Talk:2016–2018 India–Pakistan border skirmishes/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Timeline

I'm re-adding the timeline. I think its really important to list the events in order that they happened and then take up analysis in a different section. Its also important to separate actual India-Pakistan military clashes, as reported in reliable sources, with other claims made by both countries and their media.VR talk 01:05, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Sectioning

Aumnamahashiva, I have carefully separated the official statements and the media reports into separate sections. The former in the "Surgical strikes claim" section and the latter into a section that eventually got put into "Timeline". Please don't mix them up.

We can't really be sure of anything in the media reports. The media distort stuff, and their sources distort stuff etc. Moreover, it is the Indian government's job to release reliable information. If they don't, it is their problem, not ours. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 01:07, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Also, the "Surgical strikes claim" section was also rewritten using international
WP:THIRDPARTY criterion. -- Kautilya3 (talk
) 01:09, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the info!Aumnamahashiva (talk) 01:09, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Pakistan and Jaish on the same side?

Are Pakistan and Jaish on the same side of the conflict? Pakistan banned Jaish a while back. Jaish should be listed as a separate group that may or may not be aligned with Pakistan. In fact, what exactly has India claimed? That Pakistanis soldiers were defending Jaish?VR talk 01:10, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

I think that is really for Pakistan to decide. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:16, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Right, and Pakistan claims it is not associated with Jaish. It has banned it.VR talk 05:21, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
You have seen the source[1] that says that it hasn't been effective. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:51, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Umer Ali (18 August 2016), "Pakistan: The Rebirth of Jihad", The Diplomat, retrieved 2 October 2016

Confirmed reports

Does everything have to be confirmed? The Indian media is happy to print that the Antilia building cost U$1 billion but that is unconfirmed. The only confirmed figure is $50-70 million. Yet the Wikipedia page says $1 billion? Tri400 (talk) 13:36, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia article is POV?

Mar4d How do you claim a full Wikipedia article to be POV?-- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 07:13, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Because this article is on the military confrontation, not terrorism allegations. Thus, your addition of the link comes across as both
WP:ARBIPA. Thanks, Mar4d (talk
) 07:26, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
@Capankajsmilyo: More signs. Besides editing the wrong section, the article was already linked under the template's 'Adherents' section. I am going to ask you again to stop POV-spamming articles. Mar4d (talk) 07:32, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
That was a mistake. Please elaborate on what do you mean by "military confrontation, not terrorism allegations". The article talks and is centres on the attack on militants. Check out Media usage section in militant which clearly states that this word is widely used to refer to terrorist. Further, there is mention of LeT, JeM, etc. I don't know which military organisation do they belong to. Please enlighten me. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 07:41, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

I think what he means is that putting that article in the See Also tries to bolster one argument over another. For example, what if we put

Baghat Singh in the See Also of Burhan Wani (both took up armed struggle to achieve independence)? Or if we put Revolutionary movement for Indian independence in the See also of Jaish-e-Mohammed (again both illegal military organizations trying to gain independence)? It would obviously bolster one view over another. And that is POV.VR talk
03:36, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Several sections need to be merged

""Surgical strike" claim" section and "Analysis" section pretty much serve one purpose - to debate whether the surgical strike took place. So they should be merged. What we can do is give official arguments precedence and put the media reports only at the end of the section.VR talk 03:52, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

"Successful" surgical strikes

The article says "On 5 October, The Indian Express stated it had managed to conduct covert interviews with eyewitnesses ...According to those eyewitness accounts, along with certain classified documents the Express had obtained, the surgical strikes had been successful." The source doesn't use the word "successful". It says "the raids...have caused little damage to jihadist logistics and infrastructure."VR talk 06:00, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Captured soldier

This edit removes from the lead that India has confirmed one of its soldiers were captured. Why? VR talk 06:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I've restored that sourced information, it is well known. And as long as India's claims are mentioned in the lead, the Pakistani claims are to stay there, with attribution of course. Mar4d (talk) 06:37, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Huh?

