Talk:Vladimir Socor

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I think this is most unfair and slanted. Socor's integrity is not a matter of contention for the mainstream. I suggest

Socor has been harshly criticized by some organizations, including the head of the OSCE mission to Moldova, former State Department official William Hill who spoke of "outrageous fabrications" in Socor's reporting in 2001 and again in 2005.[1] Socor in turn critised Hill as ill-informed.

http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=407&issue_id=3420&article_id=2370088

Socor is also widely quoted in mainstream press such as The Economist as an authority on the region

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_QTPVSPG

The ICDISS cited in this article is a complete invention and has had its wikipedia entry deleted!

Edwardlucas 17:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Edward, some would say that you, too, are biased and politically motivated. A similar charge has been levelled at me. I guess that this is unavoidable, when you write about this part of the world (as Socor does, too).

Exactly! Edward is biased because he does not accept the facts presented by NGOs and newspapers which have the same IP address as the government websites! :-) bogdan 19:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The current version of the article may be "unfair and slanted" but it is the result of collaborative editing of ten editors over the period of five months. The most typical charge levelled at Vlad Socor himself is that he is unfair and slanted.

Anyway, let us at least remove the ICDISS thing on grounds of WP:RS and/or WP:NN. You know that I see eye to eye with you on that one. The rest should stay. OSCE and a peer reviewed analysis published by MIT are reliable sources, and Socor's response is not appropriate. Come now, what would you expect him to say? The meek "Hill is ill informed" doesn't hold water. Ambassador Hill was head of OSCE's mission to the area that he was commenting on, and Socor was writing about Hill's work. Who better to know his own work than Hill? - Mauco 19:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think five months' work is enough to make this such an erudite entry that it shouldn't be challenged. It seems to me to be very flimsy and doesn't have any of Socor's decades-long work on the region included. Presumably he is not able to add these himself because it will count as original research, but someone should try to do it. I would be happy to have Socor characterised as "controversial", but I think these attacks on his integrity are not right and smack of character assassination. "Typical" attacks may say more about the people doing the attacking than the person being attacked.

It may well be that one chapter in the book cited below attacks him, but I suspect that the characterisation is too harsh. If we are having Hill's attack on Socor, we should also include Socor's response to Hill. I don't agree that we should weight Hill about Socor. Socor has been covering this region for decades--much longer than Hill. Edwardlucas 23:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The article actually became a lot better in the past 24 hours, after Bogdan worked on it (he's an admin, if I am not mistaken). But feel free to jump in. There is no conflict of interest if you edit, since you are not Socor. We do already have a link to his reply to Hill, in the references. It is quite self serving so please don't give it undue weight. - Mauco 00:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Taylor/MIT

An U.S. peer-reviewed analysis of Vladimir Socor's writings on the War of Transnistria charged him with rewriting of history. It was published by MIT Press, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

citing:

Chapter 8, by Brian D. Taylor, starting on p.210 of "Managing Conflict in the Former Soviet Union: Russian and American Perspectives" by Aleksei Georgievich Arbatov, MIT Press, 1997 (ISBN 0262510936)

Well... can you point me to the exact paragraph were Arbatov is charging Socor with rewriting history? :-) bogdan 19:16, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It is actually Taylor, not Arbatov, who makes the charge. He does that in the context of his review of Chapter 7 (which is on Russia's involvement in the war) and he compares that chapter to Socor's writings on page 211. I wouldn't take out this sentence, since there are very few peer-reviewed books and publications which actually comment on Socor's work, but it can be rephrased. - Mauco 19:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Taylor says that the writings of a certain Ozhiganov are very different from what "the story is usually told in the West", giving Socor's writings as an example of the "conventional view".

Ozhiganov is blaming the "hard-line" Moldovan nationalists on the conflict in Transnistria. bogdan 19:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Sort of. That is probably too simplified a way to put it, but it will do for now, for here, for the sake of argument. But then Taylor goes on to explain how Ozhiganov is actually doing a good job of explaining the nuances of the role of the Russian army at the time. In doing so, he contrasts it with Socor's position. It is quite clear that he thinks Ozhiganov is an improvement over Socor. Ozhiganov's chapter also matches a similar account published by The Nixon Center of the events. But the "rewriting history" part can be rephrased. - Mauco 19:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I still think this is slanted. Should it not be that Hill "claimed" or "accused" rather than "pointed out" which makes it sound as though the shortcomings are irrefutable, whereas in fact they are strongly disputed.

