Talk:Project for the New American Century/Archive 5

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Post-AFD discussion

So the AFD on the list article landed on a delete, see here. This is, I think, a surprise to no one given the way the discussion was going, although I was a bit surprised to see the closer suggest that the table "had been found" to be synthetic. I personally still disagree with that assessment, but I think perhaps now's the time to put a pin in the whole "table" debate and move on.

I would like to suggest, however, that some of the large number of sources that were used/found in support of the table could be put to good use in this article:

Extended content
References

The number and weight of some of these sources suggests to me that this article does need to address/discuss the perception that PNAC and the George W. Bush admin were closely linked, and the reality that there were a significant number of people with ties to both. My two cents is that this is best handled through a prose section, though, which can discuss the different perspectives on this topic more thoroughly and give due weight to the more reliable/academic sources.

To be clear - I'm not in a hurry to stick all this back in the article or anything, I just think it's worth noting that there's a large body of literature here that the article should probably address in one way or another. Any thoughts? Fyddlestix (talk) 15:09, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

As discussed on the Stephen Cambone article Talk, a couple of the documents merit their own respective article, at least starting with a section in this (main) article (such a section already exists for the report and Statement of Principles), where the signatories may (or maybe not) be listed along with the connection to the Bush administration.

Those include the 1998 Letter to Clinton on Iraq and ''Rebuilding America's Defenses'', which the sources leave no question about notability, largely addressed specifically with respect to subsequent connection to the Bush administration.

--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 05:59, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

1998 Letter to Clinton on Iraq

@Capitalismojo: The interpretation you have attempted to force on the article regarding the abovementioned letter is based on a misreading of the sources. Please check this page and the related links, according that to the document itself on the now defunct PNAC website.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 05:54, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I have interpreted nothing. The Cambridge University book ref, CNN, and other refs all explicitly state that the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf sent the letter. The refs state that a number of people associated with PNAC signed it. Original research that assumes that the letter was a product of PNAC because a copy appeared on their "now defunct" website does not trump both contemporaneous reporting and subsequent academic analysis (in the existing and longstanding refs). WP:V. Capitalismojo (talk) 12:22, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

From CNN ref February 20, 1998 posted at: 4:04 p.m. EST (2104 GMT)

"A bipartisan group whose members are prominent in U.S. international policy circles called on President Clinton Friday to go beyond a military strike on Iraq and to help overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and replace his regime with a provisional government."

"The 39-member group, organized as the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, includes former U.S. Rep. Stephen Solarz of New York, who was a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Richard Perle, a former assistant defense secretary for international security policy."

That was the reporting. From the Cambridge University Press ref:

"At the beginning of 1998, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Sven Kraemer, and William Kristol, along with thirty-four other neo-con members of the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG), signed an open letter to Clinton insisting that regime change in Iraq 'needs to become the aim of American foriegn policy'."

Reading the refs leave no wiggle room. The letter was sent by the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf. It was signed by several people involved with PNAC. Capitalismojo (talk) 12:45, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

By the way, here is the letter. This copy is archived at the Center for Security Policy think-tank. It takes no interpretation to see that it was issued by the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, it plainly was. Capitalismojo (talk) 12:54, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Capitalismojo:@Ubikwit: I checked the books I have available, turns out you're actually both right here. Maria Ryan (who is one of the more reliable scholars to have treated PNAC in depth) is very clear on this: there were two Iraq letters, one which she clearly identifies as having been "initiated by" PNAC in January 1998, and a second one from February 1998, which she describes as: "this time from a one-off reassembling of an old ad hoc coalition called the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf." She clearly identifies the first one as "the PNAC letter," and the second one as coming from CPSG. (page 104-5)

So while you're both right, note that this diff, Capitalism, you're incorrect in labeling that particular letter (Jan 1998) as the "Committee for Peace and Security" letter - that one was signed/released a month later, in February 1998. Ryan is also quite clear (p 103) that the January (PNAC) letter was signed by Abrams, Bolton, Dobriansky, Rodman, Rumsfeld, Scheneider, Woolsey, Zoellick, Fukuyama, Bennet, Weber, Armitage, and Berger. So it's clear that as written, that paragraph was actually referring to the first (PNAC) letter.

Hope that clears things up. No reason why both letters can't be mentioned but it needs to be clear that there were two letters - one "by PNAC" and one by the CPSG, and the article needs to be clear which one it's referring to when these are discussed (I'd suggest referring to the date as the easiest way to distinguish them). Fyddlestix (talk) 12:55, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is helpful. I just took the existing refs as I found them and read them. Hence the above. Two questions, the first question is did the "first letter" (PNAC open letter) get any reporting i.e. was it noteworthy? The second question is if the "PNAC open letter" was noteworthy, who signed it as opposed to the signers of the headline-making second (CSPG) letter. Capitalismojo (talk) 13:11, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

They waybackmachine answers the question about the 18 signers.Capitalismojo (talk) 13:28, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there's much question that both letters were notable - both are discussed at significant length in secondary sources like Ryan, and the PNAC (January) letter in particular is mentioned by many of the sources I linked in the "post-AFD" discussion above, listing the same signatories you just listed. So regardless of whether it got media coverage at the time, it has been discussed a great deal later on by RS. Ryan also mentions coverage in the New York Times, Washington Times and Weekly standard in a footnote.

The sources you found on the second letter seem to testify to its notability as well. I think both could/should probably be included in the article, it just needs to be made clear which "1998 Letter to Clinton" is being discussed. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:18, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's discussed frequently, sometimes in error regarding Cambone, such as here.

I don't know where the February letter could be integrated, but again, the January PNAC letter probably merits it's own section in this article. Here are some more sources for that:

1. [8]
2. [9]
3. [10]
4. [11]
   --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 16:19, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

However it is handled I think that there should be at least a brief mention that there are two letters even if the February letter is not discussed. This will be a service to our readers because of the obvious potential for confusion. Jbh (talk) 21:42, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

RfC

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus supports either removal of the text entirely, or inclusion but only with the context of Meacher's Truther agenda, but this is likely to be considered WP:UNDUE. None of the specific proposals seems to have consensus yet, so the safest course is to avoid mention altogether at this time. Guy (Help!) 07:47, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

---

[12] removes a second quote from a source still being used for the statement: British MP Michael Meacher, made similar allegations in 2003, stating that Rebuilding America's Defences was "a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana," which had been "drawn up for" key members of the Bush administration

The material removed further cites Meacher specifically for

it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001). The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested.

Was the second quote properly removed as UNDUE or should it remain per NPOV? 21:57, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:RFC I am offering an alternative statement here since I do not believe the above is an accurate reflection of the question being debated. Alternative statement would be:

Is the lengthy quote necessary, or was it rightly removed as part of a broader effort to reduce the number of block quotes in the article? Is it necessary for Meacher's views on September 11 to be quoted at length in this section, or should his views be summarized/paraphrased (with appropriate citations) instead? Fyddlestix (talk) 13:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• If we go with the alternative question presented by Fyddlestix, I would have to argue in favor of the section being summarized/paraphrased with appropriate citations. Red1996 (talk) 04:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

I'm fine with removal of the quotes, and do not agree with Collect's assertion that the 9-11 material belongs in the article. As described below, the academic sources do not mention it in this context, and as far as I can tell, that is because it is not relevant to the topic.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 14:50, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

If you use Meacher's quotes about Bush benefitting from a conspiracy, and elide the fac that it is about Meacher's well-known 9/1 1 conspiracy theories, then the cite is being abused. If we use Meacher, we must use Meacher and not just a fragment about Bush wrenched from his 9/11 conspiracy screed. Maybe we should include his claim that Mossad was involved as well as PNAC. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:09, 27 February 2015 (UTC) Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:09, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Now you are crossing the line into simply misrepresenting the source.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:19, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Look at the heading for the source: This war on terrorism is bogus Michael Meacher The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination Right at the very top of the source you seem to think is not about 9/11! If the source were not about 9/11 why is that heading there in big letters? Or if you feel that big heading about 9/11 does not mean the article was about 9/11 perhaps the first paragraphs will give a hint:

Massive attention has now been given – and rightly so – to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier.

Which screams "conspiracy theory!" At least I rather think it does, YMMV? Collect (talk) 15:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The quote provides a basis by which a reader may decide to give greater or lesser credence to the accusation that Bush was benefitting from a conspiracy (as seen by Meacher). Without such balance showing Meacher's actual claims in the full article, the bit about "key members" of the Bush administration benefitting from a conspiracy might be tenable. Once the rest of the quote gets in, it is clear that Meacher (whom Wikipedia places in the "9/11 conspiracy theorists" category) might not be absolutely accurate in his depiction of events. So how much strength should we give a conspiracy theorist who has appeared a few times with Alex Jones (radio host) and written for Infowars.com? Collect (talk) 21:57, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Didn't quite think we'd reached the point of needing an RFC here (I only entered this debate a few hours ago) but OK. Please note my alternative statement above - I asked Collect to change the initial statement but he appears unwilling to do so. My argument for removing Meacher's comments about September 11 is simple: this section of the article isn't about September 11. The quote seems to have been included as a way to signal readers that they should dismiss his opinions/comments, but to me it seems out of place and off-topic in this section of the article. I contend that if Meacher's opinion on the subject of this article is to be dismissed, Collect (or another editor) should be able to indicate that by stating what he wants to say in wikipedia's voice, and citing a reliable source or two, rather than relying on a lengthy quote to do that, and contributing to this article's major problem with over-quoting and over-long block quotes (I've already trimmed some of these - it was even worse earlier). Alternatively, he could make an argument for altogether omitting Meacher's arguments from the article - but given the fact that his piece was printed in the Guardian, and that several other academic sources (which i linked above) have sought to refute Meacher's opinion, rather than dismissed it out of hand, I think that would be a hard argument to make. Also please note that Ubikwit has his own (I think slightly different?) reasons for wanting to see the quote removed, if he doesn't post his reasons here I'd encourage others to read some of the above posts by him as well and take those arguments into account. Fyddlestix (talk) 23:11, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually if you read the article, the entire article is, indeed, related to 9/11 and the subsequent Iraq actions. Meacher, in fact, makes it exceedingly clear that the US knew ahead of time about 9/11 and used it to benefit the Bush administration. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:29, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I did read the entire article, and yes, I disagree with his contentions/theories about 9-11. But just because I disagree with what he says later in his article doesn't mean that I can dismiss what he said earlier in his article, in the only part of the article that bears quoting on this page. I'm referring to his assertion (to quote the current, live version of the article) that "Rebuilding America's Defences was 'a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana,' which had been 'drawn up for' key members of the Bush administration."

