[WikiEN-l] Iraq and chemical weapons

[Jimmy Wales]

Well, I don't think this is all that special.  There's a controversy,
so we don't take a position on it.  We merely report.

The wikipedia can take no position on whether or not Iraq has chemical
weapons, at least not as long as there's any legitimate doubt about
it.  I suppose, if they successfully use chemical weapons in the
current conflict, it will likely no longer be controversial to say
_that they had them_.

We can *never* take a position on whether the campaign is morally
justified, nor on whether it "violates international law".

Each and every element of this is something that, as an NPOV
reference, we can't take a position on.

> ...which may have ramifications about whether Iraq is 
> bound to treat POWs according to the Geneva Convention or 
> can "legally" torture, execute or rape them.

I'm not aware that any provision of the Geneva Conventions which make
torture, execution or rape of POWs legal, even if the conflict itself
is somehow illegal.  But certainly an NPOV discussion of what,
exactly, constitutes a war crime, is valid.

> The question is, how do we handle this when writing articles about
>the war?

NPOV.  We don't take a position on anything controversial.  We state
what others have said.

For some of these things, our best friend will be time.  There's a lot
going on "in the fog of war" that simply can't be treated very well in
an _encyclopedia_, until the facts are more settled and widely known.

At the same time, people have always enjoyed writing current events
articles, and they are a strength, so I see no reason to avoid them,
so long as we're careful and so long as we understand that the full
story may not come out for many years.

--Jimbo