The latest version of the paragraph under discussion looks good to me. I think it strikes the right balance, in a measured tone. Turgidson 01:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Questions about an edit

The following sentence added by User Mauco looks very POV to me: "between 2002 and 2004 was a senior fellow of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, a right wing think tank funded by Jewish hardliners dedicated to scrapping the Middle East peace process in favor of attacks on states like Syria and Iraq." It rests on a quote from the web site RightWeb, which, for all I know, is a "left wing think tank" with an ax to grind. Whatever the case is, if one wants to engage in a polemic about IASPS, I think that should be done in a separate article, not here.

Also, I don't really understand the sentence "Prior to the Iraq war, he advocated a "U.S.-led war to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction," not giving any evidence of the presence of such weapons of mass destruction." The evidence -- such as it was available at the time -- was presented to the United Nations by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Why then the implication that Socor should have presented his own evidence to support the Multinational force in Iraq? Turgidson 06:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

How can we rephrase this, then? It is instructive because it is one of a long series of cases where the Socor modus operandi is to draw spurious conclusions based on facts that simply do not exist. The argument that others do the same is not a defense (reminds of the old proverb that thief wants to be let off the hook because others steal, too). Moreover, Iraq is hardly the only situation where Socor has been known to operate this way. Earlier, the article included a Harvard-study, published by MIT, which accused him of doing the same a different part of the world. That was deleted, too. - Mauco 13:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you trying to refight the rationale for the Iraq war on this page? First of all, I do not think the quote demonstrates in any way that the "facts simply do not exist". Which facts, and where is the proof that they do not exist? All I can see is an unsubstantiated assertion, about some nebulous "facts". And second, if you want to challenge the rationale for the Iraq war, I submit that the place to do it is elsewhere -- e.g., on the pages for the policy makers from the various States that form the Coalition, or the page on the history of the Iraq War -- not here, where it is only tangential at best to the subject of the article. Turgidson 13:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You do make a convincing point, and I've removed the edit. Future editors studying the modus operandi of Vladimir Socor can easily find better examples from his work where he promotes policy based on facts that are, to the more informed observer, highly dubious and often non-existing. Mauco 13:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to see you agreed with my point. I am still relatively new to wikipedia, and I am trying to learn how to deal with disagreements about edits -- my inclination is to seek common ground, and arrive at a reasonable compromise, if possible, instead of engaging in edit wars. Couple of further remarks.

(1) One of the wikipedia policies that I've been learning about is to avoid "undue weight" -- in case at hand, from what I can tell, Socor's involvment in the wide-ranging debate about the Iraq war has been quite minimal. Almost all of his writing in the past decades has been about Eastern Europe and Communism, and now post-Communism. So I feel any balanced evaluation of his work should focus on those aspects, and only tangentially mention other issues such as the Iraq war (unless there is something really newsy about it).

(2) About the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies: I looked at their web site, especially at their own description of their organization.From what I understand, this is an Institute based in Jerusalem, with an affiliated office in Washington, DC. The staff is from both cities, as well as from other places in the U.S.; eg, "William R. Van Cleave, co-Director of the Division for Research in Strategy, is a professor and the Head of the Defense and Strategic Studies Department at Southwest Missouri State University". I am not quite sure how this could be said succintly in the article about Socor (I still think the best would be to deal with it separately, and I saw on the message you left on my talk page that you agree on that, too), but the characterization of IASPS as a "right wing Jewish think tank " seems non-neutral to me, and not documented to the standards of wikipedia. Finally, I did not look very hard, but I'm not sure where is the evidence that the IASPS "advocates scrapping the Middle East peace process in favor of attacks on states like Syria and Iraq" (besides the assertion by RightWeb). Is that documented by a specific article published by IASPS? Turgidson 14:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The edit of Mauco is wrong, as the article of Socor was published after the invasion of Irak begun. Mauco is upset about Socor's position regarding Transnistria, this is why he want to accuse him of all evils of the world, one of them being the war in Irak. Instead of an NPOV tag, I suggest a simple revert.--MariusM 09:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I just doublechecked. Iraq War] began March 20, 2003, and the article was published on March 23, 2003. - Mauco 13:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Guiding principle of Wikipedia is assuming good faith which including not speculating about or ascribing motives to other editors, so please abstain from that. Doing so will get you reported and can lead to another block to your already long list, this time for incivility. - Mauco 13:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support a revert. This article reads like a character assassination of Socor. It smears the IASPS using emotive language like "hardline" and "Jewish". If Socor was wrong about Iraq , so were huge numbers of other moderate conservatives in dozens of countries. It seems to me that this entry violates the guidelines about living persons, which stress an especial need for neutrality. Edwardlucas 09:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

If there is something wrong with the phrasing, you do not delete material. Instead, you rephrase it to what you may feel is more NPOV. The material is sourced and does not violate biography rules since it is not libellous in any way. Incidentally, part of the article quotes material written by Edward Lucas about his often-quoted source, Vladimir Socor. Why he would want that reverted is beyond my comprehension... - Mauco 13:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

