| − | #Wikipedia falsely claims that 3 to 4 million Vietnamese and 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians and Laotians died in the [[Vietnam War]]<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War</ref>. These estimates are based on official North Vietnamese Communist propaganda<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20071222122211/http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950404/04040331.htm</ref>, and they are ''not'' supported by any demographic estimates or studies. One user attempted on August 23, 2010 to include other sources, but was repeatedly censored. On the talk page, he responded: "I'm not sure what there is here to discuss. I simply cited a demographic estimate on the war casualties that the AP called the most detailed demographic study. There's absolutely no reason why it cannot be included in the article. Obviously, some don't like the estimate because they want to believe in a higher one. It's worth noting that while my source is a demographic survey; the one you have at present is a link to an assertion on a webpage, without any study backing it up. I kept that estimate intact; I simply included another. No demographic study ever conducted has estimated a death toll as high as 3, 4, or even 5 million. Right now I'm looking at photos of peace activists with signs reading "Over 600,000 Vietnamese Dead!" No house to house survey endorsed such findings, no medical journal. R.J. Rummel puts the total as 1.2 million dead-- South and North Vietnamese, and Laotians and Cambodians. Look at the Cambodian civil war: Bannister and Johnson estimated the death toll from the war to be around 275,000. Sampson, too, believed that the toll from the war was overestimated. He suggested that civilian deaths "could be numbered in tens of thousands, but not more," and also noted that military attachés estimated the size of each army to be between 100,000 and 150,000. One survey said 230,000 was "the highest mortality we could justify." No survey ever conducted has gotten anywhere near 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians and Laotians killed. The fact remains that the estimates currently cited are official figures from the Vietnamese government." Although Wikipedia's source is indeed a link to another “encyclopedia website” citing the official Communist figures; an editor responded, robotically: "These numbers are supported," while another added "maybe the Communists are telling the truth this time."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vietnam_War#Stats</ref> A third commenter mentioned the US kill ratio and implied that all of the alleged 4 to 5 million deaths could be blamed squarely on the United States alone,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vietnam_War#Stats</ref> despite the fact that US military actions were responsible for less than 1% of all democide in Indochina over this period,<ref>http://www.markhumphrys.com/communism.asia.html#vietnam</ref><ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP13.HTM</ref><ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB13.1.GIF</ref> and even though the US did not start the war, but was responding to North Vietnam's aggression at the request of the legitimate governments of South Vietnam and Cambodia. Notably, Wikipedia's own casualty breakdown contradicts the number cited for Laos. Wikipedia not only regurgitates official Communist propaganda, it often backs it up with wholly arbitrary assertions from extreme left-wing propagandists and genocide deniers like [[Noam Chomsky]] (who denied the Cambodian genocide) and Gareth Porter (condemned by a Democratic Congressman for explicitly expressing support and admiration for the Khmer Rouge; author of ''The Myth of the Bloodbath''). Conservapedia gives you the truth straight up: "The war exacted a huge human cost, including an estimated one to two million North and South Vietnamese,<ref>http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm</ref> 100,000 to 300,000 Cambodians<ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm</ref> and 30-50,000 Laotians.<ref>http://www.vietnamgear.com/casualties.aspx</ref> The "most comprehensive demographic survey" ever conducted on casualties during the war, as endorsed by the Associated Press, estimated that nearly one million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians were killed throughout the two decades of conflict.<ref>Associated Press, April 3, 1995; Charles Hirschman et al., “Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate,” Population and Development Review, December 1995</ref> R.J. Rummel puts the total at 1.2 million Indochinese killed on all sides.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WSJ.ART.HTM</ref>" | + | #Wikipedia falsely claimed that 3 to 4 million Vietnamese and 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians and Laotians died in the [[Vietnam War]]<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War</ref>. These estimates are based on official North Vietnamese Communist propaganda<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20071222122211/http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950404/04040331.htm</ref>, and they are ''not'' supported by any demographic estimates or studies. One user attempted on August 23, 2010 to include other sources, but was repeatedly censored. On the talk page, he responded: "I'm not sure what there is here to discuss. I simply cited a demographic estimate on the war casualties that the AP called the most detailed demographic study. There's absolutely no reason why it cannot be included in the article. Obviously, some don't like the estimate because they want to believe in a higher one. It's worth noting that while my source is a demographic survey; the one you have at present is a link to an assertion on a webpage, without any study backing it up. I kept that estimate intact; I simply included another. No demographic study ever conducted has estimated a death toll as high as 3, 4, or even 5 million. Right now I'm looking at photos of peace activists with signs reading "Over 600,000 Vietnamese Dead!" No house to house survey endorsed such findings, no medical journal. R.J. Rummel puts the total as 1.2 million dead-- South and North Vietnamese, and Laotians and Cambodians. Look at the Cambodian civil war: Bannister and Johnson estimated the death toll from the war to be around 275,000. Sampson, too, believed that the toll from the war was overestimated. He suggested that civilian deaths "could be numbered in tens of thousands, but not more," and also noted that military attachés estimated the size of each army to be between 100,000 and 150,000. One survey said 230,000 was "the highest mortality we could justify." No survey ever conducted has gotten anywhere near 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians and Laotians killed. The fact remains that the estimates currently cited are official figures from the Vietnamese government." Although Wikipedia's source is indeed a link to another “encyclopedia website” citing the official Communist figures; an editor responded, robotically: "These numbers are supported," while another added "maybe the Communists are telling the truth this time."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vietnam_War#Stats</ref> A third commenter mentioned the US kill ratio and implied that all of the alleged 4 to 5 million deaths could be blamed squarely on the United States alone,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vietnam_War#Stats</ref> despite the fact that US military actions were responsible for less than 1% of all democide in Indochina over this period,<ref>http://www.markhumphrys.com/communism.asia.html#vietnam</ref><ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP13.HTM</ref><ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB13.1.GIF</ref> and even though the US did not start the war, but was responding to North Vietnam's aggression at the request of the legitimate governments of South Vietnam and Cambodia. Notably, Wikipedia's own casualty breakdown contradicts the number cited for Laos. Wikipedia not only regurgitates official Communist propaganda, it often backs it up with wholly arbitrary assertions from extreme left-wing propagandists and genocide deniers like [[Noam Chomsky]] (who denied the Cambodian genocide) and Gareth Porter (condemned by a Democratic Congressman for explicitly expressing support and admiration for the Khmer Rouge; author of ''The Myth of the Bloodbath''). Conservapedia gives you the truth straight up: "The war exacted a huge human cost, including an estimated one to two million North and South Vietnamese,<ref>http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm</ref> 100,000 to 300,000 Cambodians<ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm</ref> and 30-50,000 Laotians.<ref>http://www.vietnamgear.com/casualties.aspx</ref> The "most comprehensive demographic survey" ever conducted on casualties during the war, as endorsed by the Associated Press, estimated that nearly one million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians were killed throughout the two decades of conflict.<ref>Associated Press, April 3, 1995; Charles Hirschman et al., “Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate,” Population and Development Review, December 1995</ref> R.J. Rummel puts the total at 1.2 million Indochinese killed on all sides.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WSJ.ART.HTM</ref>" |
| | #Wikipedia minimizes the atrocities of the [[Khmer Rouge]]. It explicitly states that the Khmer Rouge killed "over 740,000 Cambodians" on its page about the Khmer Rouge<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_humanity</ref> and uncritically regurgitates the legitimacy of that so-called "estimate". Further, it openly declares that more people may have died in the Cambodian civil war than the subsequent genocide,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War</ref> even though there is no actual study cited to support the assertion. Indeed, their "estimates" are simply claims repeated by word of mouth uncritically and in the absence of evidence (though they can always find a "source" to cite in support of them); they appear to have been first promulgated ''by'' the Khmer Rouge themselves, along with their supporters in the West.<ref>http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19770625.htm</ref> | | #Wikipedia minimizes the atrocities of the [[Khmer Rouge]]. It explicitly states that the Khmer Rouge killed "over 740,000 Cambodians" on its page about the Khmer Rouge<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_humanity</ref> and uncritically regurgitates the legitimacy of that so-called "estimate". Further, it openly declares that more people may have died in the Cambodian civil war than the subsequent genocide,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War</ref> even though there is no actual study cited to support the assertion. Indeed, their "estimates" are simply claims repeated by word of mouth uncritically and in the absence of evidence (though they can always find a "source" to cite in support of them); they appear to have been first promulgated ''by'' the Khmer Rouge themselves, along with their supporters in the West.<ref>http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19770625.htm</ref> |
| | #This is just the tip of the iceberg. Wikipedia sinks much lower in its ideological fanaticism. So low, in fact, as to be legitimately considered astonishing even by their own standards. In its article on the US bombing of Cambodia, Operation Menu, it explicitly attributes everyone who died in the entire Cambodian civil war--all deaths, soldier and civilian, on all sides--to American bombing.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu</ref> It states that: "Operation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War leading to the destruction of over 1,000 towns and villages, the displacement of 2,000,000, and the deaths of over 700,000 to 1,000,000 Cambodians."(!) It further adds: "[US bombing] enraged the Cambodian public and helped to create a climate that allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power."(!!) The article even claims that the reason for the secrecy around the campaign was "[because] an aerial bombing of neutral Cambodia was a war crime."(!!!) The estimate that US bombing killed so many people, was, in fact, apparently first promulgated ''by'' the Khmer Rouge themselves. | | #This is just the tip of the iceberg. Wikipedia sinks much lower in its ideological fanaticism. So low, in fact, as to be legitimately considered astonishing even by their own standards. In its article on the US bombing of Cambodia, Operation Menu, it explicitly attributes everyone who died in the entire Cambodian civil war--all deaths, soldier and civilian, on all sides--to American bombing.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu</ref> It states that: "Operation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War leading to the destruction of over 1,000 towns and villages, the displacement of 2,000,000, and the deaths of over 700,000 to 1,000,000 Cambodians."(!) It further adds: "[US bombing] enraged the Cambodian public and helped to create a climate that allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power."(!!) The article even claims that the reason for the secrecy around the campaign was "[because] an aerial bombing of neutral Cambodia was a war crime."(!!!) The estimate that US bombing killed so many people, was, in fact, apparently first promulgated ''by'' the Khmer Rouge themselves. |