Kautilya just reverted my edit. In my edit, I tried to make things NPOV, by ascribing to Nawaz Sharif the accusations that he made towards India rather than treat them as fact. I also shortened it a bit. Finally, I removed the part about 2 soldiers, cause that's been mentioned in several other places in the article. Kautilya, can you explain why you reverted?VR talk 15:52, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

It is not proper to break up, expand, contract, or explain a direct quote that was used in a reliable secondary source. Those words have lots of meanings. We can't rely on ourselves to understand them or explain them. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:31, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
See
WP:LONGQUOTE and WP:QuoteFarm. This is wikipedia, not Wikiquote. We are supposed to break up and put together sentences so as to write in an Encyclopedic style that is easily understood by the reader. And I dunno if you "understand" the quote, but I sure do, and feel very comfortable paraphrasing it.VR talk
04:51, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Confusing

This article is confusing. It first says that "Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) suffered the maximum damage in the cross-LoC surgical strikes on terror launch pads carried out by Indian army with assessment reports of radio intercepts indicating that around 20 of its militants were killed." Then it says "at least 10 LeT terrorists had been been killed during the multiple and near synchronised surgical strikes on four launch pads." And then "at Balnoi area opposite of Poonch in which nine people belonging to LeT were killed."

Are the 9 who were killed at Balnoi not included in the "at least 10" who were killed during "surgical strikes"? If so, how were they killed? I'm guessing they are included in the surgical strikes. So we should make that clear in the article.VR talk 16:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 1 October 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved; keep at present name

2016 India–Pakistan military confrontation; and delete redirect 2016 Indian surgical strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. – Fayenatic London
11:19, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

talk • mail
) 04:52, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Note: "PoK" is the Indian term for "Pakistan-occupied Kashmir", aka
Pakistan-administered Kashmir (officially Azad Kashmir). Mar4d (talk
) 18:33, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Well I don't want to be the part of
talk
) 07:04, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
You are engaging in
will follow. Whereas, the Indian media reports are entirely one-sided. Mar4d (talk
) 07:31, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Please provide a rationale. Mar4d (talk) 06:01, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Support move (Of course, PoK should be replaced with Pakistan-administered Kashmir). The international media have been using the term even though they haven't yet been able to verify it.[1][2][3][4][5] India has officially used the term, and it will be its problem to present evidence when it feels fit to do so. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:07, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Further comment: The original name "military raid" would have been acceptable as a stop gap, even though it is not fully accurate (no reports of engaging with the opposite military or the general populations). "Military confrontation" is certainly
WP:OR because no engagement between the two militaries has been reported. Cross-border shelling, the Pakistani claim, is hardly a "military confrontation".-- Kautilya3 (talk
) 13:14, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
India has officially used the term, and it will be its problem to present evidence when it feels fit to do so - So you are admitting the term is unverified, in addition to supporting the
WP:TITLE works. We simply don't name pages based on post-Uri attack war rhetoric and media propaganda, which in this incident is blatantly obvious. Mar4d (talk
) 16:14, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
What about
WP:POVNAMEs when they are COMMONNAMEs. -- Kautilya3 (talk
) 18:33, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Not applicable, because here, the proposed title itself is based on a disputed POV (not an accepted POV) attributed to one side. It is unencyclopedic as far as factual
verification is concerned. Also, as you pointed out, Pakistani and Indian forces are exchanging fire, and two Pakistan soldiers have died. And Pakistan have detained an Indian soldier, as reported by CNN. You make no sense when saying "no reports of engaging with the opposite military or the general populations". Mar4d (talk
) 19:16, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Keep current title - After the last couple of days thinking about it, I have decided that there is no way to settle the dispute without India presenting evidence for surgical strikes. The current title works, even if I am not fully satisfied with its accuracy. If and when India presents evidence, we can revisit the issue. Let us put the naming issue behind, and focus on developing the content using
WP:THIRDPARTY sources as far as possible. -- Kautilya3 (talk
) 12:20, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
By the Indian government and media. Both are not
reliable and their version of events are disputed. Mar4d (talk
) 18:28, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Pakistan has used its denial card far too often, as
GSS-1987
has pointed out. But Pakistani officials are admitting privately of the possibility of the strikes:

