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National Textiles

I'm surprised that Howard's bailing out of hi brother's company is not mentioned. I think it is notable enough. IIRC< it was quite a big topic at the time. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• I recall also that it was a big issue - lots of sources too --Matilda 07:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Add it, Blnguyen. --Lester 08:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Misplaced Pages is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Misplaced Pages community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). :D Timeshift (talk) 08:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• Don't template the regulars --Matilda 06:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Talk of war crimes

220.233.31.26 (talk) 04:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)I don't understand why there is no mention of the potential for John Howard to be charged as a War Criminal in view of his illegal invasion of Iraq, a soverign state220.233.31.26 (talk) 04:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess the reason that such speculation is not in the article is because John Howard was never charged with such an offence, and nobody seems to be likely to charge him. For any article, we can't speculate about court trials when the person hasn't yet been charged. I think some people in Europe once moved to charge Donald Rumsfeld with warcrimes, which never succeeded. There was a newspaper article about the likelyhood of warcrimes charges against Howard - I think it may have been the Sydney Morning Herald - which basically said that the next government (ie Rudd) would have to move to charge him, and the standing protocol is that governments don't try to charge leaders of the previous government. Does that answer your question?--Lester 05:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we were meant to take that seriously... and even if we were, it's all WP:CRYSTAL and WP:OPINION anyway and would be very lacking in WP:RS. Timeshift (talk) 06:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep and this is WP:BLP exception material require exceptional sources. Gnangarra 06:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

• There are definitely reliable sources to support the speculation see google search. In particular ABC News of 2 June 2008 - legal brief sent to ICC and supported by, among others, Lyn Allison of the Democrats; SMH of 26 April 2008 reporting on Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has called for Western leaders including Australia's former prime minister John Howard to be charged with war crimes over the war in Iraq. --Matilda 06:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a Sydney Morning Herald search also comes out with oodles of stuff. Apart from Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia (mentioned above), John Valder is another who called for Howard to be tried.--Lester 06:37, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources to support the speculation eh? Indeed :) Timeshift (talk) 07:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It was already mentioned in Howard Government. That split has created a horrible mess. Peter Ballard (talk) 08:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

• This is personal to Howard--Matilda 09:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this should definitely be included! At the moment, it is worded carefully enough to satisfy the cautionary conditions of a BLP. But I think it goes without saying we should continue to be very careful with the wording and references of this addition --Carbon Rodney (Talk but be nice) 10:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Calling for war crimes charges is one thing. Being called to answer charges another. If that were to happen, it would certainly be worthy of inclusion, but so far it's just speculation and slander by Howard's political enemies. including those here, judging by that last edit summary. No involvement by any official body. I'm removing this under WP:BLP. --Pete (talk) 10:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

As rarely as you'll get me and Pete to agree, this is one of those times. Orderinchaos 11:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Same, per above. And Pete, WP:AGF. Timeshift (talk) 11:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Should not be included. Jmount (talk) 12:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

No, that summary was purely designed to get people watching this article / recent additions to comment on the inclusion of that paragraph. More discussion is usually better. --Carbon Rodney (Talk but be nice) 13:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I see the fast deletion code of conduct has returned to Howard related articles. There is considerable eminent legal opinion published by multiple reliable sources suggesting that Howard's strategy in Iraq violated international law. I have not seen a reasonable justification for it's deletion from the article. -0Lester 12:23, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

See WP:BLP. There is nothing official. It's just allegations by Howard's political enemies. If charges eventuate, we should include it. --Pete (talk) 12:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Since when was it Howard's strategy and not Bush/the US? Timeshift (talk) 13:05, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Timeshift, It was Howard, not Bush, who chose to send Australian soldiers. --Carbon Rodney (Talk but be nice) 13:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Your point is? What does that have to do with the strategies used in Iraq? Howard just contributed Australian soldiers to the 'coalition of the willing'. You give Howard way too much credit to insinuate he assisted in the formulation of how to proceed. Timeshift (talk) 14:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a notable piece of information, documented by multiple reputable sources. Howard's choice to involve Australia in the Iraq war was a fairly large aspect of his prime-ministership, which is a large portion of his notable life. I think not including it would be biased in favour of Howard. It's not slander because he has indeed been accused of war crimes. --Carbon Rodney (Talk but be nice) 13:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph should be removed under WP:BLP Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to particular viewpoints, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. The views of a tiny minority have no place in the article., or as per Jimmy in WP:UNDUE If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Misplaced Pages regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article. Given that its a minority view unless charges are laid then it shouldnt be in the article Gnangarra 15:58, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Also I've only found one news story which it the one cited. Bidgee (talk) 16:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I am quite sure that a single short entry is not a BLP or UNDUE violation. UNDUE weight is designed to counter POV pushing, but the removal of this notable sourced content per BLP looks exactly like a POV push in of itself. It cannot be argued that an official legal petition to an international court is an action of a tiny insignificant minority, especially when one of the minority is someone of the profile of Lyn Allison. It should be self evident it is a political move and most probably won't result in proceedings, but that is not relevent to the merits of inclusion of the information. MickMacNee (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a political stunt aimed at labelling Howard a war criminal, even if nothing ever comes of it, which is the most likely outcome. It may be a Wikinews story, and if charges are ever laid it is certainly encyclopaedic, but as it stands, it's something that brings BLP into operation, and we shouldn't include it. Feel free to go through the wikiprocess, beginning with RFC, if you disagree, but it's not the sort of material we should include in a BLP without some fairly heavy-duty and high-level discussion. --Pete (talk) 17:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I might, because I don't believe this is a cast iron application of BLP/UNDUE at all, but instead a rather obvious POV removal. Your immediate reference to the words 'political stunt' in your justification above do not make me think otherwise. By definition, in all political issues, one side of a POV will always bethe one pulling 'stunts', wikipedia is required to be neutral and factual. MickMacNee (talk) 18:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Carbonrodney (above) said that Howard joining the 'Coalition of the Willing' in the Iraq war was a "large aspect" of his prime-ministership. It could be argued that it is the largest event of his prime-ministership. Probably the biggest argument made by those opposing the war was that it would contravene international law (ie war crimes). This argument was made from the very beginning, by Mahartir from Malaysian, by Liberal John Valder, and countless other notable people. It has culminated recently in the submission to the International Criminal Court. Whether or not the court proceeds should not affect whether it is in the article or not, as it is pretty well impossible to get a case against a western head of state at the ICC. However, this notable criticism of Howard's Iraq policy should be in the article. We can see a precedent in the Donald Rumsfeld article, where similar criticism of his actions as war crimes were made.--Lester 21:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

