Talk:Terrorism/Archive 5

message: The article as it stands now takes a strong and, in my opinion, a biased stance, in trying to define "terrorism".
In spite of its several and varied qualifications to the definition -- that the term is "controversial", that it has "multiple definitions", providing various conflicting examples, and so on -- the fact that any definition of "it" as a "term" even is offered, here, immediately involves an inescapable contradiction. In our post-9/11 "War on Terrorism" world, the term itself has been appropriated by adherents of one extremist political position, such that if you believe "terrorism" can be defined, at all, then you're on their side, and if you don't you're against them. This may be linguistic and logical nonsense, but nowadays it is political fact. 
:It is nonsense.  Plenty of dictionaries define terrorism in their own way; are they all now considered extremists?  Or by "their" side, do you mean the dictionaries are all run by terrorists?  I'm sure Oxford and Webster's would love to hear that.  Why, as an encyclopedia, should we refrain from telling the truth (that people have defined this, over and over again) just because some nuts will think that means we're taking sides in the "war"? -- Wisq 19:12, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
A good illustration of the contradiction can be found in the definition in fact offered here. The article starts out saying the term has multiple definitions, but then says, "Intentional violence against civilians (noncombatants) is the type of action most widely condemned as 'terrorism'..." -- which looks and sounds pretty "definitional", to me. Problems then arise with every word in that definition. "Intentional", for example, causes difficulties for even its simplest applications in basic criminal law, in defining and discerning "mens rea" and the rest. "Violence" defies definition too, both syntactically and semantically: was Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" when he merely "thought about" violence? or when he "prepared to use" violence, but then didn't? -- was Patrick Henry a "terrorist" because he "advocated" violence? because he used "violent words"? -- is yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater 'terrorism'?..., aka. what does it take?
:Firstly, it's not "definitional".  There are many definitions of terrorism.  It's just that the particular action stated, "intentional violence against civilians", happens to be considered terrorism by most or all definitions of the term.  Some may define that as the definition, but others may simply include it as a possible terrorist action.
:Secondly, "intentional" is defined as "done or made or performed with purpose and intent".  It does not mean "having the intent but not performing the action".  Hence, questions about thought versus deed are moot; it's only the combination that is considered "intentional". -- Wisq 19:12, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
And "civilians" is even more problematic, as the article recognizes: it makes very little sense, in fact, in the modern war-making world -- even as supposedly-qualified by the other vague term "non-combatants" -- civilians have been participants in warfare at least since Napoleon's "massed armies" -- and since the Fall of the Wall, and the end of the bi-polar Cold War, any armed resistance to forces-in-power has been "not in uniform".
:You counter your own point here -- "armed resistance".  The "typical definition" on the page states "unarmed and not in uniform". -- Wisq 19:12, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
So the "terrorism" definition offered here, even couched and qualified as carefully as it is, simply defines any armed resistance to established authority as "terrorism". If they're not "civilians or non-combatants", then what else would they be?... But that's not linguistics, or logic, it's a political position. 
:Show me a government that will try to quell resistance by sending in unarmed, out-of-uniform officers.  Then maybe I'll call that resistance "terrorism". -- Wisq 19:12, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
The article needs to step back from even saying that "terrorism" is a "term" amenable to "definition" nowadays, then. See George Lakoff and Hannah Arendt and Harold Lasswell, among many others, on the appropriation of previously-neutral terminology for political purposes. Certain rightwing political parties, in various countries, have appropriated the term "terrorism" for their own political agendas, now, and even merely suggesting that the term has any sort of "definitional" meaning puts Wikipedia into their conservative / reactionary / "established power" political camps -- as vs. anyone who disagrees with them, or who wants to change the established political system, somewhere, peacefully or otherwise...
:By your definition, our only option is to delete the Terrorism page altogether; after all, if we define it, we're POV right, and if we don't define it, we're POV left.
