Talk:RMS Lusitania

Under "Last Voyage," whatever is the stub sentence fragment "Captain Turner had"? That needs to be fixed. PaulBurnett 00:12, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

Deliberate killing of helpless civilians is terrorism, and it horrified Americans (and Germany's allies) in 1915. I added the German captain's cold blooded account from his own war diary. RJJensen 12:04, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

Yes, I agree with you that a German sub fired on a passenger steamer, but 1) the Lusitania was in a declared war zone; 2) Germany had information as to the possibility that the ship carried munitions, making her a legitimate war target; 3) those munitions were confirmed by the ship's manifest posted in period papers as well as by archaeology, which I've shown earlier. So, why are you removing that material? Karajou 12:09, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

what historical material should be added. Look at the terrible Wikipedia entry--it drags on for page after page of trivia, leaving the key facts buried. CP has to avoid that trivialization of history. We also should avoid the German justifications of terrorism (they said that innocent Americans deserved to die because they disregarded a newspaper ad.) RJJensen 12:25, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

I won't look at the terrible Wikipedia entry; I think I am more like you than you care to realize. We'll put in the facts so that the reader gets a well-rounded view of the incident; some may be ugly, but war is an ugly business, and sometimes the coverup of the details of a cargo to make the other side look really bad during a war may be fine while the war is going on, but this war is long dead and we need to get to the bottom of some things. That ship is breaking up as we speak, and it's cargo is coming to light, which means some people may have been right after all. Karajou 12:37, 21 June 2009 (EDT)