Changes

#It's article on left-wing conspiracy theorist John Pilger uncritically regurgitates his claim that the US and UK armed and aided the Khmer Rouge, without ever mentioning the "very substantial" libel damages he had to pay in England for promulgating the fantasy.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger#Vietnam</ref>

#It's article on left-wing conspiracy theorist John Pilger uncritically regurgitates his claim that the US and UK armed and aided the Khmer Rouge, without ever mentioning the "very substantial" libel damages he had to pay in England for promulgating the fantasy.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger#Vietnam</ref>

#Its article on "Covert US Regime Change" explicitly denied that any human rights violations had ever been committed by the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua at all--until August 18,2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions&diff=379631015&oldid=379603484</ref>  On September 3, most of the changes were censored on the grounds that they were "irrelevant" "allegations".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions&action=history</ref>  Wikipedia has endorsed the results of the rigged 1984 election, as well.  Its article on the election repeats conspiracy theories from discredited genocide deniers like Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in support of the ridiculous claim.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_general_election,_1984</ref>

#Its article on "Covert US Regime Change" explicitly denied that any human rights violations had ever been committed by the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua at all--until August 18,2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions&diff=379631015&oldid=379603484</ref>  On September 3, most of the changes were censored on the grounds that they were "irrelevant" "allegations".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions&action=history</ref>  Wikipedia has endorsed the results of the rigged 1984 election, as well.  Its article on the election repeats conspiracy theories from discredited genocide deniers like Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in support of the ridiculous claim.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_general_election,_1984</ref>

#In the nineties, President Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was quoted in an obscure French paper as "admitting" that America secretly armed the mujahedeen before the Russian invasion of Afghanistan to deliberately provoke such a response.  He subsequently stated that the interview was a fabrication, and the paper conceded that he had never been recorded making the claim.<ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjAsQJh7OM</ref> Declassified government documents have proven this allegation was a lie.<ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1581.jpg</ref><ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1579.jpg</ref>  Unbelievably, Wikipedia has repeatedly and profusely endorsed this baseless assertion over and over again in every article it has on the Soviet war in Afghanistan (except its main article on Afghanistan, which a mainstream audience might read).  Its article on Brzezinski stated as a ''fact'' that he oversaw "the arming of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet-allied Afghan government to increase the probability of Soviet invasion and later entanglement in a Vietnam-style war" as recently as May 24, 2010.  Attempts to edit this claim on "Covert US Regime Change" were censored, though not removed entirely, on September 3, 2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions&diff=382589083&oldid=382588359</ref> The reason given was: "Major French newssource is RS and can be stated as accurate quote." Things got so bad that Wikipedia's article on Brzezinski claimed that he was a "Luciferian eugenicist" and a "supervillain, faux-sorcerer" and "vampire" on June 23, 2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Brzezinski&diff=369643368&oldid=369642935</ref>

