Talk:United States and state terrorism/Archive 27

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Cherry template

I removed the cherry template, which sites an essay. As per the template at the top of this essay:

Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion.

travb (talk) 19:02, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Only one mainspace page links to this page: Interesting facts found on "What links here"

First, this page is listed as 87 on Wikipedia:Most frequently edited pages, Period: 2008-04-24 — 2008-05-23 (UTC)

Stunningly, there is only one mainspace page which links to this page on wikipedia:

• Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

travb (talk) 00:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Um, only one page links to this page (i.e. Talk:Allegations of state terrorism by the United States) because the linking page has a merge template on it. The links to the article from mainspace can be found at: [1]. CIreland (talk) 00:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, he he. Thanks for clarifying that. travb (talk) 01:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:PRESERVE

Another editor just shared this gem with me: Wikipedia:PRESERVE:

Whatever you do, endeavour to preserve information. Instead of removing, try to: rephrase correct the inaccuracy while keeping the content move text within an article or to another article (existing or new) add more of what you think is important to make an article more balanced request a citation by adding the {{fact}} tag

Wikipedia:PRESERVE is a POLICY, which trumps the notability guideline. This policy means that the removal of well cited materials is not allowed. travb (talk) 19:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This is talking about good article writing, not carte blanche that no cited material can ever be deleted. After all (and you'll forgive me I'm not good on WP:ALPHABETSOUP), WP also recommends to be bold and delete what is poor writing or not a fair representation of reputable sources. That text contains a citation does not render it encyclopedic content. PetersV       TALK 21:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Often editors don't edit war about poor writing, at least on this page, they edit war over content, which is often well sourced here. Poor writing is covered under "rephrasing". I am not saying that cited material can never be removed, I am saying in this context, with the edit wars here over deleting well referenced material, it is not allowed per WP:PRESERVE. Sorry if I was not clearer and more specific. travb (talk) 02:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Acts of war?

The phrasing "The United States' World War II nuclear attacks against the Empire of Japan were acts of war" constitutes original research and clearly violates the NPOV policy. To claim that these actions were acts of war, one needs to establish whether the bombings had any military significance, which is not an encyclopedic issue. IMHO it is essential that such clear-cut NPOV violations be avoided in at least Protected articles. 81.182.216.31 (talk) 22:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The United States was at war with Japan, a war Japan started. "Act of war" is superfluous and redundant. Bombings of London and Dresden were "acts of war" also. PetersV       TALK 08:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Qualifying something as an "act of war" is independent of whether or not an act is terrorist in nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.165.216.198 (talk) 03:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

So the use of the A=bomb can be called state terrorism, but to call it an act of war violates NPOV? Huh???? Spoonkymonkey (talk) 02:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Calling it an "act of war" or "state terrorism" or anything else doesn't either justify it or criminalize it. It's just a bunch of name-calling. I don't think it really belongs in here. Saying "Japan started it" is disingenuous. Roosevelt drove them to it by cutting off their oil. Wowest (talk) 06:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

...After they invaded China and committed attrocities that rival dropping the A-bomb (Comfort woman anyone?). Soxwon (talk) 07:19, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Manchuria? Rape of Nanjing? Roosevelt didn't just wake up one morning and decide to cut off Japanese oil imports. He made the decision after the Japanese took northern Viet Nam to be able to move material to their forces attacking Chonqing. Blaming the Americans for a war that started in 1937 with the invasion of China shows an utter ignorance or wilful blindness of the history of the region.

There's a lot of revisionism here that borders on the neo-fascist. It's obvious this page was created and maintained by people who hate America, but to find common cause with the Axis goes way over the line. I expect we'll soon read that the Jews had it coming to them because of their investments in one thing or another, or because of the bombing of German cities. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 18:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Definition of terrorism?

"There is no international consensus on what terrorism, state-sponsored terrorism, or state terrorism is.[2] Professor Igor Primoratz of the University of Melbourne says that many scholars have been reluctant to assign the word "terrorism" to activities that could be construed as "legitimate state aims". Primoratz himself defines terrorism as "the deliberate use of violence, or threat of its use, against innocent people...""

Following his definition, dragging random civilians out to the middle of nowhere while they are unconscious and killing them (without them knowing what's going on) is terrorism, and threatening to torture prisoners of war to death to get a government to meet your demand(s) is not terrorism.

What exactly is hard to define about it?

It means invoking terror (fear) as a means to an end. There's nothing complicated about it. Sadly, the article is locked so I can't fix it myself. Can somebody do it for me please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.37.221 (talk) 13:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I met a very nice man a few years ago. He was a medical doctor from El Salvador, and his name was Guillermo. He was a gentle man and he played classical guitar. He made the mistake of returning to El Salvador from the U.S. to visit his family. He "disappeared." I met a very intelligent and highly educated woman about the same time. She was a former government official of El Salvador. She referred to the people who were arming the terrorists in her country as "the people who killed Kennedy. I notice that there is nothing about El Salvador in this article. I think we should discuss why this is the case, and something should be added. Wowest (talk) 13:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Opposing views

This section is so stupid. Even for wiki standards. Needs work.

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.32.141.8 (talk) 22:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:18, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

# (cur) (prev)  22:35, 25 April 2009 Jehochman (talk | contribs) (9,468 bytes) (Undid revision
286047049 by WacoJacko (talk) remove, per [q[) (undo)
# (cur) (prev) 14:33, 25 April 2009 WacoJacko (talk | contribs) (9,696 bytes) (Reverted 1 edit by
Jtrainor; I don't think it was appropriate for you to remove this comment, I also do not see how
it is uncivil.. (TW)) (undo)
# (cur) (prev) 10:36, 23 April 2009 Jtrainor (talk | contribs) m (9,468 bytes) (→Opposing views:
rm WP:CIVIL violating comment) (undo)

It's O.K. WacoJaco. Two other editors want to defend terrorism and/or bad editing here, so we should probably let them have their way. It's not like I said anything that's new or that isn't obvious. Wowest (talk) 16:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

///If the above statement isn't evidence of editor bias, I don't know what is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.188.205.194 (talk) 20:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Native Americans

Should not some mention be made of state terror directed against Native Americans?93.96.148.42 (talk) 01:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

If you find a source that supports this then post it.--NYCJosh (talk) 23:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree, also 90s bombing of cicilian centers in Serbia can be classified as terrorism since the express purpose of those actions was to change government policy by causing terror among civilians Zalgo (talk) 16:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC) There are many instances of US politicians advocating and allegedly funding the terrorist IRA and their fundraising group NORAID. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hmloyal (talk • contribs) 00:30, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Cesspit

This article was just described as a cesspit.[2] Really sad how biased some editors tend to be. Ikip (talk) 20:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

My Lai pic

I've removed a pic of the My Lai Massacre massacre for the reason that it is an atrocity perpetrated in Vietnam and there is no mention of the Vietnam war in this article. There's no context for it unless there was a section on the Vietnam conflict. Even at that, I believe if the picture were to be reintroduced, along with a section on Vietnam that it should be placed in that section and not in the lead of the article. GainLine ♠ _♥ 15:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• Then you could have created such a section and also include information about the incursions into and the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, along with the American atrocities perpetrated in Vietnam. I cannot do that myself, since the article is "protected". It is much better then plainly deleting such an iconic picture, even though it was in the lede. 95.103.50.222 (talk) 22:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, we need an Indochina section. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 06:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've added a bit on the Massacre taken from the War Crimes page and added the pic from the lead. This may be used as a foundation to build a section on Vietnam. IMO (and this has grown more as I added the My Lai Massacre), the massacre isn't an act of state sponsored terrorism but a War Crime and that this image is just being used to push an anti-US POV particularly when it has been introduced into the article without a relevant section and placed in the lead. I think an Indochina section would be more relevant if it were to contain info on the Secret War and CIA ops in Laos and Cambodia but I'm not comfortable enough personally to do this myself. I may yet remove this section but I would like get some 3rd party opinions. GainLine ♠ _♥ 13:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You're right when you say it wasn't state-sponsored terrorism. The problem is no-one said it was. State terrorism does not require any sponsorship. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 22:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Fair shout. I asked for input but got none so I removed the section. I'm still not sure its terrorism, and that if others had thought it was terrorism then it would have been introduced earlier. If you want to reintroduce it then I won't stand in your way but as you say yourself there should probably be more on other activity in the region at the time. GainLine ♠ _♥ 15:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Having said all of that

The "justification" of saving the lives of millions of soldiers by murdering a couple hundred thousand civilians should have been made clearer. It wasn't mentioned explicitly in the article, and I'm sure it could be documented. While there is no doubt that the United States committed acts during WWII which are now considered war crimes, they were not all war crimes when committed, and some of them were in retaliation for enemy war crimes. When the Germans murdered American POWS they lost any moral grounds for complaining when the United States turned around and murdered German POW's.

The International Criminal Court -- and, indeed, even the US Supreme Court -- would certainly disagree on that. 118.160.166.245 (talk)

When the Nazis launched buzz bombs against London, Japan lost any moral ground for complaining about terror against civilians. Still, two wrongs don't make a right.

The Nazis launch buzzbombs, so the Japanese lose the moral ground? There's no logical connection whatsoever, there. 118.160.166.245 (talk) 17:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

In the present context. Israel's invasion and continued occupation of the Golan Heights region of Syria and China's invasion and occupation of Tibet are ongoing war crimes. They are war crimes right now, and the are going on right now. The outcome of the Nuremberg trials is that the greatest war crime is the initiation of a war of aggression. By that standard, the United States is guiltier than Israel or China, having invaded a lot more countries for imperialistic reasons alone. Wowest (talk) 03:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Bias and Includes Crackpot Ideas

Under the apparent defintion used here raising your voice is terrorism. One issue not addressed is american use of weapons it creates terror and is so wrong and why is the big bad wolf so mean I mean the US. The MEK is not a terrorist group. Please don't make wikipedia anti american with these crackpot ideas america does alot bad but making war and covert action into terrorism is just incorrect use of the term and is a ideological stance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.183.114 (talk) 02:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, look again. Numerous qualified scholars are describing U.S. actions as state terrorism. How could you miss it unless you were not paying attention? ...

Those "qualified scholars" are known for their anti-American prejudice, not for their neutral reasoning. This is clearly an article that has a biased premise. It should be deleted. However, the arguments of the anti-American writers can (and should) be moved into articles on appropriate topics. This entire article should be marked for deletion. --Zeamays (talk) 14:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:NPOV and WP:Weight. Everyone is biased. It doesn't matter as long as we objectively include all relevant viewpoints in proportion to the number of reliable sources that support each viewpoint. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

POV

I definitely question the neutrality of this piece. There is no real consideration of the US justification of the use of the atomic bomb, for starters. This article seems to me to be little more than anti-American propaganda. The US has committed many foreign policy sins, but this entry is way, way over the top. It seems to be a justification for terrorists who attack the US Spoonkymonkey (talk) 02:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree. Dropping the atomic bomb meets the criterion for terrorism? Well then, what of the London Blitz? Japanese imperialism? Really the reasoning is quite weak... Soxwon (talk) 07:23, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree. This is highly POV and highly anti-American. Cherry-picked facts, etc. The title alone -- "United States and state terrorism" is loaded with a pejorative word, namely, terrorism. The article focuses on US use of weapons in WW2 without much context. If the subject is "state terrorism", then perhaps the listing of the US dropping of the atomic bomb could be there as one instance. But the POV problem with this article is that it singles out one country -- the US -- with a pejorative term. And the whole piece is colored as a result. It violates WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE in my view.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Singling out a specific nation for an article does not make it imbalanced, if that article is about that specific nation. I don't understand your reasoning. It would be imbalanced, if state terrorism exclusively focused on terrorist acts that the US was involved in.Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Question to Spoonkymonkey and Soxwon: Why were the Japanese imperialist? Ikip 07:57, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

...If you are asking for their motivation that's a very complicated answer. If you are asking why they are considered imperialists, I believe the definition: "the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination" fits. And before this goes anywhere, I'm not saying that Japanese Imperialism is the equivalent of state terrorism, I am arguing that classifying the atomic bombing as state terrorism b/c it involved "the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal" is a misnomer as it would mean that a large portion of WWII was state terrorism. Soxwon (talk) 09:03, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, but I'd suggest you read Niall Ferguson's "End of the World." The Japanese had strong theories abour racial superiority. They also wanted access to resources like oil, which Japan does not have, the rice production of southeast Asia, the steel industry of Manchuria, and they had settlement plans for their conquered empire.