:I think we have properly addressed the non-conservative views of terrorism in addition to the conservative ones, by way of NPOV and representing as many sides as we can.  If that's not enough, then we can add more.  Perhaps if you can find us a reference, we can add a paragraph about how "some people feel terrorism cannot be defined, and that to do so is to support the 'War on Terrorism'". -- Wisq 19:12, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
The problem, simply-stated, is the old one of, "one person's 'terrorist' is another person's 'freedom fighter'". By offering current "War on Terrorism" efforts the possibility of a neutral or even value-free definition, for their favorite term, the article lumps together all armed resistance to established authority as "terrorism": Nelson Mandela, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Gandhi... George Washington... -- most who ever have resisted established authority have been labeled "terrorist", or the equivalent, by those who feared them or fought them.
:And that's fine.  That's one definition.  Not everyone shares it.  We should not censor such definitions just because some people might call important historical figures "terrorists".  Maybe they were.  Who are we to say?  If a notable number of people call them terrorists, or subscribe to a definition that does so (even if they have never consciously called those people terrorists), it's part of Wikipedia's duty to report that. -- Wisq 19:12, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
That is why we don't have an accepted international law definition of "terrorism" now, and are unlikely ever to have one. My own understanding of the travaux préparatoires and political contexts is that efforts to define the term in various treaties, throughout the last century, including those listed at,
International_conventions_on_terrorism
-- all were frustrated, every time, as people sought exclusion from the definitions for their own personal "freedom fighter" national heroes -- the Indians and Israelis and their supporters, during the late 1940s, the Soviets throughout the Cold War, and many before and others since -- more current examples nowadays would include Mandela, for most of us, and the US Armed Forces vav the International Criminal Court for our current US White House and political administration, and for many US citizens -- and, always, nearly any "original Founders" of any society, anywhere...
I would hate to think that we now have become so settled, and so sclerotic, that we really do want to accept the current established systems of all of us everywhere as "the end of history", so that we simply can lump together all who now and will oppose and call that "terrorism". But that is what the article's "definitional" approach here does. It would be naive at best, I believe, and pretty smug -- also unrealistic, and not historically accurate, as change will be coming again just as it always has. 
So in the lead article here I would say terrorism is not "a controversial term" but "a current political issue" -- i.e. in place of the current, non-neutral, initial wording,
::::"Terrorism is a controversial term with multiple definitions."
-- I would go further and use, instead,
::::"Terrorism has become a controversial part of current political policy."
-- and then proceed to outline the politics of it, providing references to Lakoff & Arendt & Lasswell et al.. Otherwise the article runs afoul of a fundamental linguistic and philosophical problem: that there is nothing simply "definitional" about terrorism, nowadays, even though some would like to sidestep complex and difficult issues by hiding behind definitions -- category mistake, at the very least... "Terrorism" has become a meaningless buzzword for central controversies in our entire global and societal situation, now, and deserves explanation as such.
:Ask most people on the street what terrorism is (particularly in today's post-9/11 world), and I think you'll get answers. For a 'meaningless buzzword', people assign a lot of meaning to it -- even if there's no consensus as to what, exactly, that meaning is. -- Wisq 19:12, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
;Kudos on the article 
Having been part of the debate for this article for a long time, it was pleasantly surprising to see it at this level of clarity and completeness. Nice work all. However the "No concern for civilian life or safety" reads like an apologism for state violence. This could be corrected with some pointed clarification and distance from accepting terms like "collateral damage" and "precision guided munitions." Also do not use weasel terms would apply to phrases like "these actions show some concern" and "a finer definition will.." Understanding that the intent is to show a spectrum and to qualify each, it fails to distance itself from the subjective, using a "we can define" approach rather than "is commonly asserted as" approach. "many actions can define a criminal act as non-terrorism" is problematic - certainly this is a very fine distinction indeed - whether a an "terrorist act" may or may not be a "criminal act" seems to miss the point that "terrorist act" is used to perjoratively characterize an enemy attacks as criminal, and likewise to refer to particular acts of violence as being part of a larger immoral philosophy. -SV|t 23:23, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re. "First paragraph", and generally agreeing with "A definitional view" 