#In the nineties, the "Progressive South Asia Exchange Net," claiming to cite an article in Le Nouvel Observateur, asserted that U.S. policy in Afghanistan during the seventies was part of a larger strategy of aiming "to induce a Soviet military intervention" in that country by arming the mujahideen prior to the Soviet invasion.<ref>http://www.proxsa.org/resources/9-11/Brzezinski-980115-interview.htm</ref> Declassified government documents have proven this allegation was a lie:  Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980.<ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1581.jpg</ref><ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1579.jpg</ref>  Unbelievably, Wikipedia has repeatedly and profusely endorsed this baseless assertion over and over again in every article it has on the Soviet war in Afghanistan (except its main article on Afghanistan, which a mainstream audience might read).  Its article on National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski stated as a ''fact'' that he oversaw "the arming of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet-allied Afghan government to increase the probability of Soviet invasion and later entanglement in a Vietnam-style war" as recently as May 24, 2010.  Attempts to edit this claim on "Covert US Regime Change" were censored, though not removed entirely, on September 3, 2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions&diff=382589083&oldid=382588359</ref>  Things got so bad that Wikipedia's article on Brzezinski claimed that he was a "Luciferian eugenicist" and a "supervillain, faux-sorcerer" and "vampire" on June 23, 2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Brzezinski&diff=369643368&oldid=369642935</ref> In reality, Leonid Brezhnev publicly stated that the Soviet offensive was the culmination of a change in the "global correlation of forces" resulting from US defeat in the Vietnam War<ref>http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/0823iraq_rodman.aspx</ref>, an NSC working group on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979--but President Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions<ref>Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle (1981)</ref>, Pakistan had actually been pressuring the United States for arms to aid the rebels for years but the Carter administration refused to provide them in the hope of finding a diplomatic solution<ref>Bob Gates, Out of the Shadows</ref>, the State Department went to extraordinary lengths to deter the Soviet invasion and "would never have undertaken a program to encourage it"<ref>http://www.thenation.com/article/blowback-prequel</ref>, Brzezinski recounted that he repeatedly advanced proposals on how to maintain Afghanistan's "independence" and deter a Soviet invasion but was frustrated by the State Department's opposition as well as its publicly aired claim that he sought to "revive" the Cold War, and Jimmy Carter's Vice-President [[Walter Mondale]] declared: "I cannot understand -- it just baffles me -- why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have.  Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?"<ref>http://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0310/031029.html</ref>.  The interview cited to justify claims to the contrary was an utter fabrication.<ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1110&Itemid=143</ref>#Wikipedia's Brzezinski article contains numerous other fabrications.  Here's another actual quote (from the current version):  "In 1981 Brzezinski revealed that he encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. This was part of a wider policy of forcing the Vietnamese out of Cambodia by funding anti-Vietnamese guerrilla groups that the U.S. helped create.[42] Between 1979 and 1981, the World Food Program, which was under US influence, provided nearly $12 million in food aid to Thailand. Much of this aid made its way to the Khmer Rouge.[43] In January 1980 the US started funding Pol Pot while he was in exile. The extent of this support was $85 million from 1980 to 1986.[44] Brzezinski's support of the Khmer Rouge was a continuation of the friendly relations the US had with the Khmer Rouge during the presidency of Gerald Ford. Kissinger had already asked Thailand's foreign minister in 1975 to tell the Khmer Rouge that the US would be friends with them.[45] Brzezinski himself however denied that his administration helped China fund Pol Pot in a letter he sent to the New York Times in 1998.[46]"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski#Cambodia</ref>  The problem?  Their source is an article titled "How Thatcher Gave Pol Pot A Hand" by the afore-mentioned John Pilger, who had to pay libel damages for asserting the truth of its thesis.

#Wikipedia's Brzezinski article contains numerous other fabrications.  Here's another actual quote (from the current version):  "In 1981 Brzezinski revealed that he encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. This was part of a wider policy of forcing the Vietnamese out of Cambodia by funding anti-Vietnamese guerrilla groups that the U.S. helped create.[42] Between 1979 and 1981, the World Food Program, which was under US influence, provided nearly $12 million in food aid to Thailand. Much of this aid made its way to the Khmer Rouge.[43] In January 1980 the US started funding Pol Pot while he was in exile. The extent of this support was $85 million from 1980 to 1986.[44] Brzezinski's support of the Khmer Rouge was a continuation of the friendly relations the US had with the Khmer Rouge during the presidency of Gerald Ford. Kissinger had already asked Thailand's foreign minister in 1975 to tell the Khmer Rouge that the US would be friends with them.[45] Brzezinski himself however denied that his administration helped China fund Pol Pot in a letter he sent to the New York Times in 1998.[46]"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski#Cambodia</ref>  The problem?  Their source is an article titled "How Thatcher Gave Pol Pot A Hand" by the afore-mentioned John Pilger, who had to pay libel damages for asserting the truth of its thesis.