The US justified the dropping of the bomb by saying it would save the lives of many American soldiers. This is undoubtedly the case, considering the resistance on Okinawa. It's obvious to me that the authors of this mess have deliberately glossed over the severity and cruelty of the Japanese miltarists to put the best possbile spin on their version of the reality of Hiroshoma and Negasaki. This is the same tactic as the neo-Nazis who say Hitler's treatment of conquered people and Jews was no more of a genocide than the bombing of German cities. The American government had a duty to its own people to end the war as quickly as possible.

But the debate on whether the atomic bomb should have been used is just a small part of an over-all problem. As I've said, this article is an exercise in historical revisionism and America-bashing that actually provides warped justification for anyone who wants to attack America. Wikipedia should be ashamed of it.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 15:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I personally think the atomic bomb section should be stubbed or moved to another page, it is too controversial, and adds too much controversy on this already controversial page.

Playing devils advocate, (thanks for humoring me!) have you ever met a person who deliberately glosses over the severity and cruelty of the dropping of the Atomic bomb to put the best possible spin on their version of the reality of Hiroshoma and Negasaki?

Best wishes. Stay warm, we are snowed in here :( Ikip 19:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Best wishes to you, too. I doubt many people can really appreciate -- or are willing to appreciate -- anything like Hiroshima, the Rape of Nanjing, the Nazi death camps, or even the real face of "legal" warfare. But to single one or two events in the vast wasteland of cruelty and immorality and include them in a catalogoe of American "sins" that are actually either controversial and/or unpopular foreign policy decisions and wrap them in a bow of American state terrorism is simply intellectually dishonest. I agree that America has treated foreigners with far less respect, and allowed the "self-evident" rights of the Declaration of Independence to be trampled on, but to say this is state terrorism is a bit much. All major states have foreign policies that reflect what governments see as their self-interest. I can't think of any -- France, England, Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, even second-tier countries like Canada and Australia -- that have completely clean hands. I would nominate this mess for deletion, but looked at the history and I can see that there are doctrinaire America-haters who will fight ferociously to keep it. So I will leave this as my last comment and hope the people who find the entry and who are as appalled as I am will feel they are not alone. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 00:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

If people from another nation came into the U.S. and bombed a bunch of non-combatants for political purposes, then many here would call them "terrorists" and would call the bombings a "terrorist" action. When the U.S. goes into another nation for political or economic purposes and bombs a bunch of non-combatants, people in those nations often call the actions "terrorist actions". It's hardly appropriate to use euphemistic phrases like "treated foreigners with far less respect". The U.S. has tortured, machine-gunned, and bombed civilians repeatedly for political and economic gain. In the U.S., this might be considered just or whatever -- in other places, where people have to constantly worry about U.S. bombs killing their children, people call this terrorism. Wikipedia tries not to just put the U.S. perspectives here, even though it is written in English (see WP:Systemic bias). Many people inside and outside the U.S. have called these acts terrorist acts, so it is not inappropriate (whether you personally agree with calling them that, or not) to list these acts in one place. This is not about "America-hating", although many of the people whose families have been murdered or tortured by the U.S. military do hate the American government, and the people that support it. This is simply an act of creating an objective record of history, which means that we have to include all of the most important perspectives about the issue. Once again, whether you or the editors of this article "love America" or not, is not relevant as long as everything here meets Wikipedia policy, which for the most part, it seems to.Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

However, most people agree that during wartime, just about every action could be classified as "state terrorism." Also, there seems to be a lot of undue weight given to events. Soxwon (talk) 00:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

It's hardly giving "undue weight" to list an action that reliable sources have called "state terrorist" acts, in a list of "state terrorist" acts. You cited a rule that does not apply in this situation. If we were listing these in History of the United States, then I would agree that most of them would be being given undue weight in that article. But this is an article whose sole purpose is to list these actions, so giving weight to them is totally appropriate here, as long as we have reliable sources saying that they belong here. If you feel that you can justify the murder of noncombatants because they take place during wartime, then that's fine -- you are welcome to your own opinion. But that is not relevant as far as whether an act should be listed here on Wikipedia. If a reliable source says that it's a state terrorist act, then we should include it here -- our personal opinions about whether or not they actually are terrorist acts doesn't matter.Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:29, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a load of bunk. The people who have created this mess have cherry-picked anti-American authors to put together "sourced" propaganda that takes events out of their historical context. it is very similar to the tactics of neo-Nazis who say the Allied bombing of German cities is the moral equivalent of the holocaust. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 18:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

There currently is an opposition section: United_States_and_state_terrorism#Viewed_as_primarily_wartime_acts which you are welcome to add sources too and expand.

Please, watch out for Goodwin's law, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Is it okay for wikipedia to express the idea, using sources, that atomic bombing was terrorism? Ikip 18:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I would respectfully suggest that you consider the possibility that the critics cited may not be "anti-American."

AUTHOR:	Carl Schurz (1829–1906)
QUOTATION:	The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. 
My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to 
be set right.
ATTRIBUTION:	Senator CARL SCHURZ, remarks in the Senate, February 29, 1872, The Congressional Globe, vol. 45, p. 1287. The Globe merely
notes “[Manifestations of applause in the galleries]” but according to Schurz’s biographer, “The applause in the gallery was deafening.” 
This is “one of Schurz’s most frequently quoted replies.”—Hans L. Trefousse, Carl Schurz: A Biography, chapter 11, p. 180 (1982).

 Schurz expanded on this theme in a speech delivered at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 1899: “I
 confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the
 selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not
 fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be
 secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’
 —Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism,” Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, pp. 119–20 (1913).

I would further suggest considering the possibility that greed, dishonesty, bullying, Imperialism, theft, murder and arrogance may not be traditional American values.

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1641.html Wowest (talk) 07:18, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Copyright problems

There are guidelines that quotes are not to be overused. There are repeated instances in which long quotes are used which is against Wikipedia policy. An excessive amount of the article is occupied by quotes. This is against Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:Nfc#Text_2 "Unacceptable use": "Excessively long copyrighted excerpts." These amount to copyright violation. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Accuracy disputes

The term "state terrorism" applied to one nation in a wartime situation, is disputed. To term the US as a "state terrorist" is progaganda, violated WP:NPOV and doesn't show WP:BALANCE. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Disputed by which reliable sources? How many of them? We need to answer the second question to determine how much weight to give their opinion. Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

POV concerns are serious and need fixing

This article needs a new, non-pejorative title; its emphasis, at present, is only on negative things the US has done. That, by itself, violates WP:NPOV. For that to happen, the article should be re-thought or somehow adjusted to reflect some kind of balance and fairness. If you're an editor who likes this article, please fix it; otherwise we need to vote on deleting this article.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

That there is a section called "Opposing Views"—that is, the United States is not a terrorist state—and that the section is empty, not to mention the overuse of the word "controversial" throughout, rather points to this being a coatrack. Topic such as the atomic bombings of Japan, the fire-bombing of Dresden by the Allies, etc. are all best served in their own individual articles to advance understanding of those events as opposed to using them to advance the accusation here. The article might as well be titled United States (terrorist state).  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  17:46, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The article seems to be a dumping ground for anti-US vitriol masquerading as original research. For example, referring to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as 'state terrorism' seems way out on the fringe to me. War crime, while not mainstream is perhaps reasonable, but state terrorism? --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 18:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree about dumping ground and vitriol.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

To qualify the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "state terrorism" is ludicrous. State terrorism must be performed against the population of the government who orders to do it. It is self evident that were "acts of war" since were performed by the regular army of the USA as part of a conflict formally declared. So the only illegal thing that can be is "crimes of war". It is not clear if are "crimes of war" or not -as all strategic bombing since the concept was invented- but what certainly are not is "state terrorism". This is an encyclopedia and we are supposed to use words with its academic meaning, not as tools of propaganda.--Igor21 (talk) 21:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

That's some great original research that you've done there, but please find some reliable sources which hold the same opinion as you, and give them the proper amount of weight based on how many you can find. Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Objectively informing people about U.S. terrorist actions is not "propaganda", whether anyone thinks it "looks bad for the U.S.", or not. The article definitely needs a lot of work, and should focus more on terrorist actions, rather than war crimes. But there should be plenty of information to pick from, since United States has a long history of committing (e.g., My Lai Massacre) and sponsoring/supporting (e.g. Taliban, Pol Pot, death squads in Nicaragua) terrorist activity. As state terrorism describes, "state terrorism" is by no means a word with a well-determined meaning. We should present all notable viewpoints on the matter. One of these viewpoints -- that the United States doesn't commit terrorist acts at all -- is commonly expressed by U.S. nationalistic/patriotic types -- neoliberal think tanks, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal for instance. Another viewpoint is that actions such as the Haditha Massacre, Operation Ranch Hand, atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the torture and assassination of political opponents constitutes "terrorism", since it terrorizes the public for political purposes -- the views expressed by authors such as Noam Chomsky, William Blum, Naomi Klein, or Ward Churchill. We should include both of these viewpoints, and many others as well, when discussing this issue. --- Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

And as far as deletion, you'll notice that this article has been "voted keep" or "speedy keep" every one of the many times that patriotic zealots have wasted their time proposing it for deletion. Seriously -- just work on making the article better, and stop pushing your nationalist views here. I think it's pretty clear that the consensus of the community is that the article stays around and gets improved. --- Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't use labels to deride your editorial opposition. As is, the article is a coatrack lumping together disparate actions as state terrorism. My uncle died in the fire bombing of Dresden and whatever else acts of war are, to lump everything ever construed by anyone as state terrorism by the United States into an article named the same is what is what is POV here.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  02:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. If we wish to create an article exploring acts of XYZ as state terrorism, that topic is best served by a discussion of that exploration instead of being a compendium of every act ever accused by someone of being state terrorism.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  03:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You should read the deletion discussions from each of the numerous times this article has been brought up for deletion -- for all of the reasons you mentioned, and others. You might understand better why this article still exists after reading those. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Sampling of "keeps"... why isn't invasion of Grenada included as terrorism, keep and expand; there's acts of terrorism by Americans against Americans, should be included, keep. All the AfD discussions prove is that the article continues to exist only because consensus (to delete) decreases as content entropy increases.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  04:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Or how about you just take an honest sampling of the keeps (no, that would just prove my point...):

• Keep: Bad faith nomination and disruptive nomination. Any POV problem is editing, the topic is notable, it is valid topic.
• Keep - For reasons stated on six previous AfDs; article is not a soapbox, it consists of verifable facts.
• Strong Keep - what has changed since the six previous Afds? Well. take a good look and you will find that the references are now vastly improved, and the content has been significantly expanded upon and improved since the last afd. The content references what is now a considerable body of academic and human rights literature consisting of either references to descriptions of U.S. state terrorism or in-depth examinations supporting the hypothesis. See the references section which includes contributions from professors from Yale, Princeton, MIT, Columbia and Hong Kong University, among others. If you require more evidence that this is a serious scholarly concern, constituting a significant alternative discourse, albeit not representative of the mainstream, then I would be happy to provide a long long long list of academic references.
• Keep As was concluded in previous AFDs. the article is about a notable topic and has multiple references from reliable and independent sources, satisfying WP:N. It seems fairly neutral and NPOV. The rest is a content dispute, and not a topic for AFD. This is not to say I agree with everything it says, but that is a matter for editing, not deletion.

