Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Covert United States foreign regime change actions (2nd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to History of the Central Intelligence Agency. Or such other target page as editorial consensus may subsequently determine. There is no consensus to delete, but the "keep" opinions do not address the pertinent argument that - as notable as the topic may be - this content topically overlaps with History of the CIA and United States involvement in regime change, creating a content fork. It is a matter for editors to decide through talk page discussion which (if any) of this content to merge to other articles, or how to better organize the general topic of the CIA's / the USA's regime change activities, but I see a (policy-informed) consensus here that we do not want to cover the same topic in multiple articles redundantly.  Sandstein  10:08, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Covert United States foreign regime change actions

AfDs for this article:
Covert United States foreign regime change actions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Delete. This article is a giant mess of cobbled-together synthesis and original research, lacking any consistent criteria for inclusion and including several cases of U.S. nonintervention where it is alleged that the U.S. had intelligence on a coup but did not intervene to prevent it. In sum, there is simply no scholarly concept of "Covert United States foreign regime change actions" that would include everything from the rescue of European hostages in the Congo, to overt arms supplied to insurgents to "tie down" the Soviet army in Afghanistan, to bombing raids in Indonesia, to the AFL-CIO's support of Solidarity in Poland. Although CUSFRCA has not been renominated for deletion since the last AfD failed to reach a consensus, there have been several recent discussions where deletion was suggested, involving @Staberinde:, @Bobrayner:, @Vanamonde93:, @My very best wishes:, @Taospark:, @MyMoloboaccount:, @Jarble:, @Emijrp:, and myself. Throughout this time, opponents of deletion have conceded that CUSFRCA is a POV WP:Coatrack, but argued it might yet develop into a coherent article based on reliable criteria, someday. That's obviously never going to happen, because there are no reliable sources that discuss the alleged concept of "CUSFRCA". "CUSFRCA" is not a single area of study, but the singular obsession of a few Wikipedia users. TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:51, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. ssт✈(discuss) 07:09, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. ssт✈(discuss) 07:09, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bilateral relations-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 11:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep & Rename to "List of CIA Operations" or equivalent, in such a way that the description of each event can be pruned but not discarded. Yes, the page is a horrid mess, but that's not good enough reason to delete here, for a couple of reasons. 1) The notability of the topic is quite clear, as demonstrated by the numerous sources in the article, and these. 2) The criteria for inclusion are at present fuzzy; but there are several incidents that unambiguously merit inclusion. Renaming it will take care of the problem of inclusion criteria, whereas deleting/redirecting would no give sufficient weight to the source material. 3) Merging into "History of the CIA" is an option that I'm no directly opposed to, but size constraints and the sheer amount of material suggests, to me, that a separate page is necessary. Vanamonde93 (talk) 13:11, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not saying it is. I'm saying that "CIA Operations" is the closest coherent inclusion criterion, and that renaming/expanding is therefore a much better option than deleting encyclopedic information, the notability of which is fairly clear. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:07, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would find that argument more compelling if all of this information wasn't covered better elsewhere on Wikipedia. No-one has tried to make a similar article for Soviet involvement in regime change, which (if our inclusion criteria is equally broad and arbitrary) could include everything from Stalin's support for Mao during the Chinese civil war and green-light for North Korea's invasion of the South, to Soviet arms supplies to the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian civil war, to the KGB's support for Allende and the Sandinistas, to WP:FRINGE allegations like those of this Iraqi Ba'athist defector who claims KGB agents helped put the party in power in 1968 or (even though it has nothing to do with regime change) the Soviet role in instigating the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, relying on the most extreme anti-Soviet sources and cherry-picking facts to convey the great danger of the domino theory and the "Evil Empire". But this isn't a whitewashing of Soviet foreign policy. Even List of authoritarian regimes supported by the United States manages to demonstrate that the concept is one discussed in secondary sources, thus not necessarily subject to speedy deletion on the grounds that every nation has had relations with dictatorships.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:30, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
TTAAC, that argument is purely other stuff exists, and you know it. If similar coverage exists of Soviet involvement in foreign regime change, then create such an article, by all means! But that is totally irrelevant here. The coverage exists; just look at this list. Most of the top results are coverage for this very topic.