Look at how the academics I quoted and linked above address this exact same claim - they note it, they refute/take issue with it, and they move on - all without feeling the need to even mention Meacher's views on September 11, much less quote his views on that subject at length. That's what this article should do. It seems to me like you're trying to argue that nothing Meacher says is valid because he holds questionable views about September 11, but this is obviously not the case - it's perfectly possible for him to be wrong about 9-11 but right about Rebuilding America's Defenses. Since the latter is what's relevant to this article, that's what should be addressed here.

Note, though, that as I already said in my first post on this page, I'm not in favor of quoting any of Meacher's opinions at length - a quick mention/paraphrase, followed by a quick counterpoint using the academic sources I linked above is all that's required here. Meacher and his opinions are notable: he's a former minister/MP, his piece was published in the guardian, and has been addressed by multiple reliable sources. I think it bears mentioning in the article - just not quoting at length. And as I also already stated, I'd support you adding a sentence or two about him having controversial views about Sept 11 - I just don't think he's views about 9-11 need to be quoted in so much length.Fyddlestix (talk) 00:52, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Two more things: One, what do you mean by saying (in your last edit summary) that you "feel like Alex Jones is here?" Are you comparing me to (or calling me) a conspiracy theorist? I'm saying that we should give Meacher the same treatment that the perfectly respectable university professors and academic publishers I cited above gave him. Are they conspiracy theorists too, for failing to just dismiss everything Meacher says? They obviously found his ideas (about the subject of this article, not about Sept 11) worth mention/refuting, and since they are without question reliable sources, I submit that the wiki article should handle the issue in much the same way. Second thing: isn't the point of a RFC to seek someone else's input? I don't really see the point in us re-hashing the same argument we've already had up-thread repeatedly.Fyddlestix (talk) 01:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Meacher is a friend of Alex Jones (radio host), appears on his radio shows and writes for his web-site. I commend you to read about him and the pushing of conspiracy theories. In his article cited, Meacher specifically promotes conspiracy theories. Ought we promote such here? Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:09, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

And if we use the article, and only use what we want where he says Bush benefitted from a conspiracy without noticing the entire article is about Meacher's 9/11 conspiracy theory then we are truly deluding the reader. Collect (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

For what feels like the 10th time, I am not trying to "promote" Meacher. I don't see anyone who is. But his views were/are nonetheless pertinent to the subject of this article - they were addressed and discussed in multiple reliable sources. My only argument/point here is that the article should rely on those sources to summarize and discuss Meacher's views, instead of relying on lengthy block quotes from Meacher himself. Full stop.Fyddlestix (talk) 14:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The assertion that "the entire article is about Meacher's 9/11 conspiracy theory" is your fanciful interpretation, nothing more, but you refuse to listen.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 14:41, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

What do you think Meacher's entire article is about? It is entirely about his 9/11 conspiracy theories. You wish to use the part where he says it was for the Bush administration -- pulling out one tiny piece of the full article. Read the whole article - it is about the Bush administration deliberately wanting 9/11, that Israel ( Mossad as Meacher states) knew about the entire plot, and 11 other countries told us about the entire plot and we deliberately did nothing, as planned by secret meetings. The guy is an Alex Jones (radio host) talk show denizen, and you fail to notice it? Collect (talk) 14:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we can figure this out amicably.

• Meacher's comments on PNAC are notable. (Incidentally, a lot of people have appeared on The Alex Jones Show, according to the list given on Wikipedia. Although they fall on the left of the narrow American political spectrum, people like Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky are usually not considered unacceptable to cite or quote on Wikipedia.)
• Collect seems to feel strongly that we should include a longer quotation—because anything shorter would be taken too far out of context from his actual views. I can respect that.
• Fyddlestix thinks the blockquotes are already too long. I can respect that also, though I tend to err on the side of including more information when possible.

• (P.S.: Ubikwit thinks the extra material shouldn't be included for the different reason that it's not germane. It seems germane enough to me, but regardless, maybe the footnote solution will also be pleasing to U, in de-emphasizing the secondary material.)

• Perhaps a shorter quotation in the article, combined with a footnote, would be a good compromise solution.

salaam, groupuscule (talk) 17:03, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

@Groupuscule: I wouldn't have a problem with a footnote. There is too much information about his examination of why the war on terror is bogus to be inserted into the body of this article, which is only about PNAC, and in the section "Global supremacy". It would probably need to be a paraphrased version of his views per:

Given this background, it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance. There is a possible precedent for this. The US national archives reveal that President Roosevelt used exactly this approach in relation to Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. Some advance warning of the attacks was received, but the information never reached the US fleet. The ensuing national outrage persuaded a reluctant US public to join the second world war. Similarly the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into "tomorrow's dominant force" is likely to be a long one in the absence of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the "go" button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement.

Note, again, that the academic books addressing his statements on PNAC do not mention the broader context of the war on terror. So there is no support in secondary sources for emphasizing such a connection.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 17:32, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Fine by me - just so long as the article isn't going on about Meacher's 9-11 views (or quoting him on the subject) at excessive length. Personally I think that the discussion of Meacher in this article should be limited to a few sentences, and that this whole debate is pretty tangential to the subject of the article, but I'm ready & willing to compromise here. Also thanks for wading into this, appreciate your efforts!Fyddlestix (talk) 21:15, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I should add that one primary reason for adding the Meacher quote in the first place was the ridiculously self-serving very long block quote from Kagan that preceded it in the text as well as in real life, with Meacher responding two months later. With the Kagan quote gone the one-sentence paraphrase of Meacher, plus the related statements by the academics seems to be adequate for the main body, with the secondary sources getting more weight (a full pargraph) than the primary source from Meacher.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 21:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for saying this, it cuts to what I think the real major issue with this article is, and that is the massive over-quoting and blockquoting: both of people who like PNAC and who don't. There are multiple lengthy paragraphs of quotes in this article that could be paraphrased and summarized in a few sentences. It's completely unencyclopedic and that's what we should be spending our time fixing, rather than getting distracted by this whole sideshow with Meacher.Fyddlestix (talk) 21:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I have absolutely no position on PNAC, but I do have a position on the 9/11 Truthers. Whenever we give credence to them as though they were reciting "actual fact" it is pretty nearly as bad as we can get. Personally, I would not give Meacher a single word here unless we make clear what his "theories" are. Chees. Collect (talk) 22:06, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Suggested Compromise

I'd like to present another possible compromise, based on the suggestion made by groupuscule above. How would you all feel about revision the relevant section of the article to read as follows:

Multiple journalists, academics, and other critics have asserted that the Project for the New American Century had laid out a blueprint for American hegemony, which later played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration. BBC journalist Paul Reynolds, for example, asserted in 2007 that PNAC had sought to promote American dominance, and that the organization's publications helped "to explain some of the administration's actions" in later years. In an article published a few weeks before the start of the Iraq War, Der Speigel journalist Jurgen Bölsche claimed that Rebuilding America's Defenses "had been developed by PNAC for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Libby." Titling his article "Bush's Master Plan: This War Came from a Think Tank," Bölsche suggested that Rebuilding America's Defenses had been "devoted to matters of maintaining US pre-eminence, thwarting rival powers and shaping the global security system according to US interests.'"

Critics like British MP Michael Meacher went further. In a September, 2003 article in The Guardian, which also suggested that American authorities had done "little or nothing to prevent" the September 11 Attacks, and suggested that American security forces might have "deliberately stood down" on September 11 2001, Meacher charged PNAC with having "drawn up" a blueprint for "US world domination." Rebuilding the American Future, he claimed, had called for a US military presence in the Persian Gulf long before the War in Iraq, and provided a "much better explanation of what actually happened" before, during and after September 11 than "the global war on terrorism thesis."

Meacher's views have been criticized by the Daily Mail which charged him with giving "credence to conspiracy theories" about September 11, and journalist David Aaronovitch characterized his allegations as "conspiracy 101." As scholars Donald E. Abelson and Phillip Hammond have noted, however, similar views of PNAC's origins, goals, and influence "continue to make their way into the academic literature on the neo-conservative network in the United States." Both scholars have been skeptical of these claims. Hammond, for example, notes that while Rebuilding America's Defenses "is often cited as evidence that a blueprint for American domination of the world was implemented under cover of the war on terrorism," it was actually "unexceptional." According to Hammond, its recommendations were "exactly what one would generally expect neoconservatives to say, and it is no great revelation that they said it in publicly-available documents prior to September 2001." Similarly, Abelson has written that "evaluating the extent of PNAC's influence is not as straightforward as Meacher and others maintain." According to Abelson, "we know very little about the inner workings of this think tank and whether it has lived up to its billing as the architect of Bush's foreign policy."