And so on, for the other 7 AfD discussions ... seriously, why don't you all stop wasting the community's time and start working on improving the article, instead of incessantly forcing us to explain to you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (was that 8 times? ...) again? Jrtayloriv (talk) 04:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Jrtayloriv writes Objectively informing people about U.S. terrorist actions is not "propaganda. While that sounds like a reasonable principle, it is important to note that it is not for us, editors on wikipedia that is, to declare what is or is not a terrorist action. In the case of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki (or even the My Lai massacres) it is not generally accepted that these were acts of terrorism. Wikipedia is not an activist site but rather an encyclopedia which objectively informs people about whatever is accepted wisdom Nor is this a question of 'whitewashing' US actions since these actions are well covered in the encyclopedia but rather one of whether they can 'objectively' be included under 'State terrorism'. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 03:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not claiming that any editors here should declare what they think is a terrorist act or not. I'm just claiming that editors should be allowed to include that an act is a terrorist act, if enough reliable sources refer to it as such -- as long as they aren't giving fringe views undue weight. This means that editors should objectively add those views to the article. As I mentioned above, there are numerous extremely notable/reliable authors such as Noam Chomsky that cite certain acts as state terrorism committed by the United States -- these views should be mentioned regardless of what editors here think about those views.Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:59, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Jrtayloriv, I don't think you're getting what people are saying about the POV problems with this article. The idea of an encyclopedia is to talk about subjects such as wildebeests, Dana D. Nelson, polyneuropathy, United States. It's acceptable, within an article, to talk about positive or negative points, praise and criticism, as long as there is some sort of WP:BALANCE which represents a mainstream view, according to Wikipedia's mission which requires neutrality. I've been critical of the United States, but there's lots of positive things the U.S. has done too. My problem with this article begins with the damming title = "United States and state terrorism". The title essentially says "The United States is a terrorist". This is a soapbox position, a highly controversial statement, which makes it practically impossible to add relevant pros & cons to the article itself. Please read WP:NOT. Let me illustrate another way. Suppose I write the article: User:Jrtayloriv and criminality. The title, by itself, suggests you're a criminal. It won't matter much what goes inside the article, since by the outlandish title, anything inside the article will be reacting to the charge. Such an article wouldn't be encyclopedic since it doesn't describe things, but is more accurately termed a smear or accusation. It's something that belongs in a court case, perhaps; or it can be inside an article provided its referenced. But not in the title. Do you get what I'm trying to say here? Further, this propaganda while it may advance your agenda, undermines Wikipedia's agenda; readers have come to expect high quality, balanced reporting, and propaganda such as this article turns people off. It doesn't belong in Wikipedia.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I notice that there is also an article War crimes committed by the United States. Most of this material would fit nicely in that article. If Chomsky has described the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the My Lai massacre as state terrorism then, perhaps, a sentence in that article of the sort "some activists/historians, (Chomsky, Frey, xx, yy) have called these bombings and instance of state terrorism by the United States".(cite1,cite2,..) Note that the person being quoted should have explicitly stated that in their view these bombings were an act of state terrorism. Anything less would be original research. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 15:46, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I have the same problems with the title of War crimes committed by the United States as I have with the title of this article: the title, in itself, is highly biased, presumptious, propaganda.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Many people on both this article and War crimes committed by the United States seem to conflate "propaganda" and "bias" with "objectively presented facts which don't 'look good' for (something that the editor making the claim of 'bias' is personally attached to).". Just because an editor objectively adds something from a reliable source that claims that, say --the murder, rape, and mutilation of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians to make people terrified to support the VC -- is a "terrorist" act, does not mean that they are an "anti-American Islamofascist communist" -- it might just mean that they believe in presenting all relevant information on a topic in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. You might not personally like the fact that someone more reliable/notable than yourself called this a terrorist act -- you might want to call it a "warning message" or a "non-non-violent political extortion -- but this is all irrelevant. All that matters is whether or not the content meets Wikipedia guidelines. And in this case, while the article needs work and more citations, it is ridiculous to continuously have to redo the articles for deletion game again. The community has REPEATEDLY reached the conclusion in the past that this article should remain on Wikipedia and get improved. Why don't you work on that, instead of trying to get rid of it? Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The statement "the community has REPEATEDLY reached the conclusion in the past that this article should remain" I question -- my sense is the community will was thwarted by a cadre of sockpuppets posing as "unbiased contributors". --Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

But, of course, if they had agreed with you, they wouldn't have been sockpuppets ... Do you have any reason to say that, or are you just throwing it out their because you're running out of rational arguments? If you really believe that, why don't you let some sysops show you whether this is the case?Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I would agree that the umbrella of state terrorism in this case is far, far to wide and what qualifies for inclusion should be whittled down. Soxwon (talk) 16:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't matter what you think about the term. We need to find reliable sources that agree with you before we make any changes based on your personal opinion. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I would add that any act conducted under what is generally accepted as a war between states should not be included in this article. We have articles on war crimes for illegal acts conducted during a war and they can't be both a war crime as well as an instance of state terrorism. I'm going to remove the entire section on Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the article. If someone can come up with a convincing set of mainstream references that explicitly classify the bombing as state terrorism, we can consider re-adding the material (or some appropriate subsection of it). There is no rush. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 17:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with RegentsPark. I support removing the material.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with RegentsPark that we should only include events which reliable authors have stated are acts of state terrorism. I also agree that this article has much overlap with War crimes committed by the United States. But just like a physical attack can be both an "assault" AND an "attempted murder", a violent attack on innocent civilians by the U.S. military can be both a war crime and a state terrorist act, or either, or neither. So we don't want to necessarily move everything that is a war crime over to War crimes committed by the United States. If we are talking about the act as a war crime, then move it out of this article. If we are talking about it as an act of state terrorism, then talk about it here. Simple as that.Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I think Jrtayloriv is clueless about what is "state terrorism". Wikipedia is the only enciclopedia were clueless people can write about issues. It is also the only to consider the terms as chewing gum. My-Lai was a crime of war and of course should not be included. Only violent and ilegal acts of the USA governement against his own population can be included in this article. So it will be a very short article.

I think you need to use rational argument instead of name-calling (please read WP:Talk). You added nothing to this conversation but personal attacks and misinformation. My Lai was a war crime, and was also a state terrorist act (according to several reliable sources), since the primary purpose of the operation was to terrorize the local population to prevent them from supporting the Viet Cong and other rebel groups (see Operation Phoenix). As far as your definition of state terrorism: you are entitled to your own opinion, but adding it here is original research, unless you can find a reliable source that agrees with you. There is no clear consensus on the word "state terrorism", just like there is not consensus on the meaning of "war crime" or "torture". What we need to do is state that there is no consensus, and then include reliable sources for each item included in the list, who claim that said item is a state terrorist act. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

If you want it to be long, the name must be changed either to "State terrorism sponsored by USA" or to "Terrorism sponsored by USA" All the violence against their own populations in US client countries (e.g. Indonesia with Suharto, South America in the 70s, Sha's Iran, etc..) can be included under the former title while the Contra affaire can be included under the later.

I disagree. I think that rather than having several articles, we should have this one. We could break it up into two sections: State terrorism sponsored by the USA and State terrorism committed by the USA, or something to that effect. But the current name is broad enough and neutral, and is describes the topic well. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:08, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

To be honest this article should be deleted since is ashaming from the begining to the end but is not me who will spend time here discussing with people who things that "terrorism is this" or "terrorism is this other" and about profesor Potomac from the university of Des Moines who think that a trout is a monk fish.--Igor21 (talk) 13:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, please see WP:Talk, and learn how to discuss things with other people on Wikipedia talk pages. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Readding atomic bombings

I am readding the atomic bombings, which were unnecessarily deleted, when all that was needed was a tag.

Before removing large sections of other people's work, please make at least a minimal effort to verify the content yourself. A simple Google search for hiroshima "state terrorism", for example:

• 321 results from Google Books
• Several journal articles such as this one.

You're not removing this because you don't believe that there are reliable sources that say this -- you haven't even looked. You are simply removing it, because you are personally biased against it. Please work with other people to make Wikipedia better, rather than trying to censor things that you don't personally agree with. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

This is not an issue of censorship. Like I say above, there is plenty of room in the war crimes article for including statements such as "some activists/historians believe that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are acts of state terrorism". Including these bombings in this article is tantamount to classifying the bombings as state terrorism which, whether they were or not, is not the way they are viewed by historians. Much of the content in that section is analysis along the lines of 'it was meant to terrorize the population therefore it is state terrorism' which is a original research based on a fringe viewpoint. I took a brief look at the references you provide, the jstor one is from The Economic and Political Weekly, hardly mainstream for analyzing US actions. The text is written in the form of opinion ("In that cold-blooded and unprovoked terrorist attack on the Japanese civilian population...." is hardly the stuff that academic papers are made of) and cannot be considered reliable. The google books, I looked at a couple, essentially confabulate terrorism and the bombings. What you need to provide is solid academic sources that call the bombings acts of state terrorism. I'm not going to revert you because I don't do that sort of thing but, IMO, you're making two mistakes here. First, you're over-rating a viewpoint that is nowhere in the mainstream (these sort of acts during a war are called war crimes for a good reason) and you're imputing motives to other editors rather than focusing on what makes sense in the context of an encyclopedia. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 22:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with RegentsPark. To claim using wartime use of nuclear weapons is "state terrorism" is a huge POV issue; what about Nazi genocide -- is that "state terrorism" as well? Huge speculation. And why is using one type of bomb = terrorism while another type of bomb not = terrorism? Doesn't make sense.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• To claim using wartime use of nuclear weapons is "state terrorism" is a huge POV issue; --If several reliable sources claim that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were state terrorist acts, then as far as Wikipedia is concerned those views can be listed here.
• what about Nazi genocide -- is that "state terrorism" as well? -- much of it was, in my opinion: millions of the people killed were labor union leaders, communists, anarchists, etc.: Nazis killed them to scare people away from political dissent. But my opinion doesn't matter. You'd need to find a reliable source that says that it was a state terrorist act, just like the numerous reliable sources that claim that the atomic bombings were.
• And why is using one type of bomb = terrorism while another type of bomb not = terrorism? Doesn't make sense -- No, it sure doesn't make sense. Which is probably why nobody has said it. Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

• Like I say above, there is plenty of room in the war crimes article for including statements such as "some activists/historians believe that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are acts of state terrorism". -- no, the "war crimes" article is about war crimes, so we should talk about war crimes there. This article is about state terrorist acts, so we should talk about those here.
• Including these bombings in this article is tantamount to classifying the bombings as state terrorism -- how?
• which, whether they were or not, is not the way they are viewed by historians. -- depends on which historians you are asking. Many historians (such as Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky) do classify them this way. Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

The idea that bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were "state terrorism" is a fringe idea which is given undue weight in violation of Wikipedia:Reliable sources and undue weight policy. It's not mainstream, not anywhere close, so it doesn't belong. My opinion is this whole article is propaganda by virtue of the slanted title.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

jrtayloriv, you need to provide references that say "the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki were acts of state terrorism". None of references 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 explicitly make that claim. I'm afraid the entire line of argument in the article, which appears to be along the lines that anything that terrorizes the civilian population of a nation is 'state terrorism' is a classic case of original research. By that definition, the color coding scheme of the Bush administration when used around the 2004 election is state terrorism - which I would be happy to see in print but is, unfortunately, not accepted wisdom. Personally, I'm okay with most of the rest of the article because many of those cases were not conducted under an act of war, but the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are completely misplaced. Should we be including Dresden here? The British Indian government? The stamp act? Laws of sedition? The blitz? The French in Algiers? Every colonial law designed to keep colonized populations in check? They all qualify as acts that 'terrorize' civilian populations into political complicity. Should we remove Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the war crimes article? This is going too far into the territory of original research. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 03:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I think is urgent a serious revision of the political violence articles to modernize the definitions and make them compatibly, thus finishing with this totus revolutom of terrorism, state terrorism, crimes of war, insurgency and war.

Believe or not, each of this words has a diferent meaning.

Agreed.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean that you "agreed" with his original research? Jrtayloriv (talk) 06:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

OTOH I cannot understand why people thinks that terrorism is morally worst than crimes of war. This absurd thinking is in the root of these discusions because then it looks to this people than saying that something is a crime of war is to forgive some part of the blame to the authors.