???? Mauco I don't understand your point (if it is me you are criticising--I'm not quite clear about the sequence of the argument). I haven't deleted anything. I am suggesting changes here on the talk page. Socor is not my much-quoted source--i think I have quoted him twice in ten years. I think if we have criticism of Socor we should give equal space to his rebuttal, and I don't like what seems to be the loaded use of "jewish" and "hardline". I agree with Turgidson's suggestions. Sorry if I have trodden on anyone's toes. Edwardlucas 14:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

A revert, as you seconded, is a deletion of new content. There is no need to delete, but only rework the existing content, and this was done subsequently to address two of Turgidson's concerns. As for the quotation count, it is more than twice, and less than ten years, as Google will tell you if memory fails. But that is outside the scope of this Talk page, and I am sorry that I brought it up. Instead, it is more constructive to address the choice of wording: Honestly, there is hardly any difference between "hardline" and "hawkish", the word chosen by Edward Lucas in his own characterization of Socor. With regards to "Jewish", that is not a smear word and is not meant as such. The Institute, I believe, refers to itself using that term. If I am wrong, just substitute it with the word Israeli instead. Mauco 02:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Hang on, I have just checked the Economist website and I have quoted him twice there. http://www.economist.com/search/search.cfm?rv=2&qr=socor&area=1&x=9&y=7

he has quoted me once on his Jamestown bulletin.

Our names often come up together in google searches, but that doesn't mean I am quoting him--for example some blogs link to both of us, and there are multiple references to the same article. I do describe him as hawkish pro-Moldovan in this article

http://economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_QTPVSPG and I doubt he would disagree with that characterisation.

Hawkish and hardline are a bit different. Hardline implies inflexibility and dogma, Hawkish is non-pejorative. I am happy to be called hawkish on Putin, but not hardline.

But the main point is that this article is still strongly slanted against Socor. What do other people think? Edwardlucas 11:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Hardline is almost invariably pejorative, whereas hawkish is more matter-of-fact (as the opposite to dovish). And, yes, the article as it is now is strongly slanted against Socor. Among other things that were discussed on this talk page, and not yet fully resolved, I have the concern that it gives WP:NPOV#Undue_weight to events surrounding the War in Iraq (on which Socor has hardly commented), and the needless emphasis on the IASPS and its supposed "right wing" policies, whereas the body of Socor's work over several decades has been clearly focussed on Eastern European affairs. As such, I find that the article does not give a fair and balanced view of the subject. Turgidson 13:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

<off topic> Since we are being so sensitive to giving Socor a fair shake, perhaps he and Lucas might want to consider giving the nice people in Transnistria the same courtesy. Socor routinely calls them "mafia" and Edward Lucas, in the piece which he references above, refers to them as "gangsters" - yet, having well informed friends in both OSCE and EUBAM, I know the reality to be quite different. </off topic> - Mauco 02:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, maybe so. But why edit my previous comment, and change "commented" to "comented"? I may not be a native English speaker, but I still believe two m's are in order, so I took the liberty to go back to my previous comment, and restored the original spelling I used. Please do correct me if I'm wrong. Turgidson 03:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Relevance

Why are we quoting this article which was not written by Socor? Is only to show that the Institute which published an article of Socor had published also other articles supporting attacks on different countries in Middle East? I don't believe is relevant for Socor, it can be relevant for an article about the above mentioned institute.--MariusM 12:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point -- this whole thing is messed up. The article needs to be revised. Turgidson 13:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Point? Actually, I am not at all sure what MariusM means to say. While the article he links to above is indeed not written by Socor, it mentions Socor and is a valid source for an article about Socor. Surely we are not limited to only using source material written by Socor himself as the basis for Socor's entry. Or am I missing where MariusM is going with this? I don't think he has a point at all. - Mauco 02:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

For the record, here is the entire paragraph from the quoted source (the neutrality and reliability of which has not been established, has it?), as it pertains to Socor:

IASPS's work is not exclusive to the Middle East; it has produced studies on various African countries, Taiwan, and the Caspian region. The institute's Caspian Project, for example, produced a strategic study titled “The Real Energy Solution is Not in Iraq.” Published in March 2003 and authored by IASPS fellow Vladimir Socor, the report argued that a number of current trends “add urgency to the goal of bringing Caspian oil and gas westward, directly to consumer markets.” One of these trends “concerns the need to pacify and reorder the Middle East. The effort is only beginning with the U.S.-led war to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. It will be a protracted effort, which may well require further operations against terrorist groups and rogue-state WMD proliferators elsewhere in the Middle East in the years ahead. The effort is also likely to entail nation-building as a stabilizing factor. Only then can the sources of volatility subside in the region. Meanwhile volatility may even increase if radical anti-Western elements in the region react spasmodically in the initial stages of the anti-terrorist, anti-rogue-WMD operations.”