References

I feel that this is about as close to a compromise as we're going to get: Meacher's views on both Sept 11 and PNAC are summarized, it's made clear that his views have been firmly challenged and that multiple reliable sources consider him a conspiracy theorist, but there's also an acknowledgement from 2 very reliable sources that his claims about PNAC and its role have been influential (not right, not well-founded, just influential) and that similar claims continue to circulate. I've gone over the notes and citations quite carefully here and I think everything is well documented and from a reliable source, but I'd be happy to make reasonable revisions. And most importantly from my perspective (since this is what drew me to comment/revise this article in the first place) there are no over-long or block quotations. I've tried to make everything as clear and concise as possible. What do you think? If you think this falls short, I think it would help a lot if you could be specific about what you'd like to see handled differently, and make some constructive suggestions to help us work towards a version that we can all agree on. Fyddlestix (talk) 01:50, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Good work. I can live with that, with one-word change, as per the Guardian piece, "and suggested that American security forces might have been "deliberately stood down".--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 04:57, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

One thing I just noticed is that this sentence has be excised

George Monbiot, a journalist and former political activist from the United Kingdom, stated: "...to pretend that this battle begins and ends in Iraq requires a willful denial of the context in which it occurs. That context is a blunt attempt by the superpower to reshape the world to suit itself."

Maybe it's not absolutely necessary, but in light of the increasingly fervent attempts to tar and feather Meacher in a manner such as to render the overwhelmingly negative criticism in RS of PNAC with respect to the report in question and the question of "Global supremacy", perhaps it is necessary to emphasize where the sources come down on this issue. The only positive defense in the section from the start was a primary source promotional screed from one of the Directors of PNAC.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 14:53, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I started with the current "live" version of the article, which this quote was not in. Personally I'm not sure what it adds but that might be because I'm missing the context - I'll take a look at his article and see if it makes more sense then.Fyddlestix (talk) 16:02, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Way long and not in great balance. And it does not "tar and feather Meacher" at all. Monbiot is a major unbalancing bit to add - which I sure hope is not your aim. Monbiot referred to the very public document as "confidential" and is the only actual reference to the PNAC "confidentiality" in that column! He does assert PNAC wants biological warfare "Among other enlightened policies, it has called for the development of a new generation of biological agents, which will attack people with particular genetic characteristics. " Which I suggest is far from " Moreover, there is a question about the role nuclear weapons should play in deterring the use of other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological, with the U.S. having foresworn those weapons’ development and use." and " Information systems will become an important focus of attack, particularly for U.S. enemies seeking to short-circuit sophisticated American forces. And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool." both of which are miles from Monbiot's apparent misreading of the material - the ones who would develop the biological weapons are "America's enemies." Monbiot is off the wall on that one -- do you really want the exact proper quotes added when he gets added? Cheers. Collect (talk) .

I don't see a single produce you've produced that supports anything you attempt to imply (because you can't say it directly). Regarding Monbiot, it's not clear what you are saying (other than asserting that he mischaracterized a public report as confidential), but Monbiot does address Abromovitch in the article[13] with regard to another position David Aaronovitch had taken, and the relevant text needs to be quoted

In this week’s Observer, David Aaronovitch suggested that, before September 11, the Bush administration was “relatively indifferent to the nature of the regimes in the Middle East”1. Only after America was attacked was it forced to start taking an interest in the rest of the world.
If Aaronovitch believes this, he would be well-advised to examine the website of the Project for the New American Century2, the pressure group established, among others, by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Elliott Abrams and Zalmay Khalilzad, all of whom (except the president’s brother) are now senior officials in the US government. Its statement of principles, signed by those men on June 3 1997, asserts that the key challenge for the United States is “to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests”3. This requires “a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.”4
On January 26 1998, these men wrote to President Clinton, urging him “to enunciate a new strategy”, namely “the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”5 If Clinton failed to act, “the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.” They acknowledged that this doctrine would be opposed, but “American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.”6
Last year, the Sunday Herald obtained a copy of a confidential report produced by the Project in September 2000, which suggested that blatting Saddam was the beginning, not the end of its strategy. “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”7 The wider strategic aim, it insisted, was “maintaining global US pre-eminence”. Another document obtained by the Herald, written by Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, called upon the United States to “discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”8.
On taking power, the Bush administration was careful not to alarm its allies. The new president spoke only of the need “to project our strength with purpose and with humility”9 and “to find new ways to keep the peace”10. From his first week in office, however, he began to engage not so much in nation-building as in planet-building.

--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:46, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Agree with removal- summoned by bot. I think his first quote is sufficient. I don't agree with him being labeled a "conspiracy theorist" - this to me is by now a pejorative label of someone completely off their rocker. Earlier on this discussion page there is a reference to him being included among people who claim 9/11 is an inside job. That is not on his bio and that's not what he said in the Guardian article at all. Saying the U.S. government had intelligence about a forthcoming attack and did nothing or next to nothing is not the same as saying the U.S. planned and coordinated the attack and blew up the WTC with explosives. But anyway that's for a different discussion. I don't think his quote about 9/11 here is necessary and removing is just easier. Wikimandia (talk) 10:59, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Collect's alternative proposal

Some critics say the project laid out a blueprint for American hegemony. BBC journalist Paul Reynolds said in 2007 that it promoted American dominance, and that the report helped "to explain some of the administration's actions" in later years. Der Speigel journalist Jochen Bölsche said Rebuilding America's Defenses had been "devoted to matters of maintaining US pre-eminence, thwarting rival powers and shaping the global security system according to US interests.'" British MP Michael Meacher went further. In a September, 2003 article in The Guardian explaining his 9/11 conspiracy theory, he said that American authorities had done "little or nothing to prevent" the September 11 Attacks, and that American security forces might have "deliberately stood down" on September 11 2001. Meacher charged PNAC with having "drawn up" a blueprint for "US world domination." Rebuilding the American Future, he claimed, had called for a US military presence in the Persian Gulf long before the War in Iraq.'."

Meacher's views have been criticized as giving "credence to conspiracy theories" about September 11, and journalist David Aaronovitch called his article "conspiracy 101." Donald E. Abelson and Phillip Hammond have said similar views of the project's origins continue to spread. " Both scholars are skeptical of these claims. Hammond notes that while Rebuilding America's Defenses "is often cited as evidence that a blueprint for American domination of the world was implemented under cover of the war on terrorism," it was actually "unexceptional," According to Hammond, its recommendations were "exactly what one would generally expect neoconservatives to say." Abelson wrote "evaluating the extent of PNAC's influence is not as straightforward as Meacher and others maintain."

Which is a lot shorter and quite balanced. Collect (talk) 13:04, 28 February 2015 (UTC) (emendations reflecting comments from others are included in order to achieve compromise - the above is not a "static" proposal) Collect (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

References

[Note: Collect has altered the above since I wrote this, the following was a response to this version of the page.] I think you may have lost sight of what the article we're discussing is about here, and in particular of what this section of the article is about. You've removed Meacher's statements about PNAC (which are why he's being mentioned in the article at all) but left in his statements about September 11 (which, with his statements about PNAC removed, becomes wholly off-topic in this article). I'm once again driven to ask - if you want Meacher's views on 9-11 to be discussed at length, but don't want his views of PNAC raised, then why aren't you making the case for removing him from the article altogether?

I also have a problem with removing the phrase "which later played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush administration." I'm open to rewording it, but that's the topic sentence for this whole section - this section of the article is about the views of people who have argued that PNAC advocated a kind of "US global supremacy" (as the section is currently titled - I'd advocate changing that btw) and that this blueprint had a heavy influence on the Bush Administration's FP agenda. And to be clear: I'm not saying that the article should accept those views or advocate them. I'm saying that those concerns have been addressed in enough reliable sources to justify their being discussed in this article.

Same issue with your treatment of Jochen Bolsche (thanks for catching my error with his name, btw) - you've removed any reference to Bolsche's view that PNAC had influenced the policies of the Bush administration - which was the primary argument his article made, and the reason why he's been brought up in this wiki article at all. What's left is a simple description of PNAC's views as Bolsche sees them, which (similar to the Meacher quote) leaves the reader wondering why the article would bother quoting him at all. I'm open to rewording, as I said, but your revision begs the question of why we're talking about Bolsche at all, when in reality there's no question that his views are pertinent to this article and deserving of mention/discussion in this section of it.

Finally, I think you've done a decent job of trimming some excess verbiage (something I know I'm prone to) but I'm puzzled by the assertion that the draft is "way too long." Have you seen what this section looked like before? Fyddlestix (talk) 15:56, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. See Joseph Widney and compare that "good article" with [14]. The draft had used "the project" before - so I now lengthened Meacher's contribution per your request and used his explicit "PNAC" here. This article is about PNAC and not about the "Bush administration" and not about individuals in the "Bush administration" - if one wishes to use quotes about that subject, this is the wrong article. We try to stick to germane material. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Interesting perspective - I imagine you'll be wanting to edit this passage out of the lede of the article then?