If you have a source that states that if act A is a crime of war then it cannot also constitute an act of terrorism, then let's see it. In that case it should be added to the article under, for example, the Hiroshima section, to clarify that although some scholars have called it terrorism, according to your source, it is axiomatic that it is not because its a war crime. But in that case it might be an OR violation unless your source mentioned Hiroshima. Otherwise, if it's just your opinion that an act cannot be both, then we don't care.--NYCJosh (talk) 05:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Crimes of war are heinous and some of them worst than any terrorism to date. There is no a moral ladder. Crimes of war, terrorism and state terrorism are three reprehensible activities more or less heinous depending on the case not on the class. The only class that is on top is "crimes against human kind" that qualifies a subset of acts of the three other categories.--Igor21 (talk) 19:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Igor generally agree about "crimes of war" and "terrorism" being both morally bad; however, what RegentsPark is saying is that they're different, and therefore if there is going to be a subject called "state terrorism" which specifically focuses on the US, is it fair to include wartime acts? Most consider that the US didn't start WW2, but tried to stay uninvolved; the US was attacked viciously at Pearl Harbor in a surprise, undeclared war; so anything the U.S. did in response could hardly be described as "terrorism" (with all the loaded negative connotations implied). Do you see how that isn't fair? Tha't what RegentsPark is trying to say, and I agree. In a war, each side is fighting for its life and does what it can to prevail, although by treaty convention such things as the Geneva Conventions impose some rules such as treatment of prisoners etc. But the general sense is that "terrorism" is something entirely different -- violent non-state actors (usually) who perpetrate horrendous violence for some goal like in the definition. And this doesn't happen in the course of a war (usually; again, there's disagreement about everything).--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

It is funny how dificult is to understand each other over the Internet. What I have been saying for years is that "terrorism", "crimes of war" and "state terrorism" are three different activities, that it seems to be what you and RegentsPark are also saying.

Regarding your question, to consider "crimes of war" a subset of "state terrorism" is ridiculous. There can be legitimate discussion about if "strategic bombing" is a crime of war or not but it never will be "state terrorism". OTOH, either all the strategic bombing is a crime of war or none is so.--Igor21 (talk) 10:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Igor21. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Who says it is either or, but cannot be both? Would you like to provide a RS or should we just go by your personal opinion on the subject?--NYCJosh (talk) 05:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Better ways of handling the topic

To the original point in the section above, the Google book references include cross-references to scholarship as opposed to matches necessarily indicating that the sources purport the U.S. engages in state terrorism. I would suggest the topic is best served as "Scholarship on acts of war as state terrorism" and "Scholarship on military and para-military actions as state terrorism" and not necessarily focused just on the U.S.
  This allows for a discussion of the topic without maintaining an article which has as its basis that the U.S. is a terrorist state. As it stands, the article is mainly a dumping ground for anything ever suggesting the same. The personal opinions expressed here and in past deletion discussions make that quite apparent.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  00:02, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. That means deleting this article.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  00:02, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with your analysis. However this article has been subject to deletion discussions many times in the past; each time it survived. Why? A previous comment in one of the discussions suggested that sockpuppets were at work here with "Keep" votes; but who knows. So, perhaps the best that can be done is maintaining the tags on the article and removing the most blatant violations.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:07, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Vecrumba --

I would suggest the topic is best served as "Scholarship on acts of war as state terrorism" and "Scholarship on military and para-military actions as state terrorism" -- not all of these are "acts of war" or "military actions", many of them are simply funding/arming/training terrorist groups ... for instance, in many of these cases, the U.S. was not at war with the nations that these events happened -- they were just sponsoring death squads and terrorists and whatnot in foreign nations

and not necessarily focused just on the U.S. -- there are simply too many state terrorist acts to include all of them in a single article. That is why they are not all included in the article state terrorism, and that is why people have broken them up into articles categorized by the nation that allegedly committed the acts ... Just like we have Russia and state terrorism and Pakistan and state terrorism, and several others, we have this one. There is nothing wrong with having an article on state terrorism in the United States, any more than there is a problem with having an article on Slavery in the United States, as long as they are both backed by reliable sources rather than original research or editors' opinions.

without maintaining an article which has as its basis that the U.S. is a terrorist state -- First off, I don't see how the title of this article implies that the U.S. is a "terrorist state" at all ... it is called United States and state terrorism, not United States as a terrorist state, etc. Nobody should be implying anything here. All we should be doing is objectively reporting what reliable sources have said about the matter. Since numerous reliable sources have stated that certain acts sponsored or committed by the United States are terrorist acts, then we should objectively report those here. I am really getting tired of repeating this point over and over again.

An article such as Angelina Jolie and facial warts -- would you feel that has an unbiased premise? Or Jrtayloriv and criminal polluters -- would those be unbiased articles? When an article has a title "United States and state terrorism", it's implying strongly that there's a direct relation between the two, that the US is a state terrorist. It doesn't start from a neutral premise. This is propaganda. It's not fair to try to argue within such a construct because the title biases the whole discussion. So the whole article is built from a biased premise, and undermines Wikipedia's mission of neutrality.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:06, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I would feel that neither of those titles is biased, but I would push for deletion of both of them, since they are not notable enough topics to warrant articles on Wikipedia. However, I would support Criminal polluters in the United States or Criminal polluters in France, or if there were numerous books and journal articles and newspaper/magazine articles on Angelina Jolie's facial warts, then I would say that it would warrant an article, according to WP policy, regardless of how stupid and useless I think such an article would be. Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:38, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Jrtayloriv, and I think his criminal polluters examples are apt.--NYCJosh (talk) 05:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

... the article is mainly a dumping ground for anything ever suggesting the same. -- If you strip your statement of rhetorical flourishes, then it basically comes out to "This article is a collection of events/actions that reliable sources claim are acts of state terrorism committed by the United States." ... you call it a "dumping ground" instead of a "collection" or "list", because you are attempting to make it sound like "a bunch of biased garbage" (without evidence), rather than claiming how it violates any Wikipedia policies any more than Slavery in the United States or Sri Lanka and state terrorism. I understand that you might not agree with e.g. Professor Noam Chomsky, when he says that the atomic bombings of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima/Nagasaki to scare them enough to surrender is a terrorist act, but Wikipedia is not a forum and does not allow original research. Once your opinion is as notable as Noam Chomsky (most cited author on the planet...), then you or someone else can put your personal opinion right alongside his, and talk about how biased and stupid and anti-American he is. But for now, none of our opinions about what is "garbage" matters ... we should just focus on objectively stating what the reliable sources say. Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Tomwsulcer --

However this article has been subject to deletion discussions many times in the past; each time it survived. Why? A previous comment in one of the discussions suggested that sockpuppets were at work here with "Keep" votes; but who knows. -- The article has survived each of the 8 times, because there has been no clear reason (as far as reasons that matter for Wikipedia -- i.e. citations of certain Wikipedia policies that the article is in violation of) put forth for deleting it. Claiming that the article wasn't deleted the last 8 times this came up because of "sockpuppets" is inappropriate and irrelevant. Many people have very strong nationalistic feelings about the United States which sometimes leads them to make irrational statements about how if everyone doesn't agree with them, it must be the "sockpuppets", rather than considering that perhaps the community saw value in this article. It's good to see that you aren't jumping so quickly to believe it yourself, though. I am glad to hear you considering working on the article to improve it, and I'd be glad to help you do this. I've got no problem removing original research, etc, and making sure that everything in the article is cited. I do have a problem removing an article for no reason, when it doesn't violate WP policy and has clearly been determined by the community to be a valid article.

Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The article doesviolate WP policy of WP:NPOV for reasons you've heard again and again.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:06, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I've heard a lot of confusion and misunderstandings about WP:NPOV. If you read that page, you'll see that NPOV does not mean that the biased opinions of reliable sources cannot be included in an article. As it states there: Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view) — what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article. Unbiased writing is the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate ... of course Noam Chomsky is biased, of course Howard Zinn is biased, and so is any other academic you pick. That doesn't matter. What we need to do is present all of their views in a balanced manner -- not try to exclude everything from one side (the side that claims that certain actions are state terrorist acts). A lot of people throw around WP:BIAS and WP:NPOV without actually understanding what they mean -- so yes, I've seen people repeatedly citing WP:NPOV, but I've also seen that ALL of them have been doing so inappropriately, and out of the context in which the rule is meant to apply. Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:33, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

To name Chomsky as an academic source of the present article is a joke . He is an expert in lingüistics and his opinions about terrorism are as relevant as his opinions on beisbol. This article can certainly exist but must speak about the subject of its title. State terrorism has nothing to do with crimes of war and until you do not understand this simple fact, this article will continue being a non-sense.--Igor21 (talk) 12:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

As has been pointed out several times in the paragraphs above, an act may constitute both terrorism and a violation of the law of war. There is no inconsistency there. If I walk into a bank and use a gun to threaten the teller so I can take the money, I am guilty of both bank robbery and unlawful use of a weapon. Professor Chomsky has written dozens of books in American history and foreign policy over decades. He is also one of foremost public intellectuals living in the US, judging by the number of other scholars who cite his work. His opinion is clearly notable per WP rules. Your opinion of Chomsky is not notable.--NYCJosh (talk) 05:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The main issue here is not what Chomsky or other writers have said. The reality with the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that they are normally considered acts of war. There is some opinion that they may also constitute war crimes but that is already a minority opinion. There is a fringe opinion that these are acts of state terrorism. I don't think that minority or fringe opinions should be ignored but they should not be given undue weight. We have an article entitled Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and these minority and fringe opinions should be covered in that article where a proper context is provided to the reader to see where these opinions fit into the scheme of things (and to decide for himself or herself whether the bombings were acts of war, war crimes, or state terror). If Chomsky describes these bombings as state terrorism, then include that information in the article on Atomic bombings in a subsection entitled "The bombings as state terrorism" (that is appropriately sized to indicate that this is not a mainstream opinion. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 18:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any RS support for your contention about which views are "minority," which are "fringe"? Is that your personal opinion? In any case, WP rules refer to whether a view is notable and let's stick to that approach.

If a notable source supports the Hiroshima bombing as state terrorism then that is relevant to BOTH the WP article on the Hiroshima bombing and to our article. Here is an analogy: President Obama won the nobel peace prize; that should be discussed in both the WP article about the nobel peace prize article and in the WP article about Obama. It's clearly relevant to both.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(od) Backing up a bit, "I would suggest the topic is best served as "Scholarship on acts of war as state terrorism" and "Scholarship on military and para-military actions as state terrorism" -- not all of these are "acts of war" or "military actions", many of them are simply funding/arming/training terrorist groups" there is no impediment to including the actions of supported (foreign, assuming you are speaking of U.S.-funded) para-military (applies to terrorist) organizations under the latter title.

Also, all incarnations of XYZ and state terrorism suffer from the same issue. Were they titled Allegations of state terrorism by XYZ then they would be deleted as coat-racks just based on the title.

And I'm talking about an article regarding serious scholarship on the topic, not an excuse to make a List of actions alleged to be acts of state terrorism, can't have that article, it would be too long.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  22:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Peters Vecrumba.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

You can make the same observation about just about any WP article. The article about say, "Organized crime" lists a bunch of different events based on what sources like books and newspapers say about those events. So then why not entitle that article "Scholarship on, and journalistic coverage of, organized crime"? You see my point? Since WP is an encyclopedia and a tertiary source, our articles will almost always be compilations based on other sources, like books (scholarship) and newspapers and the like. But you would get some cumbersome and misleading titles if you go down that road.--NYCJosh (talk) 05:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(od) "Scholarship on..." was really my attempt to narrow the range of opinions being fielded. There's no impediment to:

• Acts of war as state terrorism
• Military and para-military actions as state terrorism
• Military and para-military actions as state-sponsored terrorism

with the understanding that the content should focus on scholarship, not rhetoric, regardless of whether the sources of rhetoric are notable. Scholarship and opinion are not the same.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  21:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Support Deletion

I think the article should be deleted for reasons given beforehand.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Every few months or so, some new editor who is not particularly familiar with the scholarship of, say, the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stumbles upon this article and is understandably shocked that what s/he learned in high school was only a small part of the story. It simply cannot be true that the US is a terrorist state! It follows then that scholars who write such things are either fringe lunies or evil/"anti-American." I suggest we turn down the volume/heat a bit. Also, let's not assume that those who put this article together or have been editing it over the years were/are clueless.

WP has rules about reliable sources, neutral POV, etc. and it's important to have some idea of these before boldly calling for the deletion of entire sections of an article or the entire article. It might be helpful for Tomws or any of the other deletionists to take one section of the article and think honestly whether for each objection they raised based on a WP rule, such as POV, their objection has been or can be reasonably addressed by the foregoing discussion. If not, or if they are unsure, then go back to the WP rule and see if they really understand it. If they are still of the view that the section might be objectionable under one or more WP rule, then they can come back and state their objection(s) or uncertainty.--NYCJosh (talk) 05:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

POV tags added

To remove tags, please show how these sections are fair, neutral, and unbiased.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Au contraire, to insert a tag you must explain why you think the material is unfair or violates NPOV.--NYCJosh (talk) 05:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Title. See discussion above. Almost all of the material has the point of view that "US committed state terrorism", highly pejorative. Fix this problem to restore WP:NPOV else tags remain.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you read any of the many footnotes in the article? They support the contention that the US has done X in each case. So if a RS supports it then the article should state it.