message: "Acts of terrorism can be perpetrated by individuals, groups, or states, as an alternative to an open declaration of war." Let's be clear that everyone in Europe that was watching TV on September, 11 at the right time the second plane crashed on the second tower and had a brain had two ideas in mind "This is a new Pearl Harbor"  and "someone (or something) has started a war with the USA". However this is very unencyclopedic way (to say the less) to define terrorism as an alternative to a declaration of war...  Terrorism is using means that are intended to cause Terror to achieve political purposes. Ericd 23:55, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Very, very, very bad start

message: (I have put a copy of the new revision at User:Smyth/Terrorism, and am updating it with any other changes people make. – Smyth\talk 7 July 2005 10:49 (UTC))
(following on from #Re. "First paragraph", and generally agreeing with "A definitional view"):
I agree that the word is now so loaded that attempts to provide any kind of objective definition are doomed. I would even go so far as to say that Wikipedia should not, under any circumstances, call anyone a terrorist, even when guarded by weasel phrases like "the following are viewed by most people...".
However, the fact that the word is still used by prominent people people in politics and the media as if it had an objective definition, means that we should discuss the criteria that they tend to use. In particular, I found the Target / Objective / Motive / Legitimacy list in Definitions of terrorism very useful, as it explicitly points out what the various criteria exclude.
As the definition of this word is so controversial, I suggest that the Definitions article be reincorporated into this one. The article as it stands contains a great deal of unfocused and vague wandering around the definition (see the introduction, pretty much all of "Overview", and "Definition") but nowhere is it so clear and precise as the list mentioned above.
Furthermore, the article should begin, as it used to do, with a clear division between the objective and the subjective uses. Edits like  are in good faith, but we cannot escape the fact that this word is now used primarily in a perjorative sense, and that should be explicit from the start. – Smyth\talk 29 June 2005 11:52 (UTC)
:I will go ahead with the merge tomorrow if there are no objections. – Smyth\talk 3 July 2005 12:29 (UTC)
I have now done this, and tried to excise from other sections all ramblings about the definition, of which there was a great deal. I have left the POV tag on for now, but I will take it off in a few days unless there is any evidence of a dispute. – Smyth\talk 5 July 2005 17:37 (UTC)
:It's a good improvement.  Do you have any text in mind for the "groups" section?  As is, the article is unbalanced, since "groups" are the single most prominent perpetrators of the acts this article addresses.  For the same reason, you might want to re-order the secions describing them, to have the most common phenomenon first.  Also, the article seems to lean rather heavily on quotations from Chomsky. Jayjg (talk) 5 July 2005 18:00 (UTC)
I'm more of a synthesizer than a writer; I don't tend to add large amounts of new material to articles but to condense and rationalize what's already there. There is no text in #Groups section because there was no corresponding text in the old version, presumably because people thought that because most terrorism is carried out by groups, there was no need for any particular discussion of them. I thought this seemed strange, and added the stub section to invite people to fill it in. But perhaps it would be better to introduce #Perpetrators with something simple, like:
:The most common image of terrorism is that it is carried out by relatively small and highly secretive groups. However, some acts have been committed by individuals acting alone, while others are alleged to have the backing of established states.
Then there would be no need for a section specifically on groups.
As for Noam Chomsky, he does perhaps seem overly stressed, but he's actually only mentioned in two contexts. I included his quote in the intro because it seems to sum the issue up better than any other text that was already there or that I could write myself, but if there was some other person who could be mentioned instead in, say, the #Causes section, that would help prevent the article from seeming like it was all from his POV. – Smyth\talk 5 July 2005 18:13 (UTC)
----
(From User talk:Guy Montag, who reverted Smyth's version):
Could you explain why you thought my revision was so worthless? I also notice that you threw away the changes of four other people, none of which were remotely controversial. (I will watch this page.) – Smyth\talk 6 July 2005 00:42 (UTC)