With its members in numerous key administrative positions, the PNAC exerted influence on high-level U.S. government officials in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and affected the Bush Administration's development of military and foreign policies, especially involving national security and the Iraq War

I find your tone ("we try to stick to the germane material") unnecessarily patronizing, and I think it's a tad disingenous to try to argue that I'm bringing tangential/unrelated material into the article when the lede says the exact same thing, and has read that way for seven years without anyone ever having an issue with it.Fyddlestix (talk) 23:54, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

It's clearly a tendentious proposal that has no basis in RS and NPOV.

To whom does Collect by "we"? The proposed text is certainly not compliant with NPOV and RS, so what I want to know is where's the policy that defines "germane". The phrase "views continue to spread", for example, makes said "views" sound like rumors or disease, which is clearly a misleading presentation of the source. --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 12:41, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I presented this proposal in good faith. Your response is, however, not apparently made in good faith. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure you're in a position to lecture anyone on arguing/responding in good faith Collect. Your edits here, and here were what drew my attention to this debate in the first place - both are clear cases of WP:POINTy behavior.Fyddlestix (talk) 01:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you needed to read prior discussions before making that leap. Cheers. The goal is to abide by NPOV, and the new edits by Ubikwitclearly break that by a mile. Collect (talk) 08:54, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

There's no leap required: you were very clearly adding material you don't agree with and which you know makes the article worse to make a point. I don't care what was said in prior discussions, thats not an acceptable or a productive way to try to resolve a disagreement. Fyddlestix (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I have now removed unsupported claims from the lede -- we should not use "quotes" in the lead in a misleading manner or violative of any policies. Cheers. The claims made in Wikipedia's voice are opinions only - stating them as "fact" us violative of policy. Opinions must be cited as opinions. Collect (talk) 13:36, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

@Fyddlestix: It seems that Collect has tried to latch onto the inclusion of the Meacher primary-source Guardian article in order to transform this article from an article about PNAC to an article about "9/11 conspiracy theories" so as to obfuscate the well-sourced criticisms of PNAC and the Bush administration.

In particular, the elephant in the room as far as Meacher is concerned is the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with respect to which he first criticized Blair, and then examined America's "motivations", engaging in a sort of retrograde analysis leading from verified falsifications of claims of WMD to the association of the 2000 report by PNAC with a plan for Pax Americana global supremacy, etc.

Insofar as the secondary academic sources do not address Meacher in terms of conspiracy theory with respect to his statements on PNAC, they are not deemed noteworthy by the secondary sources in this context. Accordingly, I'm going to propose that we not use the Guardian article, and use only the secondary sources on Meacher. Does that sound reasonable? What issues might remain?--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 14:25, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Fine by me - that was basically my initial suggestion Fyddlestix (talk) 14:40, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, great, then I think we have something to go with.

Note that though I didn't have a problem with including mention of Aaronovich's criticisms of Meacher, in retrospect, considering the Monbiot article, it's clear where Aaronovich stands overall; i,e, as a supporter of the Bush administration that chooses to ignore PNAC's connections to the administration, etc., and the flood of media reports on that topic. The problem is that scholarly sources do not agree with Aaronovitch's characterizations of Meacher and his statements related to PNAC, and Monbiot accurately challenges the premises of those views. Accordingly, I think Aaronovich and Monbiot should be left out, and we should stick to the secondary sources on Meacher. The current text is fine by me, but you did some good work, as far as I'm concerned, on the proposed compromise text. The It would be worth including some of that and leaving out the above-mentioned material. I also posted a number of recent academic sources today, several from 2014 that are worth having a look at if you have time. The Bolsche piece, incidentally, as described in "Creed, Cabal, or Conspiracy" includes another passage that resonates somewhat with Hammond (contrasts with Abelson):

The influential German weekly Der Spiegel expressed the widespread consternation at the increasingly far-fetched reasons given for the impending war against Iraq by pointing to Bush’s ideologically driven policy advisers: “It was the exact opposite of a conspiracy. In broad daylight ultra-rightwing US think-tanks were as early as 1998 drawing up plans for an era of American global domination, for the emasculation of the UN, and an aggressive war against Iraq. They weren’t taken seriously for a long time. In the meantime the hawks in the Bush administration are calling the shots.”

--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Collect's wholesale removal of long-standing, well-sourced material

For starter's, the fact that Collect can't find the CS Monitor article diesn't mean it doesn't exist, but he knows removing on the basis of such a false claim is against policy.
Here are several examples of its use in secondary sources [15] [16] and cite for ten signatories serving in Bush administration
--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 00:39, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Your additions are "bold" but since we were politely discussing trimming the article, the contentious claims about living persons added are UNDUE and violative of WP:BLP. Discuss before re-adding 15K of material please. And we do not need to quote a huge percentage of the pamphlet - all that does is look silly at this point. The object is to follow NPOV, not to ignore that policy utterly. We were on the way to making a balanced article until this. Collect (talk) 08:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense, the only thing I added was a copy edit to the lead after discovering that many PNAC members served in an advisory capacity, not as appointed officials.

All the other material was tendentiously removed by you.

Bearing that in mind, to what do your trumped up BLP claims relate.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 08:56, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Talk about good faith -- your bold edit was removed. Your seeming love of BATTLEGROUNDS is clear. Cheers. Note this article is in the 9/11 category. Collect (talk) 09:01, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

It's you that are continually trying to game the system to push a non-compliant POV while attempting to subvert WP:RS. That, my friend, is representative of a battleground mentality.

Do recall that I've already raised your tendentiousness on the Neoconservativsm and Joe Klein articles with ArbCom.

Go ahead and post your BLP claim related to 9/11 at BLP/N. There have already been a couple of discussions that have not gone your way though, so you want to be careful about WP:FORUMSHOPPING, and not repeat the same claims.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 09:15, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Um -- you have complained as an ArbCom case and a whole bunch of other cases - you are a Drahma Board Denizen, and your edit here adding the SYNTH table is blatant. The person for whom the shopping cart allegory applies is not I, clearly. You have over 200 edits in the past month to Wikipedia space. I suggest that your re-addition of the table is sufficiently POINTy that you are likely to be notified that this article falls under discretionary sanctions. Cheers - now let's work on what I thought was a productive discussion here. Collect (talk) 09:26, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The claims you made were rebutted by two other editors including myself, and you demurred to defend them in terms of the policies to which you'd made recourse after others were presented by @Jbhunley:.

You'll note that the bulk of what I added today was merely sources, which I finally was able to get around to searching after many distractions.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 09:33, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

And what specific source do you have for your table? Oh? Did you notice you now wikilink people multiple times in a single article - which connecting them to a 9/11 conspiracy theory? Do you consider explicit accusations of conspiracy to be contentious at all? Oh? Cheers. Collect (talk) 09:47, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

There are a plethora of sources, with all statements of opinion being properly attributed.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 11:58, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Wow. The article accuses living persons of supporting genocide, of supporting biological weapons, of seeking war, of having the US ignore warnings ahead of time about 9/11, of conspiring to engage in acts of war, conspiring to support acts of terror, listing people three and four times in a single article making such allegations. And you manage to see nothing amiss. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I see that on February 26 you tried to slip a "See also" to "9/11 conspiracy theories"[17], and categorize the article under that, too.

You should start editing according to the sources, and avoid imparting the impression that you are engaged in some sort of advocacy.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 12:12, 12:28, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Acrually this article has a number of mentions of 9/11 conspiracy theories and theorists, and so it properly belongs in See Also. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:46, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

@Vertrag: The edit summaries you left do not sufficiently describe the scope of your deletions.
The removal of the table is against policy-based consensus, and you've not contributed to the discussion in any form. Other material you deleted was also unrelated to "summarizing" the damning report that some seem to want to keep from the reading public, and seems purely based on a politicized POV.
I suppose that Wikipedia needs a dedicated article on that aforementioned notable report.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:47, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

You're very arguments against the deletion, that somehow, I am attempting "to keep from the reading public" is the reason that it violates WP policy. Wikipedia is not a means of promoting your ideology. Having reviewed snippets of the article history, it looks like it has been the battleground for some time with much of the original article language that was clearly not neutral in its tone or word choice still remaining in the article prior to its report on WP:COIN. And, rather than consensus, it looks to me like a long term project based on an ideological belief. Mix that in with quite a few biography of living person issues and this article needs work. -- Vertrag (talk) 16:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The article may need work, but not whitewashing. The vast majority of literature on the PNAC is critical, though I stick to the sources. You don't seem to have a solid grasp of NPOV, as the mainstream view is the mainstream view, etc., it doesn't matter if you don't like it. You shouldn't accuse editors of "having an ideology", as that is a personal attack. The report in question is probably notable enough to have a stand-alone article.

Prominence in reliable sources determine which points receive more [[WP:|weight]], etc.

What was that about COI?--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 16:34, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

So are you admitting that you have been trying to keep the article in a certain state? Because I never accused you of that - I just said that the consensus you point to looked to me from the review of the history was an issue with article ownership? Therefore, it's current state is not a true consensus. As far as I know you have only recently begun to edit it. Vertrag (talk) 17:09, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

That is not the claim I make, obviously, or what I am accused of by Collect--inserting conspiracy theories.

Doesn't it strike you that there might be a contradiction between the fact that I've only recently started editing the article and an allegation of ownership?--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 17:56, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll read through the talk then to better understand your concern; however, the edit I restored seemed reasonably related to the overall problems I saw when I read the article: quotes in the lede, too much original material, overall length, lists of people, blp, etc. I really don't know what Collect's view is nor did I know your political view before making the edit. Vertrag (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

@Vertrag: I don't know anything about the 9/11 stuff they are talking about but Collect brought the PNAC/Bush Adminstration table to BLPN and failed to engage when asked what his specific objections were and what type of source he would accept. There was also this source which seemed to address his objections but he never commented on.