By "pejorative" what exactly do you mean? This is an article about US history. Is any info that is unflattering to the US govt throughout US history "pejorative" that must therefore be kept out? That would be a rewriting of history like they do in North Korea.

Let's just stick to WP rules on the subject. If you cannot reasonably identify in good faith a WP rule that supports an objection to specific material, then we don't care. --NYCJosh (talk) 19:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

You can find academics who will claim a lot of things. The main problems I have is that a lot of this appears to be cherry-picking with a LOT of sections (State Terrorism and Propoganda, Iraq (1992-95), Lebanon (1985), Syria, Philippines, School of the Americas, Guatemala). Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria all appear to be very hazy about being identified as state terrorism and border on WP:OR. There also seems to be quite a few authors (Falk, Chomsky, Rabe, McClintock) who dominate their sections, bringing into question the widespread belief in certain circumstances as being state terrorism. For instance, Guatemala is almost entirely quoting McClintock whilst State terrorism and propaganda is almost entirely Falk. Perhaps a review of WP:WEIGHT and WP:RS could help. Soxwon (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Soxwon --

There also seems to be quite a few authors (Falk, Chomsky, Rabe, McClintock) who dominate their sections, bringing into question the widespread belief in certain circumstances as being state terrorism -- Your reasoning is flawed here, and it is in fact you that should go and read WP:WEIGHT, especially before you start throwing them around at other people. If a certain source is "dominating" a section, that might simply be because they are one of the few reliable sources to discuss the issue, or because other sources that exist have not yet been cited -- neither of these imply that it is a "fringe" view, or is being given undue weight. To show that it is undue weight, you need to go and find numerous reliable sources that claim that these acts are not state terrorism. The amount of sources that you find that claim that they are not state terrorist acts would determine the amount of weight that we give to each claim. I've seen a lot from the Captain America camp claiming that these views are "fringe", "bizarre", "propaganda", etc -- but please show me the sources.Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Really? You seem to be applying a double standard. We have one scholar asserting a viewpoint on a subject and so instead of taking his viewpoint amongst the many accounts of event that fail to classify said event as state terrorism, I instead must actively seek out ones that say the label doesn't apply (which would be hard to find considering most scholars don't bother mentioning negative held by a small minority). How very interesting. Isn't this the same logic which Teabaggers use, if there is no one to deny it then it must be fact? Soxwon (talk) 05:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure about what Teabaggers do, but the fact of the matter is that Wikipedia requires that content is backed by reliable sources, and that we do not include original research. We have reliable sources which claim that certain events are state terrorist acts. We have a lot of original research claiming that they are not. You and Tomwsulcer and RegentsPark, amongst others, have graciously shared all of your original research and personal opinions with everyone, but it is about time to stop rehashing them over and over again, take them to a political forum, and start backing anything that you want to add to this article with reliable sources. This is not my standard (double or not, and teabaggers aside) -- it's Wikipedia's. Jrtayloriv (talk) 06:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Soxwon. Tags stay unless balancing material is added to restore WP:BALANCE and WP:NPOV. There is extensive use of fringe sources (Chomsky) and magazines like Democracy Now! etc. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Soxw, you don't necessarily need to find a source that argues a negative. Just find a source that deals with any section of the article and sets forth a rationale for US action that removes it from terrorist category. So, for example, there is a section about the US orchestration of bombings of schoolbuses in Iraq in the early 1990s. Find a source that discusses the issue and explains why these bombings were actually targeting Iraqi military personnel, or some other non-civilian target, and were a part of a war effort, for example. Just an idea, but it's not a question of proving a negative.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I had not thought of this, and it will make it easier, thank you. Soxwon (talk) 06:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Please allow me to provide a very cursory introduction to the WP rules that you cite. This is by no means exhaustive of the subject but it is merely intended to get you thinking about what these rules are and hopefully to read more about the rule.:

1. OR is when a WP editor weaves together two different topics that no RS links. It might be interesting and publishable but is not for WP. In each section of our article, the source cited connects the US action and the notion of terrorism. So there is no OR.

2. Balance. If this were a WP article about, say, US history of providing humanitarian relief, then one would expect all the sections to be about that. We would all feel better about the gov't if that were the subject of this article. If you're more comfortable with that, then go contribute to the article describing the US disaster relief effort in Haiti. Ours is a more depressing subject. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. There may be a few US scholars who have written extensively on humanitarian relief, and so one might expect to see their names all over the sources in that article. One of the scholars you note is Professor Falk. He is a distinguished professor of international law at Princeton Univerity, for example. His views are eminently notable om this subject. Professor Chomsky is professor emeritus at MIT, again one of the leading universities of the US. He has written dozens of books on US history and foreign policy. His work on these subjects has been written about and cited in the work of hundreds if not thousands of scholars of international affairs around the world. His view too are most clearly notable.

If you know of notable opinions that differ from the ones provided on any section, please provide them. It would make the article more intereting. If you don't provide a RS that provides a notable opinion with a different take, then there is no issue.

3. NPOV is when there are a range of opinions on a topic and the article emphasises or devotes an unduly large portion of the article to one or appears to take one side on an issue. This article does not cherry pick. If there are notable opionions that differ, please provide a RS.

4. RS. If you have an issue with any particular source cited, say so. Democracy Now!, to use your example, is an award-winning nationally syndicated daily broadcast based the US carried by hundreds of PBS and independent radio and TV stations. The host is a journalist of many years experience and has been featured on MSNBC, CNN, etc. The co-host is a journalist of decades for another newspaper and past president of the American hispanic journalist society. The show has high journalistic credentials and is RS per the WP rule.--NYCJosh (talk) 21:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I know the rules. I don't appreciate your condescending tone. Tags stay unless obvious POV problems are fixed.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:06, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to avoid dealing with the substance of any of the WP rules and simply reassert your conclusions as "obvious." Your views without substantive explanation get no weight. Repeating your conclusions over and over just exposes the lack of familarity with the rules.--NYCJosh (talk) 22:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Tomwsulcer -- you clearly do not "know the rules". You just claimed that Noam Chomsky and Democracy Now! were "fringe sources" -- this shows that you need to read and understand "the rules", namely WP:Reliable and WP:Weight. Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi NYCJosh. I must say that some of the things you say are really funny. For instance your presentation of professor Falk ans a world renown academic expert in international law is a very good gag. Opinions of professor Falk have been in the extreme of the extremes for 3 decades. He as Chomsky think that only the most bizarre expresions of the most radical ideas can counterbalance the mainstream thinking. Without judging this, is clear that these on-purpose exagerations cannot be the source for an enciclopedia.

Countering what you said above, what happens is that time to time neutral people stumbles with this article and gets horrified. Then tries to change or delete or something, but get exhausted of bizarre conversations about sources and strange twisting of the wikipedia rules and is finally defeated in an avalanche of US bashers appearing from nowhere.

I do not have much time so do not be afraid but do not say an article heralding the opinions of Falk and Chomsky follows the rules of neutrality in wikipedia because is slightly too much to hear even for a passer by like me.--Igor21 (talk) 22:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Igor -- whatever you think of how "extreme" or "bizarre" the ideas of Chomsky or Falk are, it is irrelevant as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Both of them more than meet the criteria for reliable sources. They are both internationally renowned experts in international affairs. Your opinion is merely original research. Chomsky, for example, extensively cites all of his work, and has a immaculate record for accuracy. If you don't think that the facts that he cites in his work are valid for some reason (i.e. don't just say they aren't valid, or that they are bizarre -- why don't you actually try to find some hard evidence -- from a reliable source -- to back up your opinion) -- then please cite some reliable sources that claim that this is the case, and then we can include both views in the article. Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Chomsky and Democracy Now! tilt heavily to the far left. What's needed = sources to balance out these extreme views.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Fine. Find the sources and get back to us. If you did that and the article still featured one or another view disproportionately, then there would be an undue weight issue. Until then, you are just making stuff up assuming that the article is cherry picking sources.--NYCJosh (talk) 23:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree. Personally I think the article is beyond repair; the title alone dooms it to propaganda. So I don't think it's worth my time to try to hunt down sources to anti-smear the smear. Rather, I'll insist that the article remain tagged until others restore neutrality and balance.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything about "far left" sources in the Wikipedia guidelines. The closest thing I've come across is something called WP:Reliable, and as NYCJosh has stated above, these sources far surpass the minimum requirements for reliable sources. Tomwsulcer -- I really do think that you should set aside your anger and resentment and take NYCJosh's suggestion and study the basic Wikipedia guidelines. You seem very confused about the way Wikipedia is supposed to work. If you "don't think it's worth your time" to provide reasoning or sources for your work here, then you are in the wrong place. If someone has provided sources that meet Wikipedia guidelines, please don't remove their work unless it is unbalanced or undue weight. Please read WP:UNDUE and note that it does not say anything about User:Tomwsulcer in there -- that is, it doesn't matter whether you think that it is a "fringe view" -- go and find some reliable sources that talk about, for example, the My Lai Massacre and state terrorism, which claim that My Lai was NOT state terrorism -- then you can mention those in the article alongside those that claim that it was. You cannot just arbitrarily delete well-sourced work and then say that it's not worth your time to find sources or explain yourself. Jrtayloriv (talk) 03:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: I don't have any "anger or resentment". Accusations that I'm "confused" are inappropriate and condescending. Please understand I'm not interested in participating in a propaganda project which is what this article is. But as a Wikipedia contributor, I continue to insist that this article stay tagged until it meets conditions such as WP:BALANCE and WP:NPOV. If you feel strongly about this, please fix the article as best you can.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

With Regards to NYB's lengthy post above:

1. OR is when a WP editor weaves together two different topics that no RS links. It might be interesting and publishable but is not for WP. In each section of our article, the source cited connects the US action and the notion of terrorism. So there is no OR.

How right you are on the definition and yet in the same line you go on and violate it. The "notion of terrorism" is not the same thing as explicitly stated "State terrorism" and with "no concrete definition," you would think more than a mere "notion of terrorism," would be needed. The sections on Iraq and Lebanon, while using acts that could perhaps be considered terrorism, have not been classified as State-sponsered terrorism (and in the case of Lebanon may not be, but simply agents gone rogue) by the sources and until they are their inclusion as examples of such are indeed conjecture on the part of editors.

You seem to be saying that if a source concludes that act A by the US is terrorism, but does not call it "state terrorism" then it should not be included here, citing OR. Well that's an interesting claim. Since the source is describing an act by state, the US, what other kind of terrorism could he mean? Fringe group terrorism? No, obviously, since he is describing the actions of a state as terrorism, he is speaking about state terrorism. It would take a real public relations expert to write this WP article using your approach. Obviously, if the source were to explain that some rouge network within the state was at work (as sometimes alleged for operations of the Pakistani ISI, for example) then that might be different.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

But isn't that what happened with the Lebanon debacle? I think there are clear cut cases of state terrorism, but that some of them are not so and might need re-evaluting.

No. The Lebanon section includes the allegation of state terrorism followed by the US denial of direct involvement after the perpetrators' CIA links were exposed. It might be an example of what is sometimes called cutting the operatives loose. A denial should not be taken at face value.--NYCJosh (talk) 03:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

2. Balance. If this were a WP article about, say, US history of providing humanitarian relief, then one would expect all the sections to be about that. We would all feel better about the gov't if that were the subject of this article. If you're more comfortable with that, then go contribute to the article describing the US disaster relief effort in Haiti. Ours is a more depressing subject. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. There may be a few US scholars who have written extensively on humanitarian relief, and so one might expect to see their names all over the sources in that article. One of the scholars you note is Professor Falk. He is a distinguished professor of international law at Princeton Univerity, for example. His views are eminently notable om this subject. Professor Chomsky is professor emeritus at MIT, again one of the leading universities of the US. He has written dozens of books on US history and foreign policy. His work on these subjects has been written about and cited in the work of hundreds if not thousands of scholars of international affairs around the world. His view too are most clearly notable.

