Talk:United States and state terrorism/Archive 16

message: These tags were moved to the top. Aside from #1 (neutrality), I'm not aware of any claims of OR, SYN, or misrepresented citations in this article, other than the one section entitled "Opposing Views." I'd like for the editor who moved this up to the top, indicting the whole article, to point out the specific problems so they can be address. Otherwise, I will move the tags back to the one section that editors agree there are problems remaining in. 
# Its neutrality is disputed. Tagged since July 2007.
# It may contain original research or unverifiable claims. Tagged since July 2007.
# It may contain an unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not verifiable with the given sources. Tagged since July 2007.
# It may contain inappropriate or misinterpreted citations which do not verify the text.Tagged since July 2007.
Giovanni33 (talk) 07:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that we have consensus? Raggz (talk) 17:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhhhh...that would be consensus...for what, excatly? Stone put to sky (talk) 18:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We all agree on NPOV. I will eventually raise SYN challenges, and I know that another editor has raised them somewhere above. The first order of business is to delete the citations that are not in compliance with the "extraordinary claims" policy - and those that do not support the text. The next step is to delete or modify, or support the OR. THEN we will review SYN. Why debate that which will soon be gone for SYN? Raggz (talk) 21:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have yet to see anyone point out any problem with any citation in the main body of the article. Until someone does point out a legitimate issue, those tags should be removed (or placed down to the one section that does have some problems). You have also failed above to make a case why your claims of exceptional are really exceptional. They aren't. Giovanni33 (talk) 23:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

text: There appears to be a concensus, or at least has not been any opposition voiced, to move the tags back to specific sections they came from.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Please move them back to the one section in question. Thanks.Giovanni33 (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there an agreement to deny Consensus? Policy may not be denied by a majority vote. Raggz (talk) 02:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At the risk of starting another multithread, convoluted 'discussion', I have to ask: What in the world are you talking about Raggz? Was this comment made in this section by mistake? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 14:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  tags 

message: "In 1998 the Cuban government charged the Cuban American National Foundation, which was founded in 1981 at the initiative of the Reagan administration and receives U.S. government funding with, according to the official government-controlled Radio Havana Cuba, the continued financing of anti-Cuban terrorist activities Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba, also reported that U.S. senator Mel Martinez was meeting with Cuban American terrorists and sponsoring them via CANF. "
* The Cuban American National Foundation is claimed to have US funding, but the citation does not support this. It says that the Cuban American National Council gets US funding. 
It was improper to revert the text without correcting this inaccuracy. If editors want to revise text, fine. Please do not revert known inaccuacies that are misleading and then suggest that the change was for readability. Raggz (talk) 17:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not true. I checked the source and it clearly says "Cuban American National Foundation." I quote: "CUBA DENOUNCES ON-GOING FINANCING OF ANTI-CUBAN TERRORIST ACTIVITIES BY MIAMI-BASED CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL FOUNDATION. So, I will restore this as its valid. Also, I will revert your inclusion of "for this reason...very different or even unique..." because that would be a classic SYN violation, since you are coming up with this conclusion yourself, devoid of any source that makes this conclusion. Just present the definitions (which by the way are NOT very different), and state there is no accepted consensus internationally yet (since these statements are supported by the sources). Currently the article already makes these points clear.Giovanni33 (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Cut and Pasted here from the disputed source: "Grant U215U040014, Cuban American National Council (Appendix A, Item 12) The purpose of this grant was to establish a resource center to provide public information, training and technical assistance to the Hispanic Community in Florida, New Jersey and Georgia. The grant began in October 2004 and the grant specialist indicated that the grantee has not yet produced any products. The search function was not able to find anything about the Cuban American National Foundation. Please post your text here. Raggz (talk) 02:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I did quote the text, above. And I used the citation that is provided supporting the claim. The source it gives for this claim is this:, Radio Havana. The The CANC is simply a split off from the CANF, and I'm sure both are funded. But, the citation that follows the claim does accurately support the claim. So what is the problem, if you found another source that says the CANC is supported, too?Giovanni33 (talk) 06:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then there is consensus for the deletion of material relationg to the Cuban-American National Council. When there is a reliable source for your opinions, with consensus, we can insert these facts. Raggz (talk) 02:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The National Endowment for Democracy has funded the Cuban American National Foundation in the past.  There are plenty of references available from a quick 2 minute Google search.  Here is one reference: .  Here is another from CANF: .  It would be nice to find an inspector general report.  Silly rabbit (talk) 02:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

text:  I agree that citation #23 mentioned above should be removed. I have removed the citation, replacing it with a fact tag, since as Silly Rabbit indicates above, there is a reasonable prima facie case that reliable sources can be found for that particular claim. I will  try to address it over the course of the weekend. I know of two for sure William Blum and Salim Lamrami. For the moment the sentence looks ugly because of the citation tag in the middle of it; but that's just temporary. BernardL (talk) 03:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

text: BernardL and I have already responded to your objection above. