File talk:Army.mil-2007-03-27-114351.jpg

Photo caption

The original photo caption is at

• http://www.army.mil/-images/2007/03/27/3593/

Please see this diff: [1]

Rama, why remove the exact quote I used to replace your very slightly different paraphrase? Your paraphrase was grammatically incorrect anyway.

Your edit summary was "rv. Commons does not endorse USAyan propaganda."

I agree, but how does an exact quote somehow become "USAyan propaganda" when it replaces almost the same thing that you had for the caption? So why is not your paraphrase "USAyan propaganda" too?

A solution to this may be to say where the quote came from. Then people can see that the quote came from a U.S. military site. Then the caption is no longer in the neutral voice of Wikimedia. See w:WP:NPOV. --Timeshifter 21:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

We have no reason to doubt that the child was wounded in a violent action committed by forces hostile to US occupation of Iraq. Thus I oppose utter removal of the sentence.

On the other hand, I oppose using the exact phrasing of the US Army ("anti-Iraqi forces"), which is nonsensical and clearly a case of modern propaganda.

The compromise is to use a neutral term to qualify the perpetrators of the incident. "Guerrilla" seems to me as a neutral term as it accurately describes the sort of warfare undertaken by the opponents to US occupation, without convoying moral undertones (as "resistance" would, for instance).

Sorry about the grammar, a preposition was lacking. Rama 21:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see what you mean by "anti-Iraqi forces". And now that I think about it, I believe we should remove the sentence "The child is one of several Iraqis who were attacked by guerilla forces in Western Iraq."

Why should we believe what the U.S. military says about the circumstances? The child may well have been wounded by Americans, Iraqi police, crossfire, etc.. Here is the full quote from the caption on the U.S. military site:

Victim of Terror

Photo by Lance Cpl. James F. Cline III

March 27, 2007

A Soldier carries a wounded Iraqi child into the Charlie Medical Center at Camp Ramadi, Iraq, March 20. The child is one of several Iraqis who were attacked by anti-Iraqi forces in western Iraq.

Since the photo caption on the U.S. military site starts out with a phrase such as Victim of Terror, but does not explain the exact circumstances, then who knows what really happened. The only thing we know for sure is that an Iraqi child was wounded. --Timeshifter 23:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)--Timeshifter 23:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Given the freedom of the press in the USA, I think that it is relatively safe to assume that if the child had been wounded by US forces, this would have been known.

There have been a number of scandals regarding the behaviour of US forces. Criminal actions, either of a punctual nature or consecutive to official policy, have been reported. This means two things:

• US forces harbour a number of criminals, including high in the hierarchy
• When criminal actions occur, it is generally known.

The USA are not Switzerland, but they are not Pinochet's Chile either. Rama 10:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I assume you are French since you are a native French speaker. I did a study-abroad year in France. You have more faith in the American press than many Americans do (and many French, too). I am American. :)

The American press is not anywhere near most firefights in Iraq. They are occasionally embedded with American soldiers. Casualty numbers and reporting in Iraq is very controversial. I have long been editing w:Casualties of the Iraq War.

By the way, as you probably know already, there was U.S. involvement in the overthrow of the elected government of w:Salvador Allende by w:Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

There is little reason to believe everything the U.S. military reports. --Timeshifter 21:25, 13 March 2008 (UTC)