Mistaking hegemony for empire:Neoconservatives, the Bush doctrine, and the Democratic empire., David Grodin - International Journal, Vol. 61, No. 1 Turkey: Myths and Realties (Winter, 2005/2006) pp. 227-241 JSTOR stable link.

As for the totality of what is going on here I have no opinion right now. JBH (talk) 18:46, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Any source making a contentious claim about a living person must be a strong secondary reliable source. I had thought I made that clear at BLP/N - if not I am sorry. Here we have catenations of unrelated sources being used to imply improper acts by individuals on the basis that "source a associates this person with group b" and "source 2 associates group b with position c" thus giving "a > c"" which is a logical failure. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: And I asked you for specific problems with specific texts. A B and C are fine for theoretical work but completely useless for talking about a specific issue like we have here. What is the contentious claim in the table? Spell it out. What do you want a source to say to support the claim? The three claims I see in the table are 1 - That these named individuals were signatories of PNAC / members of PNAC - Non contentious. 2 - That these same people were members of the Bush Administration - Non contentious. 3 - That this relationship means something - I gave you one source that I think ties it up but you never commented on it.

You two are back to just arguing and not trying to solve the problem. Maybe you are right, maybe you are not (on the table/drawing attention to PNAC/Admin). But so far, that I have read, you have only quoted generalities and not directly addressed the issue. Right now I think the table should be in. Convince me otherwise. Cheers. JBH (talk) 20:15, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

And again -- look at the "sourcing" for the table making specific implicit charges about living persons. No actual single reliable source has that table. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:21, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes and... so what... A table exists to summarize information that would be awkward to show in prose. It is not OR.

Do you have a problem with any of these statements?

• Dick Cheney signed the PNAC statement and was Vice President.
• Paul Wolfowitz signed the PNAC statement and was Deputy Secretary of State.
• etc. etc.

If not then there are no BLP and no SYNTH issues in the table. If you have a problem with the statements above and analogous statements about the other people in the table please describe the issue. What are these "implicit charges" you speak of? Thank you. Cheers. JBH (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

fail verification

The CSM "Empire Builders" article is not on the CSM site. The versions posted at [18] etc. do not mention PNAC at all, nor do they list the names for which it is used as a source. [19] is 404,and no search shows any such article at CSM.

RightWeb is not WP:RS and the material does not appear to support any specific claims on its own.

Guy Roberts is used only to support SYNTH lists of people.

Christie is linked to two footnotes, neither of which is relevant to the claims asserted.

Funabashi does not support the claims made.

Grondin is paywalled. And only used as a catchall for the SYNTH lists.

And so on. Many are used for "names" and not for actual content, and in some cases claims are made which are not supported by the sources given. Collect (talk) 12:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

It's OK for sources to be paywalled and not accessible online; that does not equate to failure of WP:V per WP:SOURCEACCESS.

Furthermore, Funahashi and Ray (an academic whose book is in its 8th edition) both cite the CSM piece, and Funahashi states that 10 of the 25 'PNAC Principles' signatories went on to become officials in the Bush administration, naming a few in the same paragraph.

Christie and the other sources all mention various PNAC members in conjunction with their respective positions/roles in the Bush administration. The table is not SYNTH, and consensus was against your assertion to that effect.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:32, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I.e. you use them as a substitute for a cite actually making statements about the persons - just "if they are listed in any source, I can tie them to PNAC in the article" - right? Collect (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The sources mention PNAC members and their respective connections to the Bush administration, which have been cited in support of the compiled table, per previous discussions.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 17:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Which is using A>b and b>c to say a>c. Which is errant. Collect (talk) 19:14, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Repeating the same argument over and over after consensus has decided that the argument is not valid is a sign of tendentiousness.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 19:21, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Reality Check on Sources

Ok, maybe I can help here as far as the sourcing argument goes. I have pretty good library access. I'm going to assume here that we're looking at this version of the article to see if the citations support what they're supposed to:

• The Christian Science Monitor source appears to have been a page on its website, rather than an article in the publication (I checked the archives of the periodical on LexisNexis and turned up nothing). Since their website has robots.txt disabled, it's not possible to retrieve an archive of the page, so I don't think we're going to be able to recover the original unless someone happens to have an archive of it somewhere. All we have to go on is the published sources that cited it, like the conference paper by Tim Dimuzio that Ubikwit linked. That quotes the CSM source with the blockquote that starts at the bottom of this page, however it should be noted that as far as I can tell, both the paper and the quote seem to be talking about "neoconservative strategists" in general there rather than PNAC in particular.
• The rightweb source is a link to the front page of their website. Not helpful. That footnote (#5) also as way too many scare quotes in it. We can do better, and the same point could be made with a proper secondary source. That said, if all we want to confirm is that PNAC was seen by many people/critics as having influence on the Bush Admin than we can do much better than that - Abelson states clearly that PNAC was often portrayed as having "unparalleled access to the white house," and this article from Commentary, is a response to what it suggests were numerous efforts to portray PNAC as part of a "neoconservative cabal" that was setting the Bush Administration's agenda. So as long as we're phrasing this along the lines of "some critics asserted that PNAC had exerted a substantial influence on the Bush Administration's development of military and foreign policies, especially involving national security and the Iraq War," then the citations I just mentioned could be used to support the statement.
• The footnote to Christie links to another footnote, which is not exactly a good way to reference something. In other pages of the book however, it does say that PNAC was "heavily connected" to the bush administration, particularly through Elsewhere (page 46) it says that PNACs leaders "were highly connected with the state," including 12 (personal) connections to the white house, 10 with the National Security Council, and 23 with Congress. The conclusion drawn is that "PNAC may be considered strongly integrated into the political and administrative machinery of US power." (that's from page 46 again.) The same book also notes in the foreward (on page xxi) that neo cons were "seen to have 'hijacked' the Bush administration" (page xxi). So with better citations to the proper pages, this does become a very useful source - it's an academic study by reputable scholars, no question that it's a RS. Could be used both as a ref for showing that PNAC was perceived to have influence in the Bush admin and as a ref to show that there actually were multiple personal connections - ie, that 12 individuals had connections to both PNAC and the Bush White house. Clearly, Christie is relevant to the point being made.
• As far as Funabashi goes, the book does contain this statement, on page 505: "many people associated with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) are considered neocons. Of the twenty-five signatories of the PNAC's statement of principles, signed in June 1997, ten went on to serve in the George W. Bush administration, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz among others." Looks pretty "relevant to the claim being made" to me.
• Grodin may be paywalled, but luckily I have access. (You know you can read limited articles free, right?) Anyway, here's a quote from him that I think is pertinent: "There can be no question that September 2002 'national security strategy of the united states of america,' announcing a Bush doctrine predicated upon military prevention, regime change, and enhanced defense spending, has been heavily influenced by neoconservative writings. Among these have been works published under the aegis of the "Project for new American century," including Rebuilding America's Defenses' (by Donald Kagan, Gary Schmitt, and Thomas Donnelly), and Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy (by William Kristol and Robert Kagan).Fyddlestix (talk) 20:07, 2 March 2015 (UTC)Fyddlestix (talk) 19:57, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

My interpretation of what all this means in case this is hard to follow: Some of Ubikwit's sourcing had been lousy and could be better. But many of the cited sources do support the claims that Collect is claiming they don't. There's plenty of reliable sources that document a widespread perception of PNAC having a policy influence on the Bush white house, for example (something that Collect has continually dismissed as "opinion" that doesn't belong in the article), and there's also plenty of reliable sources which document direct personal connections between PNAC and the admin (something which Collect has, for reasons which I don't fully understand, suggested is libelous). Fyddlestix (talk) 20:47, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Opinions must be sourced and cited as opinions. "Contentious" does not mean "libelous" nor would I use that term at all. It means "it is an opinion which is not strongly sourced and which another editor is insisting be better sourced". And I would also note the history of "guilt by association" claims made historically about persons -- If George Gnarph attended a "communist front meeting" (sourced fact) we can not on Wikipedia say "George Gnarph was associated with a communist front". Is that distinction quite clear? Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:54, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The distinction is clear, but your meaning isn't. How is any of this assigning guilt to anyone? If someone was involved with both PNAC and the white house, it's not an "opinion" to state that fact, particularly if (as in this case) there are multiple reliable sources that confirm that fact. The idea that PNAC was a major influence on US Policy is an opinion, but if it's reliably sourced as an opinion that many people had, then it's worthy of being included in the article - clearly marked as an opinion. Neither of things has anything to do with assigning guilt on anyone. You need to state your specific concern more clearly. Fyddlestix (talk) 21:00, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Read WP:SYNTH unless the reliable source cited specifically makes the connection, we cannot do so. Note the new source add which specifically states:

However, as we will examine in Chapter 9, while there is no doubt that PNAC has had an important impact in contributing to the debate on global terror, its influence in Bush's post-9/11 strategy, has, by its own admission, been greatly exaggerated. Abelson page 95

Do you understand finally? Collect (talk) 21:17, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

You're confusing (or refusing to acknowledge) what's being argued. The influence/connection is being included in the article as an opinion that some people have had, not as a fact. A reliable source that clearly says "this is an opinion that some people have" is all that's needed. Fyddlestix (talk) 21:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

cherry picking again

Donald E. Abelson, Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and U. S. Foreign Policy; McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006; p. 213 is cited for

British MP Michael Meacher made similar allegations in 2003, stating that Rebuilding America's Defences was "a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana," which had been "drawn up for" key members of the Bush administration.