And here is how that quote gets transmuted and reinterpreted in the wikipedia article on Socor, as it now stands: "...between 2002 and 2004 was a senior fellow of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, a right wing Jewish think tank which advocates scrapping the Middle East peace process in favor of attacks on states like Syria and Iraq." Is this a fair translation? And, is the thesis advocated above (eg, the need for "nation building" and "operations against terrorist groups and rogues state[s]") much different than the official policy of the United States and several of its allies for the past 5 years and 5 months? If yes, why? And if not, then why make it sound like Socor's position is outalndish? Turgidson 03:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Not to be polemic, but the quote is taken out of context as it pertains to IASPS. As the original article clearly shows, and as widely quoted controversy about IASPS from Washington Post and other sources demonstrate, the key aspect of the organization is precisely what is currently highlighted in the article: Its overly aggressive (hardline / hawkish) stance on advocating confrontation between Israel and nearby states. This, quite rightly, is therefore what is highlighted in the summary. Mauco 03:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Not to be polemic, but why is the ad-literam, paragraph-long quote I gave "taken out of context", when it's the only paragrapoh in the linked page that has the word "Socor" in it, whereas the "quote" in the article (which is not a quote, is it?) is more accurate? As for what the "article clearly shows", and what the "Washington Post and other sources demonstrate" -- well, I don't know, where exactly is the "demonstration"? And, once again, why try to argue this here, and not on a separate page for the IASPS? Turgidson 03:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

In full agreement: As I have pointed out on your talk page, it is best to create a separate stub for IASPS. Please do so. For better or worse, what the organization is most known for is not Socor, nor its recommendations on the need for "nation building" and "operations against terrorists" but for its hardline/hawkish recommendations on the need for aggressiveness in the Mid-East peace process. This is what the stub must highlight, and we can then remove the rather irrevelant discussion of IASPS from Socor. - Mauco 04:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, thanks, but no thanks: I have many other interests, both at wikipedia and elsewhere, and writing about the IASPS is not at all high on my priority list (though I may contribute tangentially if anyone else were to start it -- maybe). Also, in all truthfulness, I am interested in this article about Socor only inasmuch as I can be of some help in conjuring a sense of fair play and neutrality about the subject (I first got to look at the article when I was just starting at wikipedia, and reasearching material for the this -- I stumbled upon an old article of Socor which was useful, and is now quoted there a whole bunch of times, by several contributors), and a sense of proportion and perspective regarding the wider issues I mentioned in the above. Right now, I don't quite see that happening, but hopefully things will improve with time. Turgidson 04:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Good call, MariusM. Let's keep articles (especially biographies of living people) focussed on the subject, and not engage in rather irrelevant discussions of this or that organization. Turgidson 22:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why "hawkish pro-Moldovan" has been removed. It appears in my article http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_QTPVSPG Edwardlucas (talk) 20:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The Economist labeling of Mr Socor as "hawkish pro-Moldovan" has been restored as per your reference. The previous reference was a broken link and the confirmation of the source and claim of Economist calling Mr Socor "hawkish pro-Moldovan" was not possible, that was why the passage "hawkish pro-Moldovan" was removed wrongly. My apologies. Iberieli (talk) 20:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Iraq War reference

The source cited for Socor's support for the Iraq war does not support this claim. If he did indeed support the war, I don't think it would be difficult to cite some work where he did voice his support. The one used, however, supports no such claim. Therefore, it has been deleted pending a new, accurate citation. Republicandor (talk) 19:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

There is an article which is from March 23, 2003, and it is titled "The Real Energy Solution Is Not in Iraq" written by Vladimir Socor. The URL is http://www.iasps.org/opeds/show_article.php?lang=2&main=&type=4&article_id=188 and he also talks about the need to "reorder the Middle East." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.72.234.196 (talk) 04:33, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I saw this article as it was cited the first time. Again, this source does NOT support the assertion that Socor "advocated for 'the U.S. led war to rid Iraq...'". This source cited is (1) written after the fact, and (2) is not explicit in advocating support for the war. Thus, until you can produce a citation for an explicit endorsement, this claim will again be deleted. Any citation, even a excerpt from a radio/media interview would do. If he really was an advocate as you claim, this should not be difficult to find. Please do not include this assertion again without further sourcing.71.252.123.221 (talk) 21:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)71.252.123.221 (talk) 21:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

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