#Until June 10, 2010, Wikipedia's "Soviet War in Afghanistan" article explicitly stated that the US was the aggressor in the war and that it "induced" the Soviet military intervention.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan&diff=367239161&oldid=367194601</ref>

#Until June 10, 2010, Wikipedia's "Soviet War in Afghanistan" article explicitly stated that the US was the aggressor in the war and that it "induced" the Soviet military intervention.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan&diff=367239161&oldid=367194601</ref>

#Wikipedia's  "CIA activities in Iraq" article claimed that Saddam Hussein had been a paid and trained CIA agent since his early twenties until June 10, 2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CIA_activities_in_Iraq&diff=367246777&oldid=366503971</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CIA_activities_in_Iraq&diff=367247557&oldid=367246777</ref>

#Wikipedia's  "CIA activities in Iraq" article claimed that Saddam Hussein had been a paid and trained CIA agent since his early twenties until June 10, 2010.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CIA_activities_in_Iraq&diff=367246777&oldid=366503971</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CIA_activities_in_Iraq&diff=367247557&oldid=367246777</ref>

#In 2002, Chomsky made the following factually inaccurate<ref>http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/10/chomsky_redux.html</ref><ref>http://www.leftwatch.com/articles/2002/how-many-people-died-as-a-result-of-us-bombing-in-sudan/</ref><ref>http://www.leftwatch.com/articles/2002/chomsky-needs-a-fact-checker/</ref> claim about President [[Clinton]]’s bombing of the [[Sudan]]:  "That one bombing, according to the estimates made by the German Embassy in Sudan and Human Rights Watch, probably led to tens of thousands of deaths."  Wikipedia has explicitly and in no uncertain terms endorsed this baseless assertion.  On Wikipedia’s "Criticism of Noam Chomsky" page, the following is stated as a categorical fact:  "Chomsky's claim about the German Embassy in Sudan was correct."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Noam_Chomsky#Improper_attribution_of_a_quote</ref>  It was most certainly not:  A former German ambassador who was nowhere near Sudan at the time did make a similar off-the-record self-described “guess” sans any evidence to a magazine that refused to endorse the assertion, with HRW strongly disputing the claim, but the total number of confirmed deaths from the bombing is 1.<ref>http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/10/chomsky_redux.html</ref> It might be profitable to note that, according to Chomsky's own elaboration on the subject, most of those "excess deaths" would have been the consequence of US aid workers temporarily leaving the country for fear of reprisals.  Since the US bombed Sudan in response to its vicious sponsorship of terrorist atrocities against American targets in Africa that murdered hundreds of people, apparently both Chomsky and Wikipedia conclude that it would be criminal for the United States to ''not'' aid states that sponsor acts of war against it.

#In 2002, Chomsky made the following factually inaccurate<ref>http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/10/chomsky_redux.html</ref><ref>http://www.leftwatch.com/articles/2002/how-many-people-died-as-a-result-of-us-bombing-in-sudan/</ref><ref>http://www.leftwatch.com/articles/2002/chomsky-needs-a-fact-checker/</ref> claim about President [[Clinton]]’s bombing of the [[Sudan]]:  "That one bombing, according to the estimates made by the German Embassy in Sudan and Human Rights Watch, probably led to tens of thousands of deaths."  Wikipedia has explicitly and in no uncertain terms endorsed this baseless assertion.  On Wikipedia’s "Criticism of Noam Chomsky" page, the following is stated as a categorical fact:  "Chomsky's claim about the German Embassy in Sudan was correct."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Noam_Chomsky#Improper_attribution_of_a_quote</ref>  It was most certainly not:  A former German ambassador who was nowhere near Sudan at the time did make a similar off-the-record self-described “guess” sans any evidence to a magazine that refused to endorse the assertion, with HRW strongly disputing the claim, but the total number of confirmed deaths from the bombing is 1.<ref>http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/10/chomsky_redux.html</ref> It might be profitable to note that, according to Chomsky's own elaboration on the subject, most of those "excess deaths" would have been the consequence of US aid workers temporarily leaving the country for fear of reprisals.  Since the US bombed Sudan in response to its vicious sponsorship of terrorist atrocities against American targets in Africa that murdered hundreds of people, apparently both Chomsky and Wikipedia conclude that it would be criminal for the United States to ''not'' aid states that sponsor acts of war against it.