But the citer forgets to add:

However, as we will examine in Chapter 9, while there is no doubt that PNAC has had an important impact in contributing to the debate on global terror, its influence in Bush's post-9/11 strategy, has, by its own admission, been greatly exaggerated. in Abelson's own words on page 95.

Which would seem a far more noteworthy comment from that same source than the second-hand Meacher bit. Collect (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Did you miss the part where the article says "Academics such as Donald E. Abelson and Phillip Hammond have suggested that many of these criticisms were overblown?" It's at the top of that same paragraph and is basically a paraphrase of your second quote, but with the added authority of bringing Hammond in too. Also note the quote: "similarly, Abelson has written that 'evaluating the extent of PNAC's influence is not as straightforward as Meacher and others maintain,' as 'we know very little about the inner workings of this think tank and whether it has lived up to its billing as the architect of Bush's foreign policy.'" Again in the same paragraph. You can argue for swapping out the quotes (looks like yours might be better, even), but this is hardly a "gotcha." You need to stop trying to find a smoking gun against Ubikwit (so that you can "win" what is clearly a personal dispute), and focus on the article. Fyddlestix (talk) 21:25, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Recent Changes

OK, so I took the opportunity of the current lull in debate over this article to start going over it very carefully. I found some major issues and have made some major changes. Posting some diffs and rationale for some of the most important revisions in order to demonstrate that there were major problems in need of fixing, and as evidence that I'm doing my best to improve the article and maintain NPOV here:

• I found misleading references, or references which did not support what was being argued. For example: here, here, here, and here.
• I found poor, biased and non-reliable sources. For example: here and here.
• I found numerous long, completely un-encyclopedic block quotes, some of which weren't even on point. For example: here, here, and here. This one wasn't even the words of anyone related to PNAC - PNAC was quoting a different group/organization's words there, and yet this article portrayed them as PNAC's.
• I found major omissions - in this edit, for example, I both condensed a block quote and, in the process of confirming the source, realized that the article said nothing about the main recommendations of Rebuilding America's Defenses.
• I added multiple, reliable, sources to the article (academic books, articles in reputable newspapers, etc. Something that this article was sorely lacking. For example: here, and here and here. I was particuarly attentive to the lede here, see this note for an example of the kind of thoroughness I'm aiming for.
• I found poor organization throughout, including significant repetition of information.Here, for example, there were two consecutive paragraphs talking about the same PNAC letter, but treating them like different things. The people who were "key members" of both PNAC and the Bush Admin were listed like 3-4 times.
• I have added a new section on PNAC's origins and the reason for its creation, citing an academic source. The old article began very abruptly with the statement of principles, giving zero information on how or why it was formed.
• I have done my very, honest best to strive for a NPOV, including several self-reverts where I worried that my own perspective had crept in too much, and several places where I intend to look for more refs to bring better balance still. For example: here, here, here, and here.
• I have attempted to improve the article per WP:CRITS, folding the "criticism" sections into a broader discussion, and adding rebuttals to several of those criticisms using the academic sources I looked up.

You can see a Diff of all my revisions so far here, but I'd encourage you to take a look at the page now and compare it to this version, which is before I made most of my revisions. This version, from a bit earlier was even worse. The article was, if I may say, in a truly sorry state before.

I am more than happy to make changes, have constructive changes made, discuss revisions, and/or defend my edits as needed. I will stand by the need for major revision and most of my edits, however, as I don't think there can be any doubt that this article needed massive improvement, and that my recent edits were constructive.

This is, by the way, still a work in progress. I started at the top of the article and have been working my way down, so several of the lower "controversies" sections have not been touched by me. There are also parts of the article that I simply moved rather that altering in too much detail, so this still needs multiple people to go over it with a fine-tooth comb, particularly given the poor and misleading sourcing that I've already found (I'm sure there's some that I've missed). Assuming no one blanket reverts all of the constructive changes I've made, I'll get to working on all of that in a day or two if no one else does. But obviously the more people willing to look this article over the better.

As a final note, please notice that I've stayed away from altering much of the wording around Meacher that was causing all of the controversy above - I moved it, but left most of the current wording intact as I assume there is still a debate/developing of consensus to be done on that point. Last version before my edits was Here, and I moved that text here, leaving the part thats caused so much debate untouched. I did, however, remove the conspiracy theory category and "see also," as I don't think they apply to the subject of this article by any stretch of the imagination.

Fire away! Fyddlestix (talk) 18:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Wow! Incredible job. Is there anything you need help with? JBH (talk) 21:44, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Hey, thanks! Glad someone appreciates the work. There's still lots to do, jump right in if you see stuff that needs fixing! I still have a big "to do" list for the article, and I was going to bring some of this up on the talk page so I guess no time like the present:

• something needs to be done with the last three sections under the "other controversies" section, but I'm kind of stumped on where to put those or what to do with them. I'm particularly stumped as to what to do with this section, as I can't find or access the original article anywhere, so all we've got is PNAC's rebuttal. I'm tempted to say it should be removed as it's an awful big allegation to hang on one source, but was going to bring that up on the talk page anyway. So if anyone has ideas on what to do with that stuff that's great.
• I'm still uneasy with some of the sources being used here, not sure if CounterPunch is a RS, for example, or if a film called "hijacking catastrophe" (the Democracy Now source) is as shady as it kinda sounds.
• Ditto this edit - I removed that one simply because the source looks a little 9-11 truther-y to me and thus might not work as a RS, but was planning to bring it up here so that others can weigh in.
• My command of the ref tags and cite templates sucks so some of that needs cleanup too, I'll work on that gradually over time I guess as it's pretty boring work.

Mostly, though, I hope anyone who thinks these revisions improved the article can watch the article for reverts/edits and make sure they're constructive. I have no idea how some of these errors in the article crept in or went unnoticed but clearly it needs more eyes.Fyddlestix (talk) 22:53, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I have this article on my watch list.

• Yes, Gene Bomb tech has been on the scare list at least since I started studying CT back in the late 80's. The section in Rebuilding that talks about it is the speculative threats section. They are not advocating for such a weapon. They are describing the potential long term strategic environment. Here is a link to the document at Archive [20]. The subject is discussed near the beginning of p.60 and pp.58ff gives context. My opinion would be to cut the section as unsupported. JBH (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
• After reading the Pilger source I see no need for the CounterPunch source not the DemocracyNow source. Hijacking Catastrophe seems like q good source based on who is interviewed. CounterPunch is always iffy in my opinion and I have seen several threads at RSN about using them. JBH (talk) 23:45, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
• Agree with removal of The New Pearl Harbor Griffin is not qualified to write on the subject. It is not within his area of expertise as a Philosophy professor. Looks to be entirely Trutherish although I only read a review of the source. JBH (talk) 23:53, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
• I do not have a problem with the subjects addressed in sections 4.1 and 4.2. They are, in my opinion, reasonable criticism of PNAC. The Neocon theory of international relations is Utopian at its base. I would not feel entirely comfortable doing a wholesale rewrite of those sections myself as I have a very minor COI I was educated in Realist Mode International Relations at Johns Hopkins (~25 yrs ago) and I have a less than cheery opinion on the effect of Wolfowitz's tenure as Dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS and his Neocon theoretical outlook had on SAIS. It is no where near bad enough to compromise my editorial judgement but I feel my opinion would show through if I were to do the initial write up of a critique of the weaknesses in the conception and application of Neocon IR theory in the Bush administration. I can try to find some good sources for those sections and tweak written text though. I would prefer to see some academic sources rather than newspaper and TruthOut. JBH (talk) 00:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree with removal of the section as "unsupported", per JBH. Having checked the original document JBH linked to, it seems clear that they were addressing that in terms of potential use in conflict zones for war crimes like ethnic cleansing. The cited source represents a misreading of that context.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 06:55, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Wow - excellent work @Fyddlestix: - Haven't read through it critically yet, but the skim I just did shows how much effort you put into cleaning up the article. Thank you! Espeically for addressing my concise and unclearly worded concerns. One other thing I would support is the removal the list of signatories to letters/reports. This seems a little "WP:OR" to me since it is a compilation (which only exists on Wikipedia) which synthesizes the primary sources. Perhaps we could mention that many notable people signed various letters and/or reports and had varying degrees of support for the full mission of the group and refer them to the website and/or letters themselves for the list. And even if we found a secondary source, the list itself suggests agreement by those listed with PNAC by association. Vertrag (talk) 18:29, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I have no real issue with removing the big list of paper contributors+signatories but the list of the original 25 signatories is non-contravercial and relavant even today cf. these two recent news stories Salon = Jeb’s clueless Bush privilege and Politico - Jeb Bush's burden. In my opinion it should stay because who these people are has been referred to in US political discourse for nearly 20 years. JBH (talk) 18:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Please clarify the selection criteria, very clearly. Was everybody included? If not, who was left out? the list does look like OR to me, and it would not surprise me to find it overlapping the RightWatch names for PNAC. Dear ODear ODear (talk) 20:29, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Based on the ref I would say the criteria is if they are listed as signatories on PNAC Statement of Principles they are listed here. If someone is missing please add them. No OR at all. Maybe RightWatch used the same source? JBH (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I checked, the list of people here is an exact duplicate of the signatories listed on PNAC's own website. Not seeing how it could be construed as off-base. I have no issue with your edit here, I don't see why an encyclopedia article should list any more than the staff & the signatories to the founding statement.Fyddlestix (talk) 02:58, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks are due for the removal of the material which I had specifically called violative of policy - including the wonderful "genocide" implication which I found to be an inexplicable thing for any editor to try placing into this BLP-subject article. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Removal of neoconservative cat