If we use CarbonRodney's reasoning above, no political (or commercial or artistic) figure could ever be subject to WP:BLP, because they are a public figure and opinions differ and what's scurrilous to one side is religious faith to the other. Looking at CarbonRodney's edit summary, it is clear how he views Howard. I reject his views. This is not a POV issue. This is a political stunt to label Howard a war criminal, and we need a very good reason to follow suit. News items on Howard's political enemies lodging spurious claims do not meet that criteria, though if the ICC decides to proceed, we should, as I have noted several times above, treat it as encyclopaedic.

It is clear from looking at the discussion above that opinion here is divided on this, and as I have noted previously, we should have a higher level of agreement, either in the form of consensus or some official wikiprocess outcome before including a contentious BLP matter. I ask those who support its inclusion to go through the appropriate wikiprocess rather than edit war over a BLP matter. --Pete (talk) 23:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Another furphy. I agree with Skyring that it is a stunt, rather than an event of note. If an international war crimes tribunal actually did try to charge him, that would be completely different and very noteworthy. However, I don’t agree that it’s a BLP issue – ie, we are simply reporting an established fact (ie, the protest). Hardly anything libellous in reporting (accurately) what others have openly done.

But, it still fails the notability test. A stunt, not an event of note. Possibly notable enough for the Howard Government article. --Merbabu (talk) 23:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This whole thing's completely silly. I always was a huge opponent of the war and Australia's involvement in it, and the mass rally against it in Feb 2003 is one of only two times I've ever been motivated to hit the streets about anything, but this is almost a classic case of WP:SYN and WP:UNDUE (I disagree that it's a BLP issue, but believe it's unencyclopaedic for other reasons.) On a purely content front, going after Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz makes a lot of sense. Going after Howard doesn't - firstly, ANZUS was invoked, which provides a near automatic defence, secondly, our commitment was small (Poland and Spain were two countries with bigger commitments, not to mention the UK), and thirdly, our troops weren't involved in any Abu Ghraib, Halabja or Mahmoudiyah type incidents. Look at the sorts of people they get war crimes charges up against - Karadžić, Milošević, Gotovina, Taylor, Seromba etc. Oh, and Mahathir swings allegations against anyone he can get away with. Orderinchaos 23:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

• I disagree that it fails the notability test, as the report states the leader of the Democrats endorsed the brief being sent to the ICC and this is supported by the ABC which will meet WP:RS. I also disagree it is part of the Howard Government article, this brief is against Howard the person after he has ceased to be PM. There is no breach of WP:SYN as only one source has been used and I believe the material has not inadvertently be put together in a way that constitutes original research - the source substantiates 100% the text inserted into the article. OIC's arguments that Australia was involved in some way less than other countries is not relevant - this is about whether somebody is trying to get Howard charged as a war criminal. It is also original research to speculate as to whether the campaign for charging him is likely to be successful based on other precedents. Further it is original research to label the forwarding of the brief as a stunt - there is nothing in the source provided to substantiate that assertion which is merely the view of some wikipedia editors.--Matilda 00:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I've said before that Howard deserves criticism for the too-close position with the U.S., which has involved us in what turned out to be a war we can't win, and resulted in some poorly-considered defence purchases. But accusing a biographical subject of being a war criminal without good reason is going too far, regardless of one's political views. This is an encyclopaedia, not a daily newspaper. I've raised a report at Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#John_Howard, and I suggest that the material be held aside until we have a more solid position on this, rather than edit-warring.--Pete (talk) 00:15, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

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