If you know of notable opinions that differ from the ones provided on any section, please provide them. It would make the article more intereting. If you don't provide a RS that provides a notable opinion with a different take, then there is no issue.

3. NPOV is when there are a range of opinions on a topic and the article emphasises or devotes an unduly large portion of the article to one or appears to take one side on an issue. This article does not cherry pick. If there are notable opionions that differ, please provide a RS.

Oh but I disagree, all we are provided in many cases is the POV of the few who purport that the event falls within the given subject. And while they may (or may not) be eminent and respectable, they certainly may not represent the consensus within their field (in fact the lack of sources concurring seems to suggest quite the opposite). Speaking of Falk as an individual, he is also a figure of controversy, having been accused of promoting fringe viewpoints such as in the case of 9/11.

What exactly do you disagree with? If you believe that they "don't represent the consensus within the field" then feel free to prove it. This should not be difficult for you if as you claim there are so many scholars who have a different view. Just find a source presenting a notable opinion for any section of the article and let us see it. If you cannot find such a source then maybe you should question your assumption instead of accusing the article of cherry picking its opinions. I for one would like nothing more than an article that presents a range of views and healthy debate.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

See above. Soxwon (talk) 06:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

4. RS. If you have an issue with any particular source cited, say so. Democracy Now!, to use your example, is an award-winning nationally syndicated daily broadcast based the US carried by hundreds of PBS and independent radio and TV stations. The host is a journalist of many years experience and has been featured on MSNBC, CNN, etc. The co-host is a journalist of decades for another newspaper and past president of the American hispanic journalist society. The show has high journalistic credentials and is RS per the WP rule.

It is RS for providing a minority viewpoint yes, but not necessarily for providing a concensus or neutral one as CNN or the NYT might provide. Better sourcing would be far more desirable for the sake of the article. Soxwon (talk) 05:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we necessarily disagree here. Here I was discussing the RS issue only. Again, I would like nothing better than adding more relevant sources. Bring them on. I have added a number of sources and pieces of content. Some editors (I am not saying you) like to complain about the article but have added not a single new source.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Will begin researching, was getting frustrated looking for a negative. Soxwon (talk) 06:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

As I wrote above (last week), you don't necessarily have to find a negative. Just scroll up to find my suggestion on this point.--NYCJosh (talk) 03:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This is going nowhere fast...

Perhaps an RFC would help? Soxwon (talk) 01:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd love that, and I have a feeling that it will probably go the same way that the last 8 AfD discussions have gone. That is, they'll probably just telling Captain America to move along (again), taking his original research and personal opinions with him, and to start working on improving the article by adding content backed by reliable sources. Every one of the numerous times this disruptive and inane issue has come up, the community has overwhelmingly responded in exactly this same way. But please go ahead and make the request -- I'm sick of trying to explain how Wikipedia works to people who don't care and only want to debate their personal opinions about state terrorism ... Jrtayloriv (talk) 06:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I see you share the humor of your colleague but you like to add some drops of cynicism and sarcasm. It is sad to see a tool of knowledge as Wikiedia should be, converted in a tool of propaganda. It is even more sad when one realizes that this propaganda is so clumsy that becomes conuterproductive.

Instead of organizing and detaling in correct categories the numerous misdids of some of the tenures of USA presidents, you and your colleague are throwing in this article whatever you find -qualifying it wrongly and without any care- with the only aim of saying and writing the word "terrorism" as many times as posible together with USA.

You can laugh at our impotence to revert your misuse of wikipedia since is really comic how the truth and the knowledge do not help us to stop your misuse. We are really pathetic and you and your colleagu can congratulate yourselves of how clever you are and how strong is your inicuous postition.--Igor21 (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

This is all original research until you back it up with reliable sources. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Two articles. Opposite sides

It may be interesting to editors here that another article, Communist terrorism experiences similar problems. But given Wikipedia's status, I guess pushing propaganda here is inevitable. (Igny (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC))

What a hoot! Maybe if both articles were combined, it would be fairer. Thanx for sharing!--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The semantic rigour is very similar. It is encouraging to see that ignorance is so well distributed in the political spectrum.--Igor21 (talk) 20:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I had not known about the Communist terror article. Unlike that article, which appears to throw together actions of many different state and non-state organizations adhering to a variety of different political approaches branded under the loose term "communist," our article presents the actions of a single state. Many of the actions alleged here were orchestrated by a single agency of this state, the CIA. This single state is the sole surviving superpower, and so its history, methods, and policies are quite important.--NYCJosh (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I also want you to know that I came here when I clicked capitalist terrorism in the {terrorism} template. I was very curious what I'd see here, and this article did not disappoint me. (Igny (talk) 22:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC))

NYCJosh : The actions of CIA cannot be in the same article than the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and even the actions of CIA must be divided in categories.

The episodes of Mosadegh, Arbenz, Sukarno, Allende, etc... have a unity that allows a single article. You can also add the assasination of Diem, the assasination of Trujillo and the colaboration with Mafia to try to kill Castro and the Contra affair that are slightly diferent but coming out of the same logic. But the title must not be "state terrorism by USA" but "state terrorism sponsored by USA".

But then you have operation Phoenix and the War on terror that are diferent in quality since are direct assasinations and done by US governemental personnel in act of service. Both things are in the frontier between crimes of war and state terrorism. In fact both CIA and the army were involved in the tortures and assasinations so military and civilian techniques were used.

And then we have strategic bombing. Strategic carpet bombing of cities can be considered a crime of war very easily and then Hiroshima and Nagasaki come along. But the bombing of European cities plus the Tokio firebombing must also be included and not to say the bombings of Hanoi, Cambodia and Laos. Also Falujah recently and Basora in times of Bush Sr. have been carpet bombed so there is material for a full separate article

So my point is that to explain the overthrown of Allende in the same article than Hiroshima bombing is to mix things with diferent natures and names.--Igor21 (talk) 23:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree Igor.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Igor, was that original research again, or did you just forget to include your sources? Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Igor21, you seem to have some good ideas for other articles, and I would like to collaborate with you, and with Tomw since he agrees with you, about working on an article on assassinations by the USA, or maybe two article, one direct and one by proxy. All of your example seem to involve assassinations. Then there is your third idea, war crimes by the USA. Let's talk if you are ready. Such efforts don't have to affect this article, except of course that material gathered for those might, if appropriate, be proposed for this one (and vice versa).

Some WP articles are institutional history, say an aspect of CIA history. Other WP articles look at a larger phenomenon, for example, "State terrorism," "Revolution," or "Organized crime." Regarding the latter example, one might ask: How can one WP article lump together sections on causa nostra gangs and thugs in 13th Century India? They are obviously very different yet there are also commonalities that might be instructive depending on the needs and interests of the researcher. It doesn't make the article any less legitimate for WP.--NYCJosh (talk) 22:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Use of passive voice

This article makes too much use of the passive voice, as "The United States government has been accused..." The passive voice does not distinguish between single and multiple accusers, and also has an ominous character in reference to an accusation, cloaking it with an authority that the accusation may or may not deserve, since the accusers are not named, except in references or in later text. I suggest that the article be re-written to phrase the accusations in the active voice. --Zeamays (talk) 04:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Good comment. This article makes too much of the accusative voice too. It's all slanted against the US. No balance. All left-wing criticism. It's Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Falk Chomsky. :)--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• It's all slanted against the US. -- This has already been responded to numerous times. Objectively covering what reliable sources say about state terrorist acts and the United States is not bias.
• No balance. -- Please stop disruptively repeating this, and provide some sources to back it up.
• All left-wing criticism. It's Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Chomsky Falk Chomsky. -- This is manifestly untrue. For illustration, please look at the references for the article, and the book list. Please do not resort to dishonesty or hyberbole to try to argue a point.

--Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

To Jrtayloriv: You didn't address the point. But beyond that, the substance of this page is a POV litany of accusations, with almost no rebuttal. The editors who wrote this page violated the policy of Wikipedia to provide both sides of issues. It is so badly skewed that it should be deleted soon, unless some editor comes forward to make a major revision to provide the other side. --Zeamays (talk) 23:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• You didn't address the point. -- I addressed all of the points I was trying to address, namely those of User:Tomwsulcer. I did not address yours, because I didn't see any reason to. I don't agree with you that there is a grammatical issue, but go ahead and make your changes, and I'll respond to those edits if I need to.
• But beyond that, the substance of this page is a POV litany of accusations, with almost no rebuttal. -- This has been repeated over and over again above, but has yet to be backed with reliable sources. Back this opinion with sources, and then we can start taking it seriously as far as Wikipedia is concerned. There are not many rebuttals, because nobody has found reliable sources that rebut the content in the article, which has a large number of reliable sources.
• It is so badly skewed that it should be deleted soon, unless some editor comes forward to make a major revision to provide the other side. -- Again, please demonstrate with a collection of reliable sources that this view is "skewed". As far as deletion, this has also been brought up numerous times, and responded to. See above. If you want to be disruptive, and push for deletion, go ahead -- but the clear consensus of the community, each of the 8 previous times this has been brought up, has been to keep the article. Why don't you stop bickering about how "skewed" it is, and do something to fix it. Go and find some reliable sources that "rebut" the views here, and their views can be included as well (of course, we need to give them the proper amount of weight, based on the notability/reliability of the sources, and the number you find).

--Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The log shows it has tried to be deleted on numerous times, but failed to be deleted. Most likely there is a cabal of "editors", perhaps sockpuppets, interfering with Wikipedia's rules. So the best we can do is tag the page. I think it's biased from the get-go with the one-sided title. But it clearly lessens Wikipedia's overall reputation if blatant propaganda like this is allowed to remain.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• The log shows it has tried to be deleted on numerous times, but failed to be deleted. -- The log also shows that numerous respected editors who weren't involved in the discussion (admins/sysops etc -- hardly worthy of your accusation of being "sockpuppets") thought that there was absolutely no reason to delete the article, and that repeatedly doing so after it was clear community consensus was against it is disruptive. You keep repeating your accusations of "sockpuppetry" -- why don't you file a checkuser request? Why do you feel that all of the numerous editors (including several admins/sysops) who responded keep/strong keep are all sock puppets, but none of the small minority who supported deletion?
• I think it's biased from the get-go with the one-sided title. -- Your title non-argument has already been responded to numerous times. See above. The title implies nothing, other than that it covers both state terrorism and the United States. It says nothing about whether the U.S. has committed such acts.

Please start working to fix the article if you've got problems, but provide reliable sources when you do so. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The use of the passive tense is discussed under WP:Weasel - it is unencyclopedic. This article is hopeless. The term terrorism has no clear definition and there is no study cited that explains US terrorism, its history and its connection to American foreign policy. It is merely an incoherent collection of incidents already covered in other articles. I think the best way to deal with this issue is to merge it with an article about America's response to terror and point out that the US itself has been accused of terrorism. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The use of the passive tense is discussed under WP:Weasel - it is unencyclopedic. -- Didn't know about that it WP:Weasel -- but as I said before to Zeamays, go ahead and change it if you have a problem with it.

The term terrorism has no clear definition and there is no study cited that explains US terrorism, its history and its connection to American foreign policy. -- Doesn't matter. We have numerous reliable sources claiming that certain acts committed by the United States were state terrorist acts, so they belong here. If you find reliable sources that state conflicting opinions, please include them in the article (keeping WP:Weight in mind, of course).

I think the best way to deal with this issue is to merge it with an article about America's response to terror and point out that the US itself has been accused of terrorism. -- don't agree with you, and neither do the rest of the editors who repeatedly have ruled against removing this article in the past 8 AfD discussions. Since this article is not going to be deleted, perhaps you should stop being disruptive and go ahead and work with everyone else to improve the article.

-- Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with The Four Deuces in toto. This article is inherently biased. Jrtayloriv wrote, "There are not many rebuttals, because nobody has found reliable sources that rebut the content in the article, which has a large number of reliable sources." Perhaps it escapes him that the charges are so biased that honest writers don't bother writing rebuttals to such drivel. Chomsky is the most well-known author who is cited, and his is well known to be highly biased. I suggest that if Jrtayloriv thinks this article should be kept, he should be honest enough an editor to find some references to rebut the one-sided claims and charges. --Zeamays (talk) 19:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

One more point. What Jrtayloriv means is that one or more biased editors can create a one-sided POV article and then demand that the article stand until someone else comes up with the necessary references to provide a balanced viewpoint. That position is decidedly against Wikipedia's philosophy. An article should be balanced from the get-go. Those who created the article have a responsibility to ensure balance, not simply demand it of others. --Zeamays (talk) 20:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Chomsky was commenting on American foreign policy, not creating a separate concept. As such it is really a POV fork and should be merged with that article. Issues of sources and weight could be dealt with there. The Four Deuces (talk) 21:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

(1) Use of a passive voice does not render an article "hopeless." It is usually a rather straightforward syntax fix for a particular sentence.