:Whenever there are major revisions in a controversial, well written article, I, and most editors cannot accept drastic unless they are discussed in talk. In many points your edits read like editorials, in other places, controversial claims are not supported by sources. I read your revisions and judged that they were inferior to the current article. This does not mean that you do not have valid, even important information to add, but it does means that the large scope of information you have added has significantly changed the article to the point where it is not recognizable. Please cite where you think the article is lacking in talk. Also, discuss where you want the article to go and feel free to suggest and provide minor addition of information to the article first, instead of changing it sentence by sentence in one edit. Each block of information you add will be discussed and if it is valid information, there will be very little objection to its inclusion. 
:Regards,
:Guy Montag 6 July 2005 01:04 (UTC)
I prefer to keep discussions in one place; please reply on this page.
First, thank you for restoring the edits of the four other people which you reverted. If you examine the talk page history you will see that I proposed my changes several days ago along with my reasons and got no response. I agree that the article is not recognizably the same as it was before, but I believe that this is no bad thing as it was rather poor before.
You seem to think I have added things to the article, but apart from the Legitimacy paragraph and a comparison of "terrorist"'s connotations to "rebel" and "guerilla", I added virtually no new material. Everything else that was in my revision, was in the previous revision of either Terrorism or Definition of terrorism. I don't know what "controversial claims" you could be referring to.
I did remove a great deal of text. As I explained on the talk page both before and after my revision, this is because there was a huge amount of redundant discussion of "terrorism"'s definition spread throughout the article. Presumably this was added a sentence at a time by well-meaning editors, but its effect was both to obscure the other sections and to confuse the question of what terrorism actually is. In some places it is said that terrorism has some objective definition, in others it is stated that it is merely a value judgement. I wished to clearly separate these two uses from the start of the article. – Smyth\talk 6 July 2005 01:22 (UTC)
:Personally, I prefer Smyth's version.  Perhaps this discussion could be moved to the article Talk: page? Jayjg (talk) 6 July 2005 03:39 (UTC)
Sure, move away. 
Guy Montag 6 July 2005 04:01 (UTC)
I think the paragraph on guerrilla warfare and assymytric warfare deserves to stay in this article. 
Guy Montag 6 July 2005 16:55 (UTC)
:I didn't remove it! – Smyth\talk 6 July 2005 16:59 (UTC)
I know that in the current version it exists. I mean't that if we are going to alter this page, that the passage of guerrilla warfare and assymytric warfare should stay. 
Guy Montag 6 July 2005 17:01 (UTC)
:It exists in all versions. Now could you please respond to my message of 01:22, or at least explain specifically what was so bad about my revision that reverting was a better solution than editing? Quotes would be helpful. – Smyth\talk 6 July 2005 17:05 (UTC)
I'm baffled why WP is having such problems with the word terrorism. As far as I can see, every legitimate dictionary, encyclopedia etc. (with the exception of Wikipedia) has a remarkably clear and consistent definition (violence directed specifically at civilians by a sub-national group for political reasons). Of course, no source uses exactly the same words and there are slight variations but that's no different than any word in the English language. So why do we pussyfoot around with statements like "there is no universally accepted definition of terrorism". Good heavens, there is no universally accepted definition of ANYTHING. There IS dispute about whether a specific individual or group can be called a terrorist. And yes some people would like to EXPAND the definition to include other acts, but this shouldn't stop us from presenting the basic (darn near universally) accepted definition. Just because one academic (Laquer) says there is not one definition does not make it so. Even in the definition of terrorism article we started out saying that there isn't one definition and then present 20 definitions which, lo and behold, all say pretty much the same thing. --Lee Hunter 21:02, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We're getting there, see #Definition dispute. The problem is that this is the sort of prominent yet sensitive article whose rate of editing tends to rise proportionately to the number of Wikipedia users, so you have to be careful. – Smyth\talk 21:26, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge of [[Definitions of terrorism]] 

