin Murietta 08:23, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Another reason why this article is sub-standard

I have removed the second of two unsourced images posted by a new user. User:Geo Swan has been aware of the issue, has posted on the new user's talk page, but did not use the customary warning tags and apparently feels it is A-OK to use unsourced and copyvio images to further his obsession with Carolyn Wood. The images are:

• Image:She Wolf of the SS.jpg This is one of two photos uploaded by a new user User:Whosyourdaddy to support a tagged article Carolyn Wood. This one is obviously from a copyright source, the cover of a DVD on Amazon [2]
• Image:Carolynwood.jpg This is one of two photos uploaded by a new user User:Whosyourdaddy to support a tagged article Carolyn Wood. This one is unsourced but purports to be released. No source is given for the image.

Joaquin Murietta 14:11, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I removed it again after it was replaced again by User:24.86.172.42. I'm beginning to regret removing the other one when it first appeared (Image:She Wolf of the SS.jpg) as that could serve as an additional warning to readers as to the nature of this article. -- Randy2063 15:50, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Huh? What are you talking about, it seems to be a copyright violation and can't be used. What "warning" do readers need? --203.98.138.164 16:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The real picture of Captain Wood is a screenshot. As such, if properly tagged, it would qualify as fair use, not a {copy-vio}. -- Geo Swan 19:17, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

JM, do you think it would be possible for you to make contributions to the articles that we are both interested in, without making malicious comments about my contributions? Characterizing me as "obsessed" is a personal attack. You know full well you shouldn't make that kind of assertion. Similarly, calling the presence of an unsourced image my "tacit use" of the image is also a personal attack. How exactly is the use of unsourced images here my responsibility? -- Geo Swan 19:17, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

GS, Read my lips: "tacit use" is not a personal attack. Calling me a "bandit" is a personal attack. Posting the S&M video photo of a porn star on the Carolyn Wood webpage is also a personal attack, not only on Wood, but on the fragile Wikipedia community. 23:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

preceding unsigned comment was posted by User:Joaquin Murietta

JM, did you mean to suggest I had something to do with the posting of the picture from "Ilsa she-wolf of the SS" on the Carolyn Wood page? I believe you know I had absolutely nothing to with the posting of either of those images.

Calling me "obsessed" is clearly a personal attack. As I said above, we both know you know you should not make that kind of assertion.

I never called you a bandit, or a "mexican bandit", or a "right-wing cuban" I have already pointed out to you that I have never made any kind of personal attack on you.

Concerning attacks on the fragile Wikipedia community -- you don't consider your baseless attacks on me, my character, my honesty, damaging to the Wikipedia community? -- Geo Swan 15:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I am so tired of you following me around and trying to piss me off. Joaquin Murietta 05:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Misuse of the {dispute} tag

User:Joaquin Murietta keeps placing {dispute} tags on this and other articles that are related to the US "war on terror". Dispute tags say:

"The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page."

But JM doesn't make a meaningful effort to offer an defensible explanations as to what aspects of the articles he feels are in dispute. I've called on him for explanations of what he considers under dispute.

Earlier today JM went and removed the sources section from this article. He removed it without explanation. Then a few hours later he placed a dispute tag on the article. Note what he said on October 16:

"...Why not go back to the original public domain sources..."

Well, I showed my good faith by complying with his request. Rather than cite the interpretations of Captain Wood's role in newspaper articles I went and read official inquiries. It was a lot of work. Those official inquiries found evidence, and drew conclusions, that JM may not like reading. But, if he wants to dispute them, I call on him to find comparably authoritative sources that draw different conclusions. If he can't do that I think his placing of the {dispute} tag is simply indefensible.

Removing my notes to the authoritative sources he requested I use, and then slapping on a dispute tag, invites readers who share his POV to dismiss or attack the conclusions in the article as unsubstantiated, when they were substantiated, from highly authoritative sources.

JM's first comment on this article was when he initiated the {afd} procedure on it. Note: JM violated the {afd} procedure by attempting to justify the afd on the basis that the topic was "inherently POV". The rules for {afd} are clear. POV disputes are not grounds for deletion. Note: Typically, JM didn't even make a token effort to try to outline what he considers instances of biased POV then. He still hasn't made a meaningful effort. I believe that by placing a {dispute} or {npov} tag he undertakes a responsility to be specific about what prompted him to place the tag. Note JM's earlier highly bogus {dispute} tags.

Note a comment JM left on this talk page prior to his recent indefensible edits. He writes as if I am engaged in some kind of childish grudge match. My contributions to the wikipedia are all motivated by having its coverage be full, fair, and comprehensive. Like other sincere wikipedia contributors I aim to confine my contributions to a neutral point of view. I won't claim that I reach this goal, 100% of the time. But I think I do an okay job. I listen to other contributors who can cite specific instances where I fall short of an NPOV. JM can't or won't cite specific instances where he thinks I fall short of NPOV.

With regard to his recent assertion that I follow him around -- I believe the record clearly shows that JM follows my edits, and not vice versa. There was a period when every time I edited an article I was aware there was a very high chance that he would invoke the {afd} procedure on it. During that time he filed a new {afd} on articles I started every day. -- Geo Swan 23:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)