“The Indian military was wiser and didn’t go for a deeper strike. They just fulfilled the wishes of the political leadership without causing any major disaster,” said Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States. “Only two people died, and in the Indo-Pak context, two people dying on the border is almost routine.”[2]

It seems that the international media have decided which side they will go with, tentatively. If your only objection is that Pakistani government denies it, you are fighting a loosing battle. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:17, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
You are misquoting the source. Durrani's referring to the attack which resulted in two Pakistani casualties. That is actually what Pakistan has stated. India claims the contrary, i.e. it conducted a massive cross border 'raid' and inflicted up to 50 militant casualties (whose bodies interestingly have vanished into thin air, while the location of the 'surgical strikes' is not known). Mar4d (talk) 14:56, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
I have quoted the source verbatim. That is not called "misquoting". The quote, from a respectable member of the Pakistani establishment, uses the term "strike", a term that you object to. Let me leave it at that. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:35, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Read your verbatim source again: “Only two people died, and in the Indo-Pak context, two people dying on the border is almost routine (emphasis). Durrani is reiterating what Pakistan said - India violated the LoC, killed two Pakistani soldiers. That is not what a surgical strike is. There is nothing in the quote regarding India's border raid. In fact, the paragraph following the quote is self-explanatory:

“When reminded that the Indian government has said the casualties were in “double digits,” Durrani said: “We say two were killed and they will say 100. The truth is lost between India and Pakistan when the first bullet is fired.”.”[2]