message: I have started to expand the anti-terrorism section, this is a much broader subject than counter-terrorism. Major terror attacks have social, ethical, geopolitical and historical consequences, and the existing text said nothing about all that. The separate counter-terrorism article is not much more than a list of special forces, it is not a substitute for an overview of all that happens during terror camapigns. Ther should be a separate section on the consequences of terrorism.Ruzmanci 12:41, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Then I suggest you move Counter-terrorism to Anti-terrorism, and break out most of the current text to it. Terrorism is growing rather too large. – Smyth\talk 13:58, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

text: This making them swear allegiance, seems to be a patriotism issue, figuring that if they are patriots they would not do anything to harm their own country (being that the bombers were British themselves). --PinchasC 12:32, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-terrorism policy 

message: I have removed the links to Terrorism in India, Terrorism in Iraq, Terrorism in Kashmir, because this is why we have Category:Terrorism, if we were to list every article about current terroist activities in the see also section we would have a very long list as can be seen from Category:Terrorism. --PinchasC 10:45, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Would it not be sensible therefore to have a List of current conflicts involving terrorism (or something similar) artcile linked from here, to distinguish between current and historical terrorist disputes? Thryduulf 10:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: See Also

message: What are our sources for the whole "Official definitions" section? These seem to be somewhat lacking. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:57, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, but we have a list of definitions of terrorism, so it shouldn't be too hard. I'll look at it later today. – Smyth\talk 09:42, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query about references 

message: In my opinion, non governmental perpetrator general requirement should not be in the list without a large caveat also in the list. Some definitions specifically do not require anything about the political affiliation of the perpetrator, this should also be included in the list. zen master T 17:51, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The list is not one of "general requirements" and is prefaced by an explanation: "definitions typically involve some subset of the following criteria". This means that definitions may include these criteria or they may not. The specific criterion you take issue with, that of non-governmental status, is prominent enough in mainstream discourse to merit inclusion in this list. This specific criterion is heavily qualified immediately below the list: "The requirement that the perpetrator is a non-state actor, for example, is the subject of fierce debate". I don't see a problem with this list as it stands. Would it appease you to rephrase "The perpetrator is a non-governmental or sub-state actor" to "The perpetrator is commonly a non-governmental or sub-state actor"? TreveXtalk 18:46, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: By including that definition without a large caveat you are effectively excluding an opposite definition possibility that specifically did not consider the applicability of whether the perpetrators were governments or not (the arguably historically accurate definition).  The list must specifically include the possibility the word "terrorism" makes no distinction between governmental and non-governmental perpetrators. zen master T 19:10, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

text: It doesn't exclude anything. It's quite obvious from the wording that the list is NOT a definition in itself, but a list of things that have been used in definitions. Literally every single entry on that list has been omitted from some definition or other. – Smyth\talk 20:43, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But including the "sub-national entity" entry to a certain extent excludes the opposite possibility, that any violent act, regardless of government or not, is "terrorism". The intro currently does not sufficiently note the historic controversy over this exact point. zen master T 21:24, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

text: The intro is an intro, the place for talking about historic controversies is in the article body. The "sub-national entity" entry is not given any special prominence in that list, and the paragraph introducing the list has always made it clear that including something in the list is nothing but a statement that the criterion has been used in some official definition of "terrorism". Unless you're claiming that this is not the case for "sub-national entity", I can't see what your problem is. Every entry on the list deserves a caveat, but the place for those caveats is #Official definitions, where they are already plentiful. – Smyth\talk 11:17, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition list 

