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"Anti-war" doesn't sound like a particularly descriptive adjective for the apparent targets here. They are not anti-war campaigners per se, they seem to be sitt

"Anti-war" doesn't sound like a particularly descriptive adjective for the apparent targets here. They are not anti-war campaigners per se, they seem to be sitting in the Russia-sympathetic zone of discourse. I'm not saying that to discredit them (I might, but I won't), but calling them anti-war rather obscures the problems people might have with them. That doesn't mean that a "one-man" effort to shepherd their Wikipedia entries isn't notable or concerning but let's not pretend these guys are pacifists.

bushin 8y ago
This seems closer to the truth, otherwise why sputnik and rt would care.
- strainer 8y ago
  These notable persons (Craig Murray, David Edwards, George Galloway etc) who are reporting their personal biographies being edited unfairly on Wikipedia, are in fact well known as prominent humanitarian and anti-war activists and writers. For strategic reasons at least -- Russia's foreign commercial news stations are also of late "sympathetic" to anti-war and progressive themes (such as arms reduction and peaceful conflict resolution). Opinions may differ here about the nature of Russia's support for those subjects, but that is a very orthogonal concern. I don't know of any substantiated connections between the persons involved here and the Russian government or media. They certainly are "anti war" in the popular sense of the term.
  - bushin 8y ago
    I googled Galloway and he has young Stalin on his twitter profile pic. Never before had Stirlitz been so close to failure.
    - strainer 8y ago
      Sure Galloway has a soft spot for Stalin - obviously he considers him misunderstood - history written by the victors and all that. I wouldn't know. But the issue here is how does such an eccentricity significantly connect him to the modern Russian government or media? And also the others, as is being suggested - as a group.
      - philwelch 8y ago
        I'm not sure how "having a soft spot" for one of the most notorious mass-murdering warmongers of the 20th century makes someone "anti-war".
        strainer 8y ago
        Like I said, there may or not be a reasoned historical debate behind it I dont know. He is known as an anti war campaigner, because he has been a prominent campaigner against military aggression in our time.
        notahacker 8y ago
        Even his staunchest defenders would be forced to admit his campaigns against military aggression are selective and more influenced by a continuation of Cold War "anti-imperialist" realpolitik than actual pacifism. He's been outspokenly supportive of Russian involvement in Syria, and he was the member of the anti-war campaign over Iraq that achieved notoriety by calling for Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in fighting Western forces rather than the more mainstream position of advocating a cessation of hostilities altogether...
        strainer 8y ago
        I think he is most "influenced" by the thought of lasting international peace and security for everyone, and perhaps justice too, though I fear that is most difficult of conditions to resolve. Would that Russia critics could admit their involvement in Syria has been hugely stabilizing to a situation which almost fell into the hell which Libya was thrown into by air strikes...
        notahacker 8y ago
        I prefer to judge him by what he actually does and says (and he's an unusually eloquent speaker and persistent campaigner rather than some gaffe-prone blunderer) and not than some Platonic ideal of what he actually might represent. We're talking about someone that agitates against any form of air strikes by the West for months, then when Russia announces plans to launch air strikes against exactly the same target, gushes that it's going to be a Stalingrad-like triumph over fascism all over again. We're talking about somebody who highlighted Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses right up to the point where the West decided he was actually more of a threat to regional stability than Iran and forcibly ejected him from the neighbouring country he invaded, at which point George started meeting people who were naming their sons Saddam and felt obliged to fly to Iraq after the war to salute Saddam's indefatigability and wish him future victories in person and deliver deputy the writings of Sun Tzu to advise them on "patriotic resistance" against any future threats. And we're talking about somebody who goes off the fairly coherent and very widely-supported anti-war campaign script in 2001 to call upon Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in rising up against the West in Iraq. If all this is in the name of "long lasting international peace and security for everyone" as opposed to because he really, really wants to see non-Western forces prevail on the battlefield, it's difficult to see exactly how....
  - M2Ys4U 8y ago
    Galloway, a humanitarian? Hahahaha. This is what Galloway said to Saddam Hussain: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem."
    - strainer 8y ago
      That isn't in the spirit of hacker news discussion. That quote has a context and we shouldn't single one of the concerned notable persons out to judge them all. Galloway organised the Iraqi Oil for food program to try to relieve the population suffering extreme infant mortality under international sanctions, and he was a UK Parliamentarian and major figure in UKs Stop the War campaign and others.
varjag 8y ago
Yep, they are very pro-war when as long as it waged by Assad and his allies.
zug_zug 8y ago
I'm not sure if whether it's Russia has anything to do with it. The point is that objective truth requires moving above tribalist mentality, clearly cross failed to do that. Dragging Russia into this is also failing to rise above tribalist mentality.
- wybiral 8y ago