Mar4d (talk) 18:20, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Official statement of Indian DGMO said :"along" LOC. It is understood that it was not a "deep inside" strike, any sort of infilteration is denied from the Pakistani side, Pakistan also claims their military was not involved- Indian spokespersons are also claiming that it was an anti-terror ops and not an act of war - so word military confrontaion may not be proper. In my view renaming should be done as - 2016 Indian Army operation at LOC or 2016 Indian Army strike at LOC. Title can not be more neutral than this, the article may carry claims & counterclaims of both sides. --Manoj Khurana (talk) 13:50, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Further comment It was a "confrontation" because it elicited a military response from Pakistan (and resulted in casualties as per them). The casualties may be disputed but the 'response' isn't disputed, as cross-border shelling is continuing on the LoC (see the sources). Your argument demonstrates the flaw in the discussion. The title has to stay
neutral in any case, not the Indian POV. The UN, which is impartial, has acknowledged "ceasefire violations" but not any strikes. Mar4d (talk
) 14:03, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
World agrees? Please don't talk in air.This is not how wikipedia works.Provide reliable legitimate sources.--Dude (talk) 22:11, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Support move There was no true military confrontation, and it was really between the terror groups and the indian army. The surgical strikes are also much more recognized among media, and provide ample reliable sources for support.
    talk
    ) 15:37, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
By the same token, there was no surgical strike. Simply relying on jingoistic media reports from India does not satisfy
verifiability, which is fundamental. And if there was no military confrontation, then why are sources (including Indian media) reporting Pakistani military casualties? Mar4d (talk
) 15:49, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
@
neutral and inclusive term to cover the conflict under current circumstances. Mar4d (talk
) 18:45, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Sorry but it seems like a lot of similarly-minded users, you haven't carefully gone through the discussion above. The Indian DGMO's "press conference" is not
neutrally. Mar4d (talk
) 20:41, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
And your claim of no military confrontation is again not true, please refer to international reports (Al Jazeera) (Reuters). Mar4d (talk) 06:09, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Strongly Reject In addition to the disputed PoK terminology, "surgical strike" is being used in scare-quotes by some media outlets[5], and could be taken as implying claims about the nature of the incident that aren't verifiable. I can see a case for "skirmish" over "military confrontation" (though I don't buy that direct engagement is necessary for a confrontation—I'd call "tense firing in each others" general direction' a "contfrontation"). Or a case for the even vaguer "incident". Or a case for re-merging this with the article on India-Pakistan border skirmishes. But the actual proposal in the RfC has no good rationale behind it. Chris Hallquist (talk) 01:19, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose per
    WP:NPOV. The present tile is consistent with the norm of naming articles.The official Indian sources have always used the term PoK/Pakistan occupied Kashmir and as far as I remember, there is a consensus on Wikipedia regarding this and no where terms like India occupied or Pakistan occupied Kashmir have been used on Wikipedia in general sense.  sami  talk
    08:24, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Discussions
I have added an RfC tag to facilitate that. Irrespective of the nationality of users, the real issue here is the use of
WP:NPOV. Mar4d (talk
) 05:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I removed the RM tag which shouldn't be used in conjunction with RFC for timing reasons, and conflicts in closure procedures, etc. This is also outside the scope of RM now; the page is AfD tagged, and the page was already
WP:POVTITLE — Andy W. (talk · ctb
) 02:09, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment In reviewing this little skirmish, I find myself agreeing with TopGun: Merge with a broader article on the endless incidents of back and forth violence in the region. Some of the passionate voices above are right to ask why American editors should have the right to discount Indian and Pakistani media when US media are recognised internationally as monumentally biased and yet comprise such a large part of the 'evidence' for so many thousands of articles about America. It is hypocrisy to chide others from that patronising position of American exceptionalism. Nevertheless, there will not be a resolution to this issue while Indian and Pakistani editors feud the way their countries do, about every little detail. The immediate solution ought to be to delete this article while moving its sustainable particulars into the article TopGun spoke of, maybe allowing both sides to characterise their points of view by stating: 'XYZ characterised this as a ABC manouever, while RST called it a DEF incursion'. Invited to comment by Legobot, definitely not aligned with anyone in that part of the world. Peter S Strempel | Talk 08:48, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

References

References

  1. ^ Annie Gowen; Shaiq Hussain (29 September 2016), "India claims 'surgical strikes' against militants in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir", The Washington Post
  2. ^ a b c Annie Gowen (30 September 2016), "India's 'surgical strike' on Pakistan territory hints at new era for nuclear-armed rivals", The Washington Post
  3. ^ Ankit Panda, Indian Forces Cross Line of Control to Carry Out 'Surgical Strikes': First Takeaways, The Diplomat, 29 September 2016.
  4. ^ India Claims ‘Surgical Strikes’ in Pakistani-Controlled Kashmir, The New York Times, 29 September 2016
  5. ^ Krishnadev Calamur, India's 'Surgical Strikes' in Pakistan-Controlled Kashmir, The Atlantic, 29 September 2016.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
WP:POVTITLE doesn't apply to redirects. -- Kautilya3 (talk
) 12:29, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Time to probably close the article