#Wikipedia’s "Noam Chomsky" article claims that the atrocities in Communist Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were "objectively similar except for the alignment of domestic élite interests" to those perpetrated in [[East Timor]] by the armed forces of [[Indonesia]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#Influence_in_other_fields</ref>  In fact, genocide investigators have determined that the Khmer Rouge perpetrated at least 1.1 million violent killings in three years, and estimated that the full toll from executions alone might have reached 1.5 million, a sum which represents no more than ''half'' the total death toll (but with 500,000 deaths representing normal mortality).<ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm</ref><ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/toll.htm</ref>  A Truth Commission found that the Indonesian army had perpetrated 18,600 violent killings in East Timor over 24 years, and had caused at least 75,000 additional excess deaths from hunger and illness.<ref>Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR), January 30, 2006, part 6, paras. 47, 56-7: http://www.ictj.org/en/news/features/846.html</ref>  Comparable?  Objective?  You decide.

#Wikipedia’s "Noam Chomsky" article claims that the atrocities in Communist Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were "objectively similar except for the alignment of domestic élite interests" to those perpetrated in [[East Timor]] by the armed forces of [[Indonesia]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#Influence_in_other_fields</ref>  In fact, genocide investigators have determined that the Khmer Rouge perpetrated at least 1.1 million violent killings in three years, and estimated that the full toll from executions alone might have reached 1.5 million, a sum which represents no more than ''half'' the total death toll (but with 500,000 deaths representing normal mortality).<ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm</ref><ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/toll.htm</ref>  A Truth Commission found that the Indonesian army had perpetrated 18,600 violent killings in East Timor over 24 years, and had caused at least 75,000 additional excess deaths from hunger and illness.<ref>Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR), January 30, 2006, part 6, paras. 47, 56-7: http://www.ictj.org/en/news/features/846.html</ref>  Comparable?  Objective?  You decide.

#Wikipedia's article on the [[Korean War]] claims, without offering any citation in support, that up to 1.2 million South Koreans had been killed by the state prior to or during the invasion from North Korea.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Bodo_League_anti.E2.80.93communist_massacre</ref> It further favorably cites a quote from a South Korean victim that "when the people from the other side [North Korea] came here, they didn't kill many people."  Although the quote in question is apparently accurate, the way in which Wikipedia characterizes these events might lead readers to perceive the Communist aggression as a ''liberation'' from oppressive right-wing tyranny.  In response, it should be noted that:  Although there is no source to check as regards their numbers, it seems likely that their 1.2 million figure is heavily exaggerated, and may come from official Communist propaganda, because the government of South Korea never killed anything like that subsequently and eventually gave up power voluntarily and held free elections; the North Koreans ''did'' kill many people, the war of aggression they started cost as many as 2.5 million lives<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP10.HTM</ref>, they worked 500,000 South Korean POWs to death in concentration camps<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP10.HTM</ref>, and given the large number of "hostiles" sent to perform hard labor in North Korea (not counting those in the concentration camps)--possibly more than 4 million in 1989 alone according to human rights groups--more than 2 million North Koreans have been killed by the state through slave labor since the end of the war if we assume a death rate of just over 1%.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP10.HTM</ref>  A ''further'' 3 million North Koreans have been starved to death by the state in just the most recent famine.<ref>http://www.rense.com/political/koreastarve.htm</ref>

#Wikipedia's article on the [[Korean War]] claims, without offering any citation in support, that up to 1.2 million South Koreans had been killed by the state prior to or during the invasion from North Korea.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War</ref> In reality, “the war was preceded by a major insurgency in the South and serious clashes along the thirty-eighth parallel,” and 100,000 died in “political disturbances, guerrilla warfare, and border clashes.”<ref>John Merrill, Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War (University of Delaware Press, 1989),