Google Scholar does not recognize your search phrase, hence why it asks if you meant "convert" rather than "covert". Almost all of the top search results refer to U.S. military action and the U.S. foreign policy of democracy promotion in general terms. Similarly, Google searches for CUSFRCA mostly lead back to this article and mirrored versions of it. The strange use of "covert" in the title is inextricably linked to earlier versions of the text, which were crudely written in an Alex Jones style, with the fictional premise that the U.S. public and the world knew nothing of these events (which was true only for some of the blatant hoaxes being promoted at the time). "Covert action" is often used in reliable sources to refer to fairly overt interventions, such as the CIA/Northern Alliance overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 or the CIA's key role in the landing at Inchon, which are excluded from this page according to a strange criteria that somehow includes alleged U.S. embassy knowledge of a Turkish coup one hour before it occurred.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:56, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Eh? Did you click the link I posted? There are 13,200 results there; so what do you mean it "doesn't recognize" the string? The results are mostly talking about regime change; and as a part of that, virtually all of them discuss covert actions. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I got the same result as TheTimesAreAChanging: Google Scholar does not recognize your search phrase, hence why it asks if you meant "convert" rather than "covert". --AmritasyaPutraT 05:27, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Google scholar often offers alternative strings, even if there are results for your original string. If you are seriously claiming that there are no results in the link I posted, that is total (and demonstratable) bollocks. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:40, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not if it's a normal thing to search for. To judge by the first three pages of results, "covert" most often comes up in reference to the covert nuclear programs of "rogue regimes" ([1], [2], [3], ect.) Some sources refer in general terms to "covert actions" but not in relation to regime change, while others do not use the word "covert" at all. (It should go without saying that "covert actions" encompasses a lot more than regime change.) That a large number of sources use at least one word in the phrase "Covert United States foreign regime change actions" shows that the U.S. has a foreign policy, but does not justify the spin this article would like to put on it.
Of course, no-one denies that the CIA has engaged in covert operations. If you're talking about specific CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders, we already have a dedicated article on that, just as we have articles on specific CIA operations (eg., 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état), CIA operations by country, and a list of CIA operations here. Renaming rather than deleting CUSFRCA would still require deleting most of the content, as in many cases it is peddling unfounded accusations ("Venezuela 2002", for example) or putting a spin on real events. (In relation to this last point, consider: As it happens, American Orientalism is the top result under your search phrase. The book has nothing really to do with "CUSFRCA" at all, but you should read its discussion of U.S. policy on Iraq during Qasim's administration on pages 198-206 for an example of how "CUSFRCA" grossly oversimplifies complicated facts. Yes, the Eisenhower administration was concerned about Qasim and considered various ways to deal with his government, including covert actions, but ultimately decided to take no action as "Eisenhower preferred a policy of 'watchful waiting' to afford Qasim 'the opportunity to stand up to the communists.'" Then, when Qasim was overthrown in 1963, the Kennedy administration recognized the successor regime and provided it with economic and military aid. Yet, by its inclusion here under "Iraq 1960-63", one would think that the U.S. waged a campaign to overthrow Qasim for several years and ultimately succeeded, which is very misleading.) There is just no end to problems with this article. Do you notice the frequent digressions into how democratic or autocratic the regimes in question were? Those were added a while back to counter one of the main themes in earlier versions of the text, namely that the U.S. has a secret policy of fighting democracy to promote corporate interests; in fact, as Mossadegh had dissolved the legislature and was ruling by decree and the communist admirer of Stalin Árbenz was elected without a secret ballot and murdered at least 108 to 500 political opponents according to Guatemala's truth commission, while neither Iran nor Guatemala had any history of stable democratic rule, Chile is really the only example—but, even if you disagree, it is necessary to make such an argument with sources rather than to imply it by synthesizing events cherry-picked by Wikipedia editors.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:21, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
TL;DR, TTAAC. But it seems to me that you are pointing to very real flaws in the article, which are still not arguments for deletion, because deletion is not cleanup. Vanamonde93 (talk) 07:30, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The previous post drags in some POV-laden nonsense at the very end, no doubt in an effort to position the existing article as "controversial". For example the source for Arbenz being a ruthless killer of the "opposition" is NOT the TRC, but the affiliates of the party of the Guatemalan death-squads (MNR). The source: Anticommunist Committee of University Students (CEUA), Guatemala's ordeal: horror and crime pages of National Typography, Guatemala, 1955. I am sure these cuddly defenders of democracy and freedom really suffered from unjust repression under Arbenz. So what we have here is a really careless use of sources to back an extremist view that no overthrow of democracy took place in Guatemala or Iran. Not the the kind of stuff that should figure prominently in this discussion.200.74.242.204 (talk) 15:42, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In this case, I would beg to differ. I believe the lack of coherence is by design. Moreover, you have yet to explain what would happen to (say) "Venezuela 2002" if the page were renamed. That section refers to allegations against the State Department and the U.S. embassy, not the CIA, so I assume you would support deleting it? If renaming requires deletion of most of the content, I'm not really sure what your search results are trying to save.