message: This section was full of factual errors, (eg: Pim Fortuyn was killed by white Dutch animal rights activist with mental health issues - so that had nothing to with Immigration, and Europe has seens lots of religious terrorism since the Wars of Religion - the writer seems to forget the religious dimension to the Northern Ireland conflict, or for example Cyprus amongst others, not even mentioning Islamist violence pre-9/11) and was simply in the wrong place.
:I have temporarily returned that section.  I encourage you to try to improve the information rather than just deleting it.  Or, if you feel there is no hope, you should open the discussion here before removing the section from the article, and wait for other users to respond. --Canderson7 20:34, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
::OK fair enough, but even with your(?)changes much of it remains inaccurate.  There has always been a far right to European political life, and it has always tried to suggest immigrant communities as a security threat.  Jean-Marie Le Penn predates Fortuyn by decades and has always scapegoated Muslim immigrants for French social ills. Also, after the murder of Theo Van Gogh there were no real attempts to "control the backlash", indeed the opposite was true with Ministers making panicky statements and the media using inflamatory headlines.  Again, after Madrid there was no real policy for controlling a backlash as, due to the actions of the government, the backlash came to be aimed at them not Spanish Muslims.  Really of all the major recent attacks in Europe, the British government is the only one to have anything resembling a policy on this after the London attacks.  Apologies for not name tagging the  comment on the original edit, I'm still learning my way around --Finnishing 17:38, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that terrorism and immigration are linked.  Specifically, those countries which restrict immigration to only people without any links to terrorist organizations, who are willing to integrate (language, customs, dress, integrated communities) into their new country will have less terrorism than those which allow unrestricted immigration.  A particular threat is where people seeking asylum from their former countries are allowed to stay, despite their terrorist activities in those former countries (which is why they needed to seek asylum in the first place). StuRat 19:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed "Terrorism and Immigration in Europe" 

message: This seems to be an error, some groups do, but also equate the actions of their enemies with terrorism, as in the following excerpt with a Chechen terrorist:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4727211.stm
In the interview, Mr Basayev - speaking through an interpreter - admitted that he was "a bad guy, a bandit". 
"Ok, so I'm a terrorist, but what would you call them (the Russians)?
Can I get a consensus to fix this error ?
No, because it is obviously rhetorical. In reality, the western representatives of Basayev and his group do all they can to dispute the label, and to portray Chechen rebels as part of a legitimate national liberation struggle.Ruzmanci 20:39, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The valence of the term "terrorism" has changed over the years.  For the late 19th century/early 20th century terrorists -- anarchist bombers -- the term was a positive one that many embraced.  When Vera Zasulich shot a Russian police official but did not kill him, she famously threw her weapon down and declared, "I'm a terrorist, not a killer."  The term was not embraced by Zionist, Irish, and Algerian anticolonial terrorists, but it was embraced again by some of the "New Left" terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s.  Perhaps this broader historical perspective on the rhetoric of the term "terrorism" would be useful.--csloat 17:52, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I use the term FISA-terrorism all the time in philosophical discussion.  How else are we supposed to discuss the FISA definition of terrorism? --EKBK 18:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Dude this comment is in the wrong place :)  It doesn't matter if you use the term fisa-terrorism; unless you're Rohan Gunaratna or some other recognized terrorism expert and you use the term in a well-known published book on the topic, not on wikipedia or in barroom conversation.  I will make further comments on this below where others are discussing it. --csloat 22:05, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Can you indicate where Mandela uses the term terrorism like that?  I am just curious - I am not as familiar with his discourse.  Thanks.--csloat 22:05, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  No known group describes itself as "terrorist" ? 

message: I think this quite possibly is the prettiest talk page on all of WP.  Tomer TALK 02:34, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Always happy to please.  --Zephram Stark 02:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Completely off topic

message: The EU definition clearly distinguishes what it a terrorist act, because it actually lists them all. All of them are existing criminal offences. Nothing else is terrorism, at least for the EU. To distinguish them from 'normal' crime a political motive is added to the definition. A further constraint is that they must cause 'serious' damage. Clear definitions allow a consideration of whether the act is in fact right or wrong, which is far more important than what word is used for it. And the ethics are always disputed, since clearly the perpetrators think it is a good idea. That's what is missing from this article, obscured by over-emphasis on definition.Ruzmanci 11:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is "serious damage"?  What about the July 21 bombers?  Are they not terrorists?  What about Eric Rudolph?  I don't think that criterion helps us much.  I think you're right about the morals issue -- terrorism is conceived not only as a political act but also as a moral act by its perpetrators. --csloat 11:32, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  European Union definition