  The fact that this "article" was published on a site that appears to have no other purpose other than advertising some RSS tool and who has a Twitter account that seems to be almost entirely dedicated to pushing this one story is an objective truth. Their other Twitter activity is mostly from an anti-western perspective with a lot of pro-Assad, pro-Iran, pro-Wikileaks, pro-Corbyn, and a handful of straight pro-Putin messages. I'm not giving an opinion, just stating the objective truth (I can link exact Tweets if you'd like). This article also mirrors pieces being shared predominately on pro-Putin outlets like Sputnik and RT. So the fact that some of the targets in this seem to be pro-Russia isn't entirely a non-point when trying to evaluate the full picture of this situation and the motivation of the different parties involved.
  - zug_zug 8y ago
    The question at hand is whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. You instead focus on the political views of the website that published this piece, which is irrelevant, and also creates a distracting us/them mentality. None of which has any bearing on whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. If you think the piece is unfairly critical, then dispute the facts of the case (the merits of the edits he made) rather than the character of the speaker.
    - wybiral 8y ago
      I think the editor may have been trolling these people, yes, and the people offended should escalate the issue. But so far that's been Wikipedia's response so I don't see any wrong-doing from their behalf. Just from one editor. But instead of going through the proper channels and attempting to resolve this within the Wikipedia protocols these people seem to be launching a campaign against Wikipedia which, in my opinion, borders on propaganda. Some of the debate here was also over a subjective accusation that the targets were "anti-war" when in reality the commonality seemed to have been pro-Putin. That distinction also stinks of propaganda. Again, just my opinion.
Udik 8y ago
> "Anti-war" doesn't sound like a particularly descriptive adjective for the apparent targets here. They are not anti-war campaigners per se, they seem to be sitting in the Russia-sympathetic zone of discourse. No. Please, everybody stop with this Russia nonsense. Russia has become the bogeyman to which every evil and its opposite can be attributed, included the election of a US president that the US citizens voted themselves, and of which on average are pretty satisfied, I'm afraid. Some of the people mentioned in this story as targets of Philip Cross have been questioning the West's alliances and wars- and the narrative that enabled them- for decades. Since a couple of years, Russia seems to be openly, and somehow aggressively (from an information point of view) doing the same. So in case it's Russia that aligned with them.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- megous 8y ago
  It's not nonsense. Russia is waging a propaganda war in the west. Results are clearly visible in the last 5 years or so. Even in my country that was occupied by USSR at one time, there are now very vocal pro-russian agenda voices, especially on social media, news comment sections and or alt-news websites. It's ridiculous. And what's this website anyway? Someone created an anonymous website to spread some onesided info about a feud with some wikipedia editor he doesn't like. Out of curiosity, I looked up Galloway. He isn't really serious about what he writes about UK/US/Syria. Just filter his twitter for syria keyword. It's all just some one-sided polemic, often based on leading questions. It's not even reporting. He comes of as some kind of misinformed activist with non-obvious agenda. Anti-war? That surely must be a joke. He has 151k tweets and barely mentions destruction of Raqqa by US air campaign that was going on for 5 months. He mentions Kobani, another city US bombed and shelled to the ground, precisely once - to send people to RT/Sputnik for info about that. All these things and others were significantly more influential actions by the US war machine in the region, and incomparably more deadly and injurious to innocents. He's not even anti-US/UK war machine, consistently. Yet US does some token attack on Assad's infrastructure, and he spreads alarmist nonsense for days, even insinuating that he might be killed by UK government. I don't get him. Perhaps he's just trying to look certain way to UK citizens, and it's all just posturing/signalling. He didn't even mention any of the Assads war crimes, or what he did to fuel instability and war in the region. No mention out of 151k tweets. That's anti war?
barrkel 8y ago
The strongest people Russia can leverage are those with genuine positions independent of Russia, because reflexive apologists are easy to dismiss. You haven't supported your position that these guys are not pacifists. I rather see them as pointing out hypocrisy, necessary to avoid the groupthink that forms around national interests - the set of positions that all sides of mainstream politics in a nation hold for reasons of self-interest, rather than truth or ethics.
- pjc50 8y ago
  George Galloway is primarily a contrarian, and actively supported Saddam Hussein. I'm not sure he'd recognise a genuine position if he fell over it in the street. Neil Clark is a genocide denier: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/12/warcrimes.comment https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/12/warcrimes.comm... There's a real problem with people who (correctly) spot that Western governments are lying about certain things, and then infer that (a) they're lying about everthing else and (b) non-western governments aren't worse liars.
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    > actively supported Saddam Hussein I find Galloway unbelievably annoying, but is this just (Tory/New Labour) for being anti-Iraq War? Because it certainly was in the US.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      I was trying to use "actively" to express that his support went beyond merely opposing the war; the details are complicated, lengthy and the subject of numerous court actions, but here's a sample: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4016803.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4016803.stm

bushin 8y ago

This seems closer to the truth, otherwise why sputnik and rt would care.