I think it is probably time to close the article and show the confrontation as having ended. There has been no (atleast notable) incident or any reports of casualties from both sides for more than a week. Even Pakistan government seems to have temporarily disregarded hostile stance towards Indian government, offering dialogue at Heart of Asia conference. I say we let it remain open till 3 December. That will be 10 days since the latest military incident and if no military incident is recorded by then, we should show the confrontation as having ended. 117.241.116.22 (talk) 22:04, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I am glad to hear it, IP. However, there is no concept of "closing" an article. Once the daily news feed stops, we will get an opportunity to go back and clean it up. Cheers,
WP:OR. You and the other IP should stop edit-warring over this. -- Kautilya3 (talk
) 12:36, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I already pointed out that there's been no incident of military confrontation since November 23, except an injury recieved by a BSF personnel on 2 December which by its description cannot be considered much of a notable event and wasn't even mentioned in some print newspapers. I only found it through online newspapers Not to forget the LoC has been active for a long time with ceasefire violations, even when there's been no actual ongoing confrontation. Are we keep showing this as ongoing because of a non-notable incident? I doubt any source will say that it has "ended" anyway. There has been a lull certainly though. 61.0.202.66 (talk) 17:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Thats not true at all, there have been firefights along the line of control since November 23rd. For example there were firefights near Uri on November 29th [[6]]. Just because no one has died does not mean the skirmishes have ended.XavierGreen (talk)
Well I didn't know about that. The popular news sites didn't mention it I think. But regardless, an incident on LoC is always going to happen after a few days, it is quite active. And again this doesn't seem noticeable. As I said it is subsided in nature and non-notable as compared to previous incidents, that is why we cannot keep the article ongoing. We are talking about a consistent pattern of hostility here. 61.0.202.66 (talk) 18:52, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
The continuing "consistant pattern of hostility" is the very reason why the conflict is still marked as ongoing.
India–Pakistan border skirmishes (2014–2015)), or at the very least, the infobox should distinguish the casualties on the 29th September and those that occurred in the following months (unrelated to the former). Mar4d (talk
) 08:57, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree. Also, India claims that militant groups were involved, Pakistan claims that the clashes were between India and Pakistan only, and no militants were involved on Sep 29. So the name "India-Pakistan military confrontation" isn't very accurate or neutral. A better name would be "2016 Kashmir clashes" or something like that.VR talk 16:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Is it still ongoing? If no then why is is still open?

There has been no incident described in the timeline since 2 December and I cannot seem to find any. Is it still ongoing? If there really has been any incident since 2 December then please add it. If there hasn't been, then this article should be closed because a confrontation that hasn't had a incident in a month cannot be ongoing. 117.199.92.36 (talk) 00:35, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The confrontation is not currently going on,
WP:TWA if you're new to Wikipedia. Also, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you need any kind of assistance. RoCo(talk) 09:03, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
EDIT: Oops, saw what you meant. True, it must be ended. RoCo(talk) 09:09, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Two sections

I'm making edits, so that that the "Timeline" section can be kept for what India and Pakistan both claim happened. The "surgical strikes" section, can be reserved for various arguments India and Pakistan give to support their side of the story.VR talk

04:24, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

So, you propose something at 04:24, and carry it out twenty minutes later? That doesn't exactly sound like a "proposal", does it? It is more like a declaration.
In any case, you are wrong about the "surgical strikes" section. The old version of the section was sourced to
WP:OR commentary at the front. I am putting back the old "Surgical strikes" claim section. -- Kautilya3 (talk
) 00:39, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
What you call the "Indian version" is hardly that. The Indian government has been pretty tight-lipped beyond the original statement by DGMO. The media, hungry for information, have been contacting various (unnamed) officials and reporting whatever they could gather. We have no idea what if any of that is true. When things settle down, we have to sift through this material and pick out the best sources and throw out the rest. All of this also needs to be precisely attributed rather than stated as fact. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:47, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
If there's WP:OR it needs to be removed. However, summaries based on facts discussed later is not WP:OR. Leading paragraphs don't require citations (
WP:LEADCITE
), but if you're gonna be stubborn, I can certainly provide citations.
You can't make disputed claims about something you haven't even told the reader about. Hence the timeline needs to come first.
If anything under the "Indian version" is not the official Indian version, then please remove it.VR talk 03:43, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Not to mention, you introduced a LOT of duplicate material. We don't need to tell the same story twice in two different sections.VR talk 03:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Kautilya, please copy and paste here which sourced content I removed? (Note, I've summarized various things, but not removed them completely). I'll self-revert and re-instate that material. It's certainly possible I may have made a mistake, though I'm usually pretty careful.VR talk 15:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Vice regent gaming the edit restrictions

RegentsPark can you decide whether you want to allow this kind of behaviour under your edit restrictions?

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