This group is strongly tied to the neoconservative movement at the turn of the century. Many, many RS, cited here, tie PNAC with the theory. Please explain how they are not neoconservative. JBH (talk) 19:04, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree, no question that the group is neoconservative, or at the very least should be identified as "often characterized as" (or whatever). I linked/cited like 8 reliable sources on this very point yesterday.Fyddlestix (talk) 20:03, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Please sign your posts. The courtesy of a ping would be nice. :)

You added 8 sources that noted that PNAC was called neoconservative, which does not make it neoconservative. It has been called "Reaganite", so perhaps it should be categorized as Reaganite or neoliberal (in the sense of Reagan and Thatcher). Dear ODear ODear (talk) 19:56, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Don't be pedantic - how many sources are required for wikipedia to say anything about anyone? My refs were from mainstream newspapers and academic books, they are more than enough to justify at minimum a sentence noting that many people have called it neoconservative, and the inclusion of the category. The RS and academic sources are crystal clear about this, I don't really see how there can be much debate unless you're arguing that the vast majority of what has been written about PNAC in reliable sources is wrong. In which case you'd need to find some evidence of your own to back that up.Fyddlestix (talk) 20:08, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I would be happy to discuss comparative International Relations theory with you all day but where they fall on the spectrum of IR theory is not at issue here. What RS calls them is and RS calls them neoconservative. JBH (talk) 20:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Try googling neoliberal and PNAC, and you will find plenty of reliable sources that call it neoliberal. Should it then be categorized as neoliberal, after such RSes are added? (What has happened is that the original meaning of neoconservative has been dropped and "neoconservative" is now applied reflexively to the international military- and -foreign-policy of neoliberalism, while ignoring domestic policy.) Dear ODear ODear (talk) 10:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I could google PNAC and "communist" and get some hits that might look like reliable sources at first glance. But let's look at what happens when we restrict ourselves to only reliable sources:

• JSTOR search for "Project for the New American Century" and "neoconservative" yields 71 search results. The top one is a a book from Yale Uni Press, which contains the phrase "Wolfowitz, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and Cheney aide I. Lewis Libby already had their collective eye on Iraq as they gathered at the neoconservative think tank Project for the New AmericanCentury." Many similar results with a clear identification of PNAC as neoconservative. Another one: "In June 1997 a neoconservative policy group, the Project for the New American Century , produced a statement of principles that they argued." Seems pretty clear.

• If we search the same database for "Project for the New American Century" and "neoliberal," however, we get... 29 results. I looked through the top results, and only one of them could be construed as applying the term "neoliberal" to PNAC itself, through this sentence: "In 2003 counterposed world agendas-the Bush government's plan for world dominance as presented in the Project for the New American Century (Bookman, 2002) and the world antineoliberalism movement-were girding for battle." Note here, that unlike the above results, this is not even a clear description of PNAC as "a neoliberal" group comparable to the above examples (of which there were many more).
• I also did a similar search of proquest's newspapers database (which contains almost all the major "newspapers of record" in the US). A search for "Project for the New American Century" and "neoconservative" turns up 12 results. The same search but with "neoliberal" turns up... none.
• Restrict yourself to google scholar: the "neoconservative" query yields 1720 results, the "neoliberal" one yields less than half of that.

Some sources are more reliable than others. And among the most reliable sources (respected newspapers, academics, proper journals) "neoconservative" is clearly the more common and preferred descriptor for PNAC. Fyddlestix (talk) 13:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the work. You showed that, among reliable sources (by Google scholar), "neoconservative" is more commonly used than is "neoliberal", by roughly 2:1. However, "neoliberal" is also commonly used. Thus, "neoconservative" (and "neoliberal") fails the consistency requirement of the WP:CATDEF guideline, which states

Quotation of category policy WP:CATDEF
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
WP:CATDEFstates Categorization must also maintain a neutral point of view. Categorizations appear on article pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate. A central concept used in categorising articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having—such as nationality or notable profession (in the case of people), type of location or region (in the case of places), etc. For example, here: "Caravaggio, an Italian artist of the Baroque movement ...", Italian, artist, and Baroque may all be considered to be defining characteristics of the subject Caravaggio.

Thus, "neoconservative" is not consistently applied. Do you want to argue that consistency is only a guideline requirement, not a policy demand? (Or invoke "ignore all rules"?)

Dear ODear ODear (talk) 14:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

You can't cherry pick the Google results and ignore what the JSTOR and pro quest queries show. Also, the number of results in itself means very little. As I showed w the JSTOR query, a lot of those "hits" may not actually be an instance of someone calling PNAC neoliberal, whereas the neoconservative query yields numerous clear instances of it being called neoconservative.

The labeling is inconsistent. Neoliberal has been used in many reliable sources,as you have already established.

There is no definition of neoconservative given here. Can you find one high quality reliable source that that defines "neoconservative" and then gives evidence that PNAC satisfies the definition? Such a hqrs would be useful to use for the article.

I agree that many of the reliable sources just label the PNAC as neoconservative, with neither definition or explanation. LLAP, Dear ODear ODear (is a) 16:10, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

We don't require reliable sources to break down everything into baby food, digestible by everybody without any effort - indeed, especially academic sources usually serve steak quite raw. We have plenty of sources to justify the "neoconservative" label. Do you have any that explicitly disagree with the label? Please note that "neoliberal" is in no way a contradiction to "neoconservative" - the term is not derived from the US use of "liberal" as "a little bit less stone-agey than the Tea Party", but typically refers to economic liberalism (free trade, few regulations, ...), and is aligned more often with right-wing politics - compare Liberal Party of Australia, Venstre (Denmark), Freedom Party of Austria. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:30, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Stephen, Please consider how you sound before hitting the save button, particularly after I traced the origins of "neoliberal" above. (Pity that I do not run into disciples of Giovanni Sartori on Wikipedia.)

Google Scholar reports that by far the two most cited articles with the terms neoconservatism, neoconservative, and PNAC' [expanded]" have 71 hits: M. Boot's Foreign Policy review, which is available at JSTOR [21], and a piece by Francis Fukuyama (which I'd rather not use). Boot's piece seems good, and it also discusses the definitions of its terms; presumably it can be used to give a relevant definition in relation to its discussion of PNAC, which I have not yet read. It also discusses the extremely negative (e.g., antisemitic) connotations of "neoconservative", a discussion underscoring the need for care with "neoconservative".

So let us focus on Booth and see whether "neoconservative" can be used informatively in this article, rather than as an unexplained and loaded term. LLAP, Dear ODear ODear (is a) 18:43, 6 March 2015 (UTC) (emboldened and Booth correctly spelled. 15:01, 8 March 2015 (UTC)~)

I took a very quick look at what came up on JSTOR when you do a search on "Project for a New American Century" and neoliberal. They seem to be contrasting more than anything else.

"The neoconservative case for American power, as set forth in the Project for a New American Century" Political and Economic Brinkmanship by Jan Nederveen Pieterse.

"...for any wavering in allegiance to the project of "freedom" and "democracy" as defined in the neoconservative vision for the " New American Century" Flexible Citizenship/Flexible Empire: South Asian Muslim Youth in Post-9/11 America

"...how to participate in neoliberal global governance via the United Nations..." American Orientalism and American Exceptionalism: A Critical Rethinking of US Hegemony by Meghana V. Nayak, Christopher Malone.Yeah that is really something PNAC believed in.

Why don't you bring some sources that specificly address PNAC as a neoliberal organization. Pull out the quotes you think support your position. Also do not bring out 'antisemitic' unless you can directly support it. Just throwing is out looks like you are attempting to stake out a moral position or chill debate. Trying to not categorize PNAC as neoconservative is simply not going to fly. Jbh (talk) 20:33, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Among the uses of "neoconservative", the antisemitic use of "neoconservative" for "Jewish" is discussed by Booth, as I clearly wrote. LLAP, Dear ODear ODear (is a) 20:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Nope. Do not see the word anywhere. If you are going to pull out antisemitic in a discussion it needs to actually be in the source. Not every criticism of Israel or comment about Jewish ethnicity is antisemitic. Trying to label it as such does an incredible disservice to those who have been subject to antisemitism. Jbh (talk) 23:16, 6 March 2015 (UTC)\

Booth notes that neocons are sometimes seen as supporters of Israel, and that some critics have highlighted certain neoconservative's Jewish identity. That's not the same thing as saying that the term neoconservative is anti-semitic. The article says nothing of the sort. Fyddlestix (talk) 01:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

This looks silly. Everyone knows they're neoconservatives, it's just that that word became a perjorative because the economy crashed on W's watch, the wars were lost etc. This looks bad to have a ton of sources on it.