strainer 8y ago
These notable persons (Craig Murray, David Edwards, George Galloway etc) who are reporting their personal biographies being edited unfairly on Wikipedia, are in fact well known as prominent humanitarian and anti-war activists and writers. For strategic reasons at least -- Russia's foreign commercial news stations are also of late "sympathetic" to anti-war and progressive themes (such as arms reduction and peaceful conflict resolution). Opinions may differ here about the nature of Russia's support for those subjects, but that is a very orthogonal concern. I don't know of any substantiated connections between the persons involved here and the Russian government or media. They certainly are "anti war" in the popular sense of the term.
- bushin 8y ago
  I googled Galloway and he has young Stalin on his twitter profile pic. Never before had Stirlitz been so close to failure.
  - strainer 8y ago
    Sure Galloway has a soft spot for Stalin - obviously he considers him misunderstood - history written by the victors and all that. I wouldn't know. But the issue here is how does such an eccentricity significantly connect him to the modern Russian government or media? And also the others, as is being suggested - as a group.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      I'm not sure how "having a soft spot" for one of the most notorious mass-murdering warmongers of the 20th century makes someone "anti-war".
      - strainer 8y ago
        Like I said, there may or not be a reasoned historical debate behind it I dont know. He is known as an anti war campaigner, because he has been a prominent campaigner against military aggression in our time.
        notahacker 8y ago
        Even his staunchest defenders would be forced to admit his campaigns against military aggression are selective and more influenced by a continuation of Cold War "anti-imperialist" realpolitik than actual pacifism. He's been outspokenly supportive of Russian involvement in Syria, and he was the member of the anti-war campaign over Iraq that achieved notoriety by calling for Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in fighting Western forces rather than the more mainstream position of advocating a cessation of hostilities altogether...
        strainer 8y ago
        I think he is most "influenced" by the thought of lasting international peace and security for everyone, and perhaps justice too, though I fear that is most difficult of conditions to resolve. Would that Russia critics could admit their involvement in Syria has been hugely stabilizing to a situation which almost fell into the hell which Libya was thrown into by air strikes...
        notahacker 8y ago
        I prefer to judge him by what he actually does and says (and he's an unusually eloquent speaker and persistent campaigner rather than some gaffe-prone blunderer) and not than some Platonic ideal of what he actually might represent. We're talking about someone that agitates against any form of air strikes by the West for months, then when Russia announces plans to launch air strikes against exactly the same target, gushes that it's going to be a Stalingrad-like triumph over fascism all over again. We're talking about somebody who highlighted Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses right up to the point where the West decided he was actually more of a threat to regional stability than Iran and forcibly ejected him from the neighbouring country he invaded, at which point George started meeting people who were naming their sons Saddam and felt obliged to fly to Iraq after the war to salute Saddam's indefatigability and wish him future victories in person and deliver deputy the writings of Sun Tzu to advise them on "patriotic resistance" against any future threats. And we're talking about somebody who goes off the fairly coherent and very widely-supported anti-war campaign script in 2001 to call upon Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in rising up against the West in Iraq. If all this is in the name of "long lasting international peace and security for everyone" as opposed to because he really, really wants to see non-Western forces prevail on the battlefield, it's difficult to see exactly how....
- M2Ys4U 8y ago
  Galloway, a humanitarian? Hahahaha. This is what Galloway said to Saddam Hussain: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem."
  - strainer 8y ago
    That isn't in the spirit of hacker news discussion. That quote has a context and we shouldn't single one of the concerned notable persons out to judge them all. Galloway organised the Iraqi Oil for food program to try to relieve the population suffering extreme infant mortality under international sanctions, and he was a UK Parliamentarian and major figure in UKs Stop the War campaign and others.

varjag 8y ago

Yep, they are very pro-war when as long as it waged by Assad and his allies.

zug_zug 8y ago

I'm not sure if whether it's Russia has anything to do with it. The point is that objective truth requires moving above tribalist mentality, clearly cross failed to do that. Dragging Russia into this is also failing to rise above tribalist mentality.