(2) This article lists many footnotes. The fixation on Chomsky is noteworthy. In any case, no evidence has yet been offered that Chomsky's scholarship on this subject is "biased."

(3) Those who accuse (over and over and over again) the article of failing to meet WP rules regarding balance should come up with some reliable sources for their positions. How about spending some time on research before commenting on this page? Otherwise, they are just expecting everyone else to accept their hunch.--NYCJosh (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh also fails to address my central point: This article was born biased. It's original authors had (and have) a responsibility to correct the bias. Otherwise it should be deleted. --Zeamays (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

See my point (3) immediately preceding your comment.--NYCJosh (talk) 04:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh: Your point #3 does not address my point. The original writers posted a biased article and then challenged others to correct it. This shouldn't stand. They and not their detractors have the responsibility to post a non-POV article in the first place. Therefore, it should either be corrected immediately, or deleted. It was born biased. --Zeamays (talk) 13:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does address your point. You coming in here and repeating over and over again that the article is biased without providing any sources to back it up is merely disruptive. Please stop, and start working with everyone else to improve the article by including information backed by reliable sources. The onus is on you to back up your claims with sources -- that's Wikipedia policy. If you don't like that you have to back up claims here with sources, perhaps you should head over to the Village Pump and start arguing your case for why people shouldn't have to back claims on Wikipedia with reliable sources. Best of luck to you.Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

(out) Chomsky's area of scholarship is linguistics, he does not claim to be a scholar in political science or history and does not publish these theories in peer-reviewed journals. Also, some of the information from him is sourced to interviews, which are not good sources. What this article does is take Chomsky's opinion that American covert and military intervention in other countries is terrorism then gives descriptions of various of those events. Since no reasons are provided in the article why any of these individual events were terrorism, there are no reliable sources to counter those reasons. The Four Deuces (talk) 23:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Please read at least the discussion from the last week before repeating the same points. The points about Chomsky's areas of expertise, the degree of Chomsky's importance for the article, etc. were all addressed. The last sentence about no reason being given is bizarre. Just about all the sources explain that the acts in question were terrorism, and the first section of the article gives some definitions of the term, and links to other articles containing definitions, including those used by various governments. --NYCJosh (talk) 04:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

That conversation is extremely long, so perhaps you could provide a summary of why you think I am wrong. The fact that you argued over the issue for so long is evidence that my position is not "bizarre" unless you think that everyone who disagrees with you is bizarre. Since this article is supposed to be neutral could you please tell me who are the leading advocates of state terrorism in the United States. When it comes to other U.S. ideologies, there are advocates. For example there are Americans who call themselves libertarians and there is an article that explains their ideology along with supporters and detractors. But this article contains no list of Americans who support state terrorism. Could you please tell me who advocates U.S. state terrorism so that we can balance writers who oppose it. The Four Deuces (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

All I can find is your comment:

Professor Chomsky has written dozens of books in American history and foreign policy over decades. He is also one of foremost public intellectuals living in the US, judging by the number of other scholars who cite his work. His opinion is clearly notable per WP rules.

Can you name any article that he has published in a peer-reviewed journal that relates to this topic? If so I would be happy to include it. The nature of these journals is that they then come to the attention of other writers and we can use their commentary in the article. If you can cite any journal articles where scholars have cited his work that are relevant to this article then they would also be reliable sources. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried to look? I don't feel like doing research per your request. BTW, "peer-reviewed" journal is not a WP standard for notability or for RS in the fields of history, foreign policy, international law, etc.

Regarding your first two points: (1) I would rather not clog up this space by repeating, you can run a search for "negative" or for my handle or for "Iraq" to find my point about not necessarily having to prove a negative. (2) Unlike say right-wing Libertarianism in the US (I am assuming you are referring not to left-wing libertarians), scholars who describe various US actions as terrorism do not share an ideology or party affiliation. Some (but not all) are on what might be called loosely as "left." If you have a quick look at the footnotes you will see some scholars. Note however that many of the footnotes cite CIA/former CIA officials and other gov't officials. So I doubt you will find a book or set of books with the critiques you are looking for. You might be better served looking at each section/incident separatly and finding a range of views for each one.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

In summary, you are saying that you are unwilling to provide sources for your opinions. The Four Deuces (talk) 00:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why I accept these homework assignments. Here are a few Chomsky articles on terrorism and foreign policy that have appeared in peer-reviewed journals. I am stopping at five.

Wars of Terror. New Political Science. March, 2003.

Simple Truths, Hard Problems. Philosophy. January, 2005.

Moral Truisms, Empirical Evidence, and Foreign Policy. Review of International Studies. October, 2003.

The Crimes of 'Intcom'. Foreign Policy. September, 2002.

Domestic Terrorism. New Political Science. September, 1999. --NYCJosh (talk) 01:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I was unaware that Chomsky wrote in any peer-reviewed publications. However, from your list, only one publication qualifies, "Moral Truisms, Empirical Evidence, and Foreign Policy". Review of International Studies. October, 2003.[3] It is a high quality reliable source because it references previous work and exposes, has been reviewed by other scholars before publication and exposes Chomsky to criticism from other scholars. The Four Deuces (talk) 02:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Conflating opinion with scholarship into a hopeless coatrack

On "Objectively covering what reliable sources say about state terrorist acts and the United States is not bias:" in the above section, the issue is (again!) that there is a difference between expert scholarship on a subject and pronouncements by individuals/activists with an interest in the topic and their opinion thereof, regardless of notability or reliability in some (other) field (e.g., Chomsky). The two are not the same. The entire article is predicated on the a priori assumption that the U.S. indeed is a terrorist state even extending to wartime acts. That point, i.e., whether or when to consider wartime acts to be terrorism, is a topic for discussion and exploration with regard to scholarship on the question—that someone contends in the affirmative is not an open invitation to list piles of wartime acts as terrorism. That is why the title and article are a hopeless coatrack.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  19:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Vecrumba.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for hammering the same points again. Please take 15 minutes to read the discussion from the last week because all of your points have been dealt with.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I would love it if you provided a source for your repeated contention that war time acts are by definition excluded from the category of terrorism. I am not saying such a position has never been articulated, just that it might be interesting to include and helpful for your argument. Presumably according such a position, when the Hamas gov't sponsored rocket attacks against Israeli population centers those axiomatically could not constitue terrorism. Or if Saddam had been behind the 9/11 attacks and declared war then those too could not be terrorism according to you. It's a heck of position to defend.--NYCJosh (talk) 20:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Vecrumba -- this point has been brought up and responded to repeatedly. This is the last time I will respond to it. There is nothing about the title that assumes the U.S. is a terrorist state. The only assumption that you can make about the article from the title is that it is about the United States AND state terrorism. There is no logical basis for any assumptions other than this from the title. If the title was United States as a terrorist state, then you would be on track, and I'd probably agree that it needed to be changed to something like the current title to make it more balanced. But it's not, so stop claiming that it is. Please stop making this inane non-argument over and over and over again. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh : Hamas try to give the impresion that their militamen are a regular army launching rockets agains an enemy. If this were true, would not be terrorism but crimes of war (since the launching is deliberately aiming civilians).

However, if you dig the surface, we find that the "governement" is not legitimate, it is not recoginised by nobody, the army is ilegal under Oslo, the militamen normally do not wear any regular uniform (to hide amongst civilians what is caracteristic of terrorists), are not organized in regular units and many of them have been involved in incidents of terrorism.

So the discussion is about Hamas and his "governement". But whatever the answer, it is clear that there are criteria and the opinion must be based on the compliance of these critera. These fronteer cases in reality make easier to explain the fronteer since from them you can see it. Army=crimes of war Particulars=terrorism. --Igor21 (talk) 22:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This is original research until you back it up with reliable sources. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to veer off topic. Hamas was democratically elected in the Palestinian elections of 2006 and comprises the gov't of Gaza. Sometimes US special forces fight without traditional uniforms does that mean they are not fighting a war and may be considered terrorists while those wearing a uniform cannot? Does a violation of Oslo/the Road Map, say as Israel has done by refusing really to stop construction in the West Bank, make a government illegitimate? --NYCJosh (talk) 23:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh appears to be giving away his prejudices here, but that is a distraction. The bottom line is that this article was born biased, and the editors who created or defend it refuse to find opposing opinions to balance the accusations in it. They are not wanting to write an NPOV encyclopedia article but rather to press their opinions. --Zeamays (talk) 03:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Zeam, seems you are too busy repeating your point (born biased) to follow Peters V's post and my response. Your behavior is verging on vandalism for this talk page because instead of furthering discussion of issues you're like the graffiti artist who spray paints the same phrase over and over.--NYCJosh (talk) 04:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I do neither want to go in the off topic. I was only saying that it depends on the nature you asign to the Hamas militia if their acts must be qualified as crime of war or terrorism. The fact that this is surprising for you reveals how far you are from a scholarship aproach to political violence (and how far is Wikipedia).--Igor21 (talk) 09:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh: I have repeated it because you and the other supporters of this article haven't addressed it. You seem to think that a biased article can be put up on Wikipedia and then it is up to others to correct it. Please address my point. --Zeamays (talk) 13:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Zeeam, it's been addressed. See above. No, I cannot repeat the respones again. State your objection with reference to a WP rule otherwise we don't care. Also, reply to the responses to your points above, otherwise you are showing that you are not really interested in what others have to say but just venting. Please do not merely repeat your point.

Igor 21, my first point with reference to Peters V's contention was that he offered no RS notable authority that acts that would ordinarily constitute terrorism cannot be terrorism when committed during war time. He just assumed it and seemed to take the position that this was so self-evident that our article is entirely off the mark for this reason alone. There may be notable sources for this view but he has provided none.

The Hamas example was just one of how perverted a result one gets if one takes the approach Peters V had advocated. You can quible with the example's details but my point I think remains valid. The Saddam behind 9/11 was another. If Qaddafi had declared war on Britain before the Lockerbee airliner incident that too would not be terrorism according to his view.--NYCJosh (talk) 16:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The question is not if it happens in war time but the nature of the authors. The difference is because if is an army, the country can be blamed while if are civilians, only them can be blamed. I understand you are new about all these subtleties. To think in a more familiar example, civilians cannot perpetrate "crimes of war" as people who are not doctors or paramedics cannot do "medical negligence".

Whatever Gadaffi would have done, in case his governement were guilty of the Lockerbie incident, it would be "terrorism sponsored by states".

If you want to know the ABC about terrorism I recommend "Inside Terrorism" of Hoffman where you can learn some elementary questions that would help you to understand. Crimes of war, state terrorism and the rest of political violence is no much my field so I do not dare to recommend.--Igor21 (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

This is original research until you back it up with reliable sources. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any basis for such a distinction? Civilians who are carrying out or initiating gov't orders most certainly can and have been found guilty of war crimes. German civilian gov't leaders were tried at Nuremberg for a war crime (war of aggression) and found guilty. Milosevic was not a soldier but he as found guilty of war crimes by the international tribunal. Please do not make up stuff. You are entitled to your own views but you are not entitled to your own facts. Soldiers and civilians can be guilty of war crimes, guilty of terrorism or both.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh : Yes, I have basis. Thank you for asking. --Igor21 (talk) 21:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Then please provide your reliable sources, instead of your personal opinions. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Let me guess, it's in that book, isn't it? --Joshua Issac (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Correct Joshua, and in many others. Writing is not a monopoly of Chomsky and Falk.--Igor21 (talk) 14:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Igor -- did anyone claim that Chomsky and Falk had a "monopoly on writing"? Please point this out to me. It would only take you a few seconds to look at the references for United States and state terrorism, where you will see that there are dozens of sources besides Chomsky and Falk. Perhaps once you've done this, you will stop repeating over and over again that the entire article is sources by Chomsky and Falk. Jrtayloriv (talk) 02:17, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

(od) I think the point here is that the article, again, conflates rhetoric and serious scholarship. That is a disservice to both.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  01:29, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

And again, whether you think that these notable scholars are not "serious" is irrelevant. That's just original research. Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Edited introduction

I have edited the introduction to use the active voice, indicate the dates of publication of the accusations, describe the contents of the article, and restore the Disputed tag. The factual accuracy of the article is still disputed, so the tag should not have been removed. --Zeamays (talk) 17:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no dispute about the factual accuracy of this article. It's backed by RS. Please read the discussion of the last week and at least know what issues are being discussed. Factual accuracy is not one of them.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh: Just because you think the article is accurate does not give you the right to remove this tag. Several editors, myself included, think it is not accurate. One would be enough. No vote has been taken, and even if one were, that wouldn't remove the fact that various editors dispute the accuracy of the article. BTW, you still haven't addressed my point that the article was born biased. Vague references to earlier discussions are not a substitute for convincing, documented argument. --Zeamays (talk) 19:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Zeam, I will stop bothering to respond to you. That there is no dispute about the factual accuracy of the article is a matter of fact, not opinion. There has been no objection in the recent (last week or so) discussion as to that point.