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:36, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not most. CIA regime change actions are plentiful. Yes, if it's renamed, get rid of Venezuela, at least until better sourcing is found. Vanamonde93 (talk) 08:19, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 09:55, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 09:55, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That section is one of the biggest messes and would be gutted under any scenario other than "keep". In particular, the sources related to the Carter policy of deterring Soviet intervention (not "CUSFRCA") seem to have been removed, with the text being crudely altered in a way that fails to coherently reconcile competing versions. Even if some of the material on Poland belongs elsewhere on Wikipedia, that is not a basis for keeping the article.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:57, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You mean "American policy-makers viewed an internal crackdown as preferable to an "inevitable Soviet intervention."? is that the perspective that's not emphasized enough? You do realize this "fear" was an intelligence failure at best and a cynical ass-covering by Jaruzelski at worst. It turns out that the CPSU politburo refused to send troops to Poland under any conditions, and stated its position plainly right before the institution of martial law. Jaruzelski clearly knew that no help was forthcoming, which is why he instituted martial law himself. So you can believe whatever you want about the CIA's moral calculus (let that sink in), but they were not doing solidarity any favors by not warning them. More likely is that the CIA had no objections to martial law, because its imposition would exacerbate the crisis in Poland and ultimately weaken the regime. Yeah they really saved Solidarity from the non-existent threat of invasion.81.88.116.27 (talk) 16:47, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I do not claim to know how factually accurate the section on Poland is, only that it is poorly written.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:44, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (though possibly renamed). CIA involvement in coups is widely commented on. I observe that mist of the subjects have main articles. However it may be that this article needs some pruning: the detail should be in the main articles not here. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:18, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete  I don't like to see the loss of work product, so any way to save pieces of sourced content would be fine, but the topic is not credible on its face, and the absence of sources in the lede confirms my concern that this topic does not exist.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:32, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unscintillating, per WP:LEDE, sources are not required in the lede of an article, so long as the relevant information is sourced in the body. Besides, notability requires sources, not sources in the lede. The sources clearly exist, as seen in the reference section, or here. How then do you claim that the topic does not exist? Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:20, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • See WP:BURDEN.  If the topic existed, the editors who wrote this article would have reliable sources saying so, and we'd know from the reliable sources why the elements on this list are defined as "covert actions".  I've not found anything from skimming the article and the link you provided.  I read each of the first 23 reference links in the article.  A list of cases that have been determined using WP:SYNTH to create a pattern do not create a topic worthy of notice on Wikipedia.  And if your claim, that there are sources either in the article or in the search you provided, is valid, the effort you have put into replying to me could have been put into adding sources; as WP:LEDE does not prohibit sources in the lede.  Regards, Unscintillating (talk) 01:34, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein  09:13, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Gamer112: maybe you should have some faith that other editors have good intentions at heart and have some civility and not call them "white washing" editors. - SantiLak (talk) 10:41, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - there are numerous sources available which means that the topic is legitimate. Dorpater (talk) 09:37, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge - I'm surprised to see that yet unlinked on this page is United States involvement in regime change, which has, since its creation, "encompasse[d] both overt and covert actions aimed at altering, replacing, or preserving foreign governments." That sure seems like an obvious merge target to me. What am I missing? Granted, the nominated page is older, but doesn't removing the word "covert" and generalizing with "involvement" rather than "actions" serve to assuage some of the OR issues and fuzzy inclusion criteria? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:07, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • User:Rhododendrites, you raise a good point, and perhaps that is a reasonable merge target; but my concern would be that such a page would almost certainly be too large, and would have to be split again. We can see if that is necessary post-facto, however, so I'm not necessarily opposed to such a merger. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:18, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Rhododendrites, this is self-canceling reasoning.  Your proposal states that the word "covert" can be removed by merging to an article with an unsourced lede that states that covert actions exist.  In spite of an inherent element of validity to your viewpoint, by continuing to promote a WP:SYNTH of "covert actions", I think your logic here tends to strengthen the !votes proposing to delete or merge to History of the CIA.  Unscintillating (talk) 11:12, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to History of the CIA - basically per Staberinde. Right now the article is half POV WP:COATRACK (basically a coatrack for "random complaints about US foreign policy") and half WP:POVFORK (of History of CIA). I think this one's actually pretty straightforward. Volunteer Marek  06:44, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and redirect to History of the CIA - The topic seems to be List of regime changes covertly performed by the CIA where the CIAs' covert actions were the primary cause of the regime change. Since the list never specified the degree to which the CIA needed to be involved for the regime change to be included in the list, the list is a mess. It also overlaps the History of the CIA article and its sub articles, so it is not clear there is a need for this particular article. Failure to comply with the prior AfD express close requirement -- "I call upon those who said things like "keep and rewrite" or "keep, but fix POV" to actually do it." - over the past several years is another reason to delete. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:34, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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