wybiral 8y ago
The fact that this "article" was published on a site that appears to have no other purpose other than advertising some RSS tool and who has a Twitter account that seems to be almost entirely dedicated to pushing this one story is an objective truth. Their other Twitter activity is mostly from an anti-western perspective with a lot of pro-Assad, pro-Iran, pro-Wikileaks, pro-Corbyn, and a handful of straight pro-Putin messages. I'm not giving an opinion, just stating the objective truth (I can link exact Tweets if you'd like). This article also mirrors pieces being shared predominately on pro-Putin outlets like Sputnik and RT. So the fact that some of the targets in this seem to be pro-Russia isn't entirely a non-point when trying to evaluate the full picture of this situation and the motivation of the different parties involved.
- zug_zug 8y ago
  The question at hand is whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. You instead focus on the political views of the website that published this piece, which is irrelevant, and also creates a distracting us/them mentality. None of which has any bearing on whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. If you think the piece is unfairly critical, then dispute the facts of the case (the merits of the edits he made) rather than the character of the speaker.
  - wybiral 8y ago
    I think the editor may have been trolling these people, yes, and the people offended should escalate the issue. But so far that's been Wikipedia's response so I don't see any wrong-doing from their behalf. Just from one editor. But instead of going through the proper channels and attempting to resolve this within the Wikipedia protocols these people seem to be launching a campaign against Wikipedia which, in my opinion, borders on propaganda. Some of the debate here was also over a subjective accusation that the targets were "anti-war" when in reality the commonality seemed to have been pro-Putin. That distinction also stinks of propaganda. Again, just my opinion.

Udik 8y ago

> "Anti-war" doesn't sound like a particularly descriptive adjective for the apparent targets here. They are not anti-war campaigners per se, they seem to be sitting in the Russia-sympathetic zone of discourse. No. Please, everybody stop with this Russia nonsense. Russia has become the bogeyman to which every evil and its opposite can be attributed, included the election of a US president that the US citizens voted themselves, and of which on average are pretty satisfied, I'm afraid. Some of the people mentioned in this story as targets of Philip Cross have been questioning the West's alliances and wars- and the narrative that enabled them- for decades. Since a couple of years, Russia seems to be openly, and somehow aggressively (from an information point of view) doing the same. So in case it's Russia that aligned with them.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
megous 8y ago
It's not nonsense. Russia is waging a propaganda war in the west. Results are clearly visible in the last 5 years or so. Even in my country that was occupied by USSR at one time, there are now very vocal pro-russian agenda voices, especially on social media, news comment sections and or alt-news websites. It's ridiculous. And what's this website anyway? Someone created an anonymous website to spread some onesided info about a feud with some wikipedia editor he doesn't like. Out of curiosity, I looked up Galloway. He isn't really serious about what he writes about UK/US/Syria. Just filter his twitter for syria keyword. It's all just some one-sided polemic, often based on leading questions. It's not even reporting. He comes of as some kind of misinformed activist with non-obvious agenda. Anti-war? That surely must be a joke. He has 151k tweets and barely mentions destruction of Raqqa by US air campaign that was going on for 5 months. He mentions Kobani, another city US bombed and shelled to the ground, precisely once - to send people to RT/Sputnik for info about that. All these things and others were significantly more influential actions by the US war machine in the region, and incomparably more deadly and injurious to innocents. He's not even anti-US/UK war machine, consistently. Yet US does some token attack on Assad's infrastructure, and he spreads alarmist nonsense for days, even insinuating that he might be killed by UK government. I don't get him. Perhaps he's just trying to look certain way to UK citizens, and it's all just posturing/signalling. He didn't even mention any of the Assads war crimes, or what he did to fuel instability and war in the region. No mention out of 151k tweets. That's anti war?

barrkel 8y ago

The strongest people Russia can leverage are those with genuine positions independent of Russia, because reflexive apologists are easy to dismiss. You haven't supported your position that these guys are not pacifists. I rather see them as pointing out hypocrisy, necessary to avoid the groupthink that forms around national interests - the set of positions that all sides of mainstream politics in a nation hold for reasons of self-interest, rather than truth or ethics.

pjc50 8y ago
George Galloway is primarily a contrarian, and actively supported Saddam Hussein. I'm not sure he'd recognise a genuine position if he fell over it in the street. Neil Clark is a genocide denier: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/12/warcrimes.comment https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/12/warcrimes.comm... There's a real problem with people who (correctly) spot that Western governments are lying about certain things, and then infer that (a) they're lying about everthing else and (b) non-western governments aren't worse liars.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  > actively supported Saddam Hussein I find Galloway unbelievably annoying, but is this just (Tory/New Labour) for being anti-Iraq War? Because it certainly was in the US.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    I was trying to use "actively" to express that his support went beyond merely opposing the war; the details are complicated, lengthy and the subject of numerous court actions, but here's a sample: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4016803.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4016803.stm