I specifically responded to your disruptive and repetitive point as recently as today but you are failing apparantly to read any of the discussion. If you just repeat it one more time I will ask for intervention.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh: Treating other editors with collegiality is an important part of the Wikipedia spirit. Just because an editor happens to disagree with you is not call for you to make threats. I have duly read your writings, and all I find is a repetition that your view is correct, plus repeated vague reference to previous discussions. You need to engage those who differ with you with substance. --Zeamays (talk) 21:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, the sources look good enough to me. Zeamays, if you really believe the article is factually inaccurate and biased, why not fix it, referencing reliable sources? You could at least find some sources offering alternative points of view and list them here. I would do it but I am too busy lazy at the moment...maybe later.--Joshua Issac (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Zeamays -- it is enough to make references to the earlier conversation, so that he doesn't have to waste his time writing out long responses to questions that have already been answered multiple times. Before you come into a discussion, you should make the effort to learn what has already been discussed -- it makes things more productive. People get less frustrated and are more willing to cooperate to improve the article if they don't have to spend all of their time and energy repeating the same thing over and over again. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The sources look fine to me as well -- this discussion has gone on long enough that, as NYCJosh has repeatedly pointed out, people are repeating things that have already been responded to. Unless people have reliable sources/reasons to back up their claims that the article is not factually accurate, it is in violation of WP:Disruptive to repeatedly keep adding the "Factual accuracy" template. Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Compromise

Alright instead of simply talking past each other how about both sides actually respond like normal ppl and compromise. I think that some of the claims are more controversial than others, while some are just not that notable. I propose the following:

• Move the Schools of America which seems totally out of place where it is
• Delete Syria Miniscule and unimportant really
• Cut down Phillipines, Chile Quite a lot of overquoting considering it's two sources in both cases that could be summed up in a nice small paragraph for each
• Actually expand counter-arguments and instead of lumping it all in one section disperse it. I can help with the sources a bit but Spring semester started this week so my time is limited.
• General Clean-up The article's really not in good shape in terms of language and overall structure. In some places authors appear to disagree with themselves. Soxwon (talk) 00:34, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

  Comment My view of the article is that if it exists it should explain the arguments that these actions were terrorism, rather than details of them. Just saying that someone called them terrorism, then listing all the events makes it a POV fork. I believe it is a legitimate point of view but that it should not be presented as established fact. The Four Deuces (talk) 01:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The Four D, I added material to the definitions section of the article that provided some definitions of state terrorism and terrorism generally (thanks to the WP article State terrorism). With these definitions in mind the reader will be able better to understand how the specific sections relate. You would be welcome to expand this def section and improve it. --NYCJosh (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh, one of the hallmarks of State Terrorism is that it HAS NO SPECIFIC DEFINITIONS so trying to give it one is useless. Soxwon (talk) 02:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Although terrorism has no generally accepted def, it is still helpful for the article to provide some defs that have been proposed. The WP articles on Terrorism and State Terrorism do this as do many other articles on phenomena that lack generally accepted defs. The reader can then think about which defs offered have more or better support, which make more sense, which are more applicable to a particular event, etc. I think you might agree?--NYCJosh (talk) 03:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Definitely, but the extensive quoting seems to suggest that the article has an opinion. Again, counter-arguments and cutting down the extended quotes would allow for more objective decision making. Soxwon (talk) 15:53, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree as far as cutting down on extended quotes, especially in the "definitions" section. In fact, I'm all for removing the "Definitions" section, since people can get that from State terrorism if they need to. Jrtayloriv (talk) 02:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to propose other defs that run counter to what I put. Not sure exactly what you mean. What "opinion" is being advanced by the quoted defs and what "opinion" runs counter to it?--NYCJosh (talk) 19:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

NYCJosh, giving a long definition of terrorism then listing US actions that fit the description is implicit synthesis: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." We should delete the definitions section. The Four Deuces (talk) 23:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed -- Wikipedia policy is that even if there is no consensus on what something means, we should go ahead and include all relevant views. As far as including them in this article, however, I don't think that's necessary or appropriate. Due to the number of terrorist activities the United States has been involved in, this article is going to get very long, and I don't see a need to repeat something that is already covered at great length in state terrorism. If they don't know what state terrorism is, they can click on the wikilink to find out. I support removing the definitions section altogether, or greatly shortening it (perhaps just include the lead from state terrorism, and put a hatnote pointing to the full article, or something like that. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 02:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Soxwon --

• School of the Americas -- I strongly disagree with removing School of the Americas, as many authors consider SOA to be "terrorist" training, due to the torture, assassination, and death squad training that was given there, and the fact that many of it's graduates have used this training to murder and torture and otherwise terrorize tens of thousands of people throughout Latin America. There are simply too many reliable sources that call this terrorism to remove this section.
• Syria -- As far as Syria, I think that it clearly qualifies as a terrorist act as far as Wikipedia is concerned, due to the fact that we have several reliable sources claiming such, but for now, due to the fact that it is one sentence long, and that "only" 8 people were killed (as opposed to tens of thousands in several of the U.S.'s Latin American or Asian programs), I don't have a problem getting rid of it, until someone feels like doing some work on it. If you wish to remove it, I won't revert. But if someone came along and sourced it better, provided some context, and expanded on it, then I might have a problem with removing it then.
• Phillipines and Chile -- Yes, both of these sections very much need cleanup, and need to include information from many more sources -- especially Chile, due to the extraordinarily high amount of literature on the U.S. involvement in terrorist/torture/assassination programs there. The case (i.e. as far as amount of literature) might be the same for Phillipines, but I haven't done as much research on that as I have on Latin America. But again, yes, please clean up these sections if you wish (but don't remove useful information that is backed by reliable sources -- please see notes on "cleanup" below)
• Counterarguments -- I agree that if there are counterarguments backed by reliable sources, then we should include them (making sure that we give them an appropriate amount of space per WP:Weight). I think that counterarguments should be included in the appropriate sections, not in a separate "counterarguments" section. I've removed the useless "Opposing views" section altogether, since it has absolutely nothing to do with state terrorism and merely includes one off-topic POV statement, and links to an article on Foreign policy. Thanks for pointing that out. If we find any reliable sources with opposing viewpoints, let's put them in the appropriate sections.
• General cleanup -- Very, very much agreed. Many of the sections are sloppy, rambling, and need a lot of work. Please do whatever you can to improve things. But please make sure that if you add anything, that it is backed by reliable sources, and that you don't remove things that are backed by reliable sources (improve them instead).

Thanks for your very good suggestions, and for working towards improving the article, instead of wasting time with the "deletion" discussion.

--- Jrtayloriv (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was suggesting moving, not removing the schools of America section. Soxwon (talk) 17:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that -- I misunderstood you. I thought that you meant move the content to another article. If you mean just relocating it within this article, I strongly agree. It does seem out of place. Sorry about the misunderstanding. Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I have edited several sections, converting many accusations to the active voice and naming the accusers, where they could be identified. Unnamed accusers should not be mentioned, since the reader needs this information to evaluate the credibility of the accuser. Two sections which were without references were deleted (Turkey and Syria). The Turkey section also was about a NATO operation, not a specifically US operation, as verified via the link. --Zeamays (talk) 03:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Additional editing should be done to change the present tense to the past tense for introducing quotations, "such and such says..." to "such and such wrote..." . Many of the accusers are described with academic titles. I would like to know the opinion of other editors if these titles should be deleted or standardized (Prof. vs Professor etc.). --Zeamays (talk) 04:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for doing all of that Zeamays. Most of what you did -- other than one minor problem with the Lebanon section -- looks very good, for now. The article still needs a lot of work, of course, but it's seeming like everyone is done bickering, and is ready to start editing. I appreciate you taking care of such a tedious task. Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

And actually, I was wrong about Lebanon, so I un-undid you edit. Sorry about that! Jrtayloriv (talk) 02:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding title abbreviations, Wikipedia Manual of Style suggests that one common form be chosen and then used consistently through the article. Rumiton (talk) 02:29, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Political crimes defence & legal kidnapping

See Archive 25 (part 1), Archive 25 (part 2)

I still think that this article needs a section on this. -- PBS (talk) 23:47, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree - how about those clandestine torture prisons in Romania, Poland etc.? IMO, that phenomenon qualifies for this article. --Klingon83 (talk) 20:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

List all proponents in the lead?

This edit [4] objects to the word some and asks that all adherents be named in the lead. But you can see there are quite a few in the body of the article - in the Hiroshima section, for instance, six academic authors are cited, all notable enough to have their own WP articles. Henry Steele Commager, see [5], isn't currently mentioned. Where do we draw the line wrt to listing them in the lead? As an alternative if someone wants to just go ahead and say in the lead, this is a minority viewpoint - I wouldn't ask for a citation, it would fall in the category of common knowledge. Novickas (talk) 01:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree -- I think it is fine to say "some" as long as we mention who they are later in the article. We have dozens of sources in this article, and we can't list them all, and I don't see any objective method of choosing which ones we present. Saying "some authors..." allows us to not have to list off all one hundred of them in the lead. The only time saying "some people" would be a problem would be if we didn't give sources to say who these people were. This article has ample sources, so that argument is not relevant here. I'd say we should just revert to the original lead, which seemed fine to me. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and do that now, and if someone can come up with a good reason to list all 100+ sources in the lead, then they can revert it. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

You need a source for "some". If some people support this view, then there should be sources for it. I know it takes time to find sources and this may appear obvious, but that is scholarship. TFD (talk) 04:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

There are sources for "some" -- namely the 100 or so in the article. There are far too many of them to allow a single author to randomly select a small number of them to include in the lead. Who gets to choose who goes in the lead? It does indeed take time to find sources, and I really appreciate the time that the authors of this article have taken to find over 100 high-quality sources ... Anyhow, we definitely have enough sources to claim that some people say it. Anybody who disagrees with that is simply being disruptive and wasting everyone's time at this point. I don't understand how, when presented with dozens of sources claiming X, that someone can seriously claim that we don't have ample evidence that "some people say X". Could you explain that line of reasoning to me? -- Jrtayloriv (talk)

Sorry, "some" is an improper weasel word in this case. It's a way for a write to insinuate their own opinion into an article. Please list a few of the most notable proponents in the lead. The article body can then include more details. Jehochman ^Talk 05:51, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Who determines who is "most notable"? How many people should we include? "Some" is not a weasel word in this case, and it's not anybody "insinuating their own opinion" ... it's simply a statement of fact, backed by 100+ sources. "Some" people do say it, namely the ones we've cited -- it's a fact, not an opinion. I think that rather than allowing editors to cherry-pick a list of people out of all of them, we should use broad, general categories, like "heads of state", "academics", "lawyers", etc., and then go into more detail in the article itself (See WP:LEAD to gain a better understanding of Wikipedia's policies for lead sections) -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 21:22, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:Weasel is a guideline, not a policy. The reason to avoid the term "some" is that it "present[s] the appearance of support for statements but den[ies] the reader the opportunity to assess the source of the viewpoint". I see no problem here provided that the statement is attributed, and we disclose who these people are and the degree of support their views have received. If someone can recommend a better wording then please do so. TFD (talk) 22:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)