p181.</ref>

#In Wikipedia’s article on the Indonesian mass killings of suspected leftists and Communists in the mid-sixties, in which up to one million (but probably only about a quarter of a million<ref>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat3.htm#Indonesia</ref>) people were killed, Wikipedia claims the following: “The massacres were described by Time as 'The West's Best News in Asia'.[57] A headline in US News and World Report read: 'Indonesia: Hope... where there was once none'.[58] New York Times columnist James Reston celebrated 'A gleam of light in Asia'.[59]”<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966#U.S._involvement_and_reaction</ref>  Time Magazine never referred to the slaughter as “The West’s Best News in Asia,” it vociferously condemned the “boiling bloodbath” and said that the prospects of regional peace and of Indonesian neutrality in the Cold War were “the West’s best news for years in Asia.”<ref>Time, July 15, 1966.</ref>  A New York Times op-ed listed strategic changes in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Japan, the Philippines and China under the headline: “Washington: A Gleam of Light in Asia.”<ref>James Reston, “Washington: A Gleam of Light in Asia,” New York Times, June 19, 1966; Editorial, New York Times, August 25, 1966.</ref>

#In Wikipedia’s article on the Indonesian mass killings of suspected leftists and Communists in the mid-sixties, in which up to one million (but probably only about a quarter of a million<ref>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat3.htm#Indonesia</ref>) people were killed, Wikipedia claims the following: “The massacres were described by Time as 'The West's Best News in Asia'.[57] A headline in US News and World Report read: 'Indonesia: Hope... where there was once none'.[58] New York Times columnist James Reston celebrated 'A gleam of light in Asia'.[59]”<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966#U.S._involvement_and_reaction</ref>  Time Magazine never referred to the slaughter as “The West’s Best News in Asia,” it vociferously condemned the “boiling bloodbath” and said that the prospects of regional peace and of Indonesian neutrality in the Cold War were “the West’s best news for years in Asia.”<ref>Time, July 15, 1966.</ref>  A New York Times op-ed listed strategic changes in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Japan, the Philippines and China under the headline: “Washington: A Gleam of Light in Asia.”<ref>James Reston, “Washington: A Gleam of Light in Asia,” New York Times, June 19, 1966; Editorial, New York Times, August 25, 1966.</ref>

#In the same article, conspiracy theories about the US role in the killings are also hysterically strewn about, with even less credibility:  “The US also provided "arms" of both US and non-US origin, requested specifically to "arm Moslem and nationalist youths in Central Java for use against the PKI [Communists]."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966#U.S._involvement_and_reaction</ref> The sources Wikipedia cites in this instance, as was the case above, actually say the exact opposite of what Wikipedia says they say, which can be explained by the fact that Noam Chomsky invented this talking point,<ref>http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf</ref> and this is his famed method of propaganda and deceit.  Indonesia did ''request'' "communications equipment and small arms to arm Moslem and nationalist youths in Central Java for use against the PKI," but the US stonewalled the request.  Embassy staff reported Indonesia’s request and sought "more explicit guidance as to how this matter is to be handled here." The State Department replied: "There was to be no implication of providing anything more than medical supplies already authorized, but the US officials could ask questions to clarify any Indonesia requests for additional aid."<ref>Telegram From Embassy in Thailand to Department of State, November 5, 1965; reply, November 6, 1965; available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxvi/4446.htm</ref>   

#In the same article, conspiracy theories about the US role in the killings are also hysterically strewn about, with even less credibility:  “The US also provided "arms" of both US and non-US origin, requested specifically to "arm Moslem and nationalist youths in Central Java for use against the PKI [Communists]."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966#U.S._involvement_and_reaction</ref> The sources Wikipedia cites in this instance, as was the case above, actually say the exact opposite of what Wikipedia says they say, which can be explained by the fact that Noam Chomsky invented this talking point,<ref>http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf</ref> and this is his famed method of propaganda and deceit.  Indonesia did ''request'' "communications equipment and small arms to arm Moslem and nationalist youths in Central Java for use against the PKI," but the US stonewalled the request.  Embassy staff reported Indonesia’s request and sought "more explicit guidance as to how this matter is to be handled here." The State Department replied: "There was to be no implication of providing anything more than medical supplies already authorized, but the US officials could ask questions to clarify any Indonesia requests for additional aid."<ref>Telegram From Embassy in Thailand to Department of State, November 5, 1965; reply, November 6, 1965; available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxvi/4446.htm</ref>