The following refer to or label PNAC as a neoconservative organization:

   Albanese, Matteo (2012). The Concept of War in Neoconservative Thinking. p. 72. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
   Ryan, Maria. Neoconservatism and the New American Century. Palgrave Macmillan.
   Feldman, Stephen. Neoconservative Politics and the Supreme Court. NYU Press. p. 67.
   Brownstein, Ronald (17 April 2003). "War With Iraq/Political Thought: Those Who Sought War are Now Pushing Peace". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
   Greenberger, Robert S; Legget, Karby (March 21, 2003). "Bush Dreams of Changing Not Just Regime but Region". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
   Maddox, Bronwen (July 14, 2004). "Nation-Builders must not lose their voice". The Times. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
   Salvucci, Jim (August 25, 2003). "Bush Uses Crisis to Push Preset Agenda". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved March 3, 2015.

I know certains democrats don't want to be labeled neoliberals either. But if there are reliable sources, wikipedia isn't the place to deny it. Popish Plot (talk) 03:51, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Replaced some removed 'See also'

I replaced these in the 'See also' section:

• Center for a New American Security
• A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
• Committee for the Liberation of Iraq
• Foreign Policy Initiative
  

All, in my opinion, are sufficiently related to PNAC, its character, or its goals to be xreffed with PNAC. JBH (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Why the Netanyahuh discussion statement? For the others, can you find an RS mentioning them in one sentence and then properly move them into the body? Dear ODear ODear (talk) 20:23, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Is there any objection to the re-removal of A Clean Break. Dear ODear ODear (talk) 21:42, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I was just addressing them in the context of the 'See Also' section. Putting them in the body is something else entirely. As to A Clean Break it is a document written by Richard Pearl and shows his thinking very near the time of the formation of PNAC. In my opinion the intellectual line between PNAC and A Clean Break is both straight and short. I think that a reader wanting to get more information or context would gain something from the link. JBH (talk) 22:15, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

My take on the "see also's:" FPI, CLI, and CNAS all belong there, I think. I'm on the fence about A Clean Break as I'm not super familiar with it. Fyddlestix (talk) 02:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I recently re-removed FPI because it was linked in the main body. I have no problem with it being added back though. Jbh (talk) 03:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Meh. I don't feel super strongly about it so if everyone else is happy with a discussion and link to it in the "end of the organization" section then I'm fine with that. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

What is the old American Century?

The See also section lists American Century. Perhaps this article should explain the connection? Dear ODear ODear (talk) 20:15, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The connection is that PNAC wanted to bring about a rejuvenation and continuation of US hegemony as it was in the last half of the 20th century going into the 21st. It gives context to 'American Century'. Likely it is not discussed in the body of the article because the term was not discussed in the sources the original writers used. If you want to talk about the term in the article sources need to be found. As far as I know you do not need to have RS for a 'See Also' just that is be a reasonable service to the reader and be a reasonably appropriate topic. JBH (talk) 21:04, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Honestly I just saw this link as a way of explaining the name of PNAC, and it still makes perfect sense to me to include it that way. It might make more sense to the reader if we added a sentence or two to the article (and a wikilink) referring to the idea (perhaps as part of an explanation of why PNAC was named PNAC?). When I get a chance I'll look for a RS on this - maybe Kristol and Kagan explained why they chose the name at some point. Fyddlestix (talk) 02:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Removal of section 6.4

I removed section 6.4 the 'Other Contributors' section. It seems to be too catch all and there is no indication these people were tightly tied to PNAC or what the significance of their contribution was. I do not see the encyclopedic value of their inclusion. This has been discussed quite a bit and I think there is enough consensus for a BOLD edit. JBH (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Very good. Dear ODear ODear (talk) 21:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I noted this above, but: I have no problem with this removal. We have to draw the line somewhere (can't list anyone who ever attended a PNAC event or something, for example) and the signatories of the founding statement seems like the best place to do that to me. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:01, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

This article is about PNAC, not Kristol and/or Kagan.

Therefore, this material has no place in the article, much less in the lede. If people want to know/debate whether or not these two individuals were neoconservative, or held neoconservative views, then the place to do that is on their wiki pages, not here. Incidentally, Boot's definition of what neoconservatism is is inconsistent with a much broader consensus on this. Witness:

• Britannica's definition: "a variant of the political ideology of conservatism that combines features of traditional conservatism with political individualism and a qualified endorsement of free markets. Neoconservatism arose in the United States in the 1970s among intellectuals who shared a dislike of communism and a disdain for the counterculture of the 1960s, especially its political radicalism and its animus against authority, custom, and tradition."
• The OED's very inclusive definition: "A new or revived form of conservatism."
• The Encyclopedia of Globalization (Wiley-Blackwell)'s definition: "At a fundamental level, the neoconservative worldview came to embody and has been guided by two critical elements. First, in a post–Cold War world, the United States – which stood as the sole superpower – should reshape and mold the international order to reflect American interests. Second, the neoconservative worldview believed that using the superior American military power was critical, if not imperative, to achieving this end. Generally, neoconservatives advocated the view that promotion of a new order that reflected American interests and international policy should be based on explicit support for the advancement of “democracy” – as they saw it – around the world."
• The Encyclopedia of Political Theory:(Sage): "Neoconservatism is a new conservatism that began to exert influence on American politics after 1945 and reached the height of its power during the administration of George W. Bush (2000–2008). Neoconservatism combines conservative social policies with liberal economics and a Realpolitik (i.e., realist) approach to foreign policy."
• Webster-Mirriam: Defines the term as either "a former liberal espousing political conservatism" or "a conservative who advocates the assertive promotion of democracy and United States national interest in international affairs including through military means"
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics defines it as: an "approach characterized by a fear of social breakdown and liberal decadence, and a response based on the vigorous assertion of conservative values, often associated with the teaching of Leo Strauss. In terms of international relations and US foreign policy, neoconservatives challenged isolationist tendencies in the Republican Party, and pressed for international intervention based on a strong conviction that American values and moral goals should be advanced."
• The Dictionary of Human Geography's definition: "A political ideology mainly associated with the USA. Neoconservatives stress the importance of traditional moral, religious, and family values in opposition to the kinds of personal hedonism and anti-establishment attitudes associated with the 1960s counterculture."

Just a sample of what comes up when I look for a definition of neoconservatism in summon. Of the top results, webster's is the only reference book that suggests that neocons are (or need to be) former liberals, and even that definition clearly notes a double-meaning, which allows for people who have never had liberal leanings to be labelled and classified as neocon. Sorry but Boot's hair-splitting is nowhere near widely "accepted" enough to bear discussion in this article, particularly in the lede. Fyddlestix (talk) 21:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I see an over reliance on Boot in an attempt to disassociate one of the primary neoconservative think tanks of their time from the term neoconservative. Boot alone is not sufficient for this task considering the weight of RS on the matter. These additions to the lead are POV and unsupported by the body of the article. I am removing the bulk of these additions for these reasons. Jbh (talk) 01:20, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Boot in Foreign Policy, as already noted, is the most cited article discussing PNAC and neoconservatism. Boot at least defines the word neoconservative in its application.

Again, can you find other sources that define the word and explain how it applies to PNAC? LLAP, Dear ODear ODear (is a) 08:41, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Then I am sure you can find some good sources, other than Boot, that use Boot's definition to support your argument. Jbh (talk) 12:25, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Boot is not "the most cited article discussing PNAC and neoconservatism." Not in google scholar, anyway. I count eleven references cited far more frequently than Boot. Boot also clearly identifies PNAC as neoconservative. On page 22: "let's be serious: The Project for the New American Century, the leading neocon foreign policy think tank, has a staff of five." The place for "defining" neoconservatism is neoconservatism - this article is about PNAC, and the vast majority of secondary sources (including Boot) describe PNAC as neoconservative without qualification (and without feeling the need to go off on a long, irrelevant tangent about whether or not Kristol & Kagan are themselves neoconservatives). There is no need to "explain how it applies" to PNAC, because there's a clear consensus among reliable sources that PNAC is neoconservative. Even Boot frames it that way. Fyddlestix (talk) 13:43, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

"as already noted". Read what I wrote "Google Scholar reports that by far the two most cited articles with the terms neoconservatism, neoconservative, and PNAC' [expanded]" have 71 hits: M. Boot's Foreign Policy review, which is available at JSTOR [22],". LLAP, Dear ODear ODear (is a) 15:05, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I just duplicated that search: Google puts your article on top because (for whatever reason) it thinks it's the most "relevant" - but it does not have the most citations. Not even close. Your article has 71. this one has 127. this one has 123. this book has 158. this book has 132.

More to the point, what exactly do you think any of what Boot says means/contributes? As I've already stated, this article is clearly not the place for a prolonged discussion of what is or isn't neoconservatism, or whether Kristol and Kagan should be labelled as such. This article is about PNAC, and the literature (including the article you keep holding up as if it proved something else) clearly indicates that very large numbers of scholars & writers apply the term "neoconservative" to PNAC, without feeling the need to qualify or unpack that identification. There is no question that PNAC is neoconservative, and thus no reason to clutter up the lede with an off-topic discussion (using a single source, which does not even appear to represent the majority view, as I showed above) of which individuals are or aren't neoconservative. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:16, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Kristol and Kagan were the founders and directors, so obviously the judgment of a leading review article on neoconservatism (discussing NPAC) that states that neither is properly neoconservative (in the original meaning) is worth noting. Perhaps it does not belong in the lede. Please move it below, for example, the weak section on associates, which just is a list now. LLAP, Dear ODear ODear (is a) 15:58, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

You said it in the original meaning. Only the founders of the movement were neocons in the original meaning. So no, not relevant in this article. PNAC is a necon organization promoting neocon ideas in the current meaning any other position is UNDUE. Time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Jbh (talk) 16:23, 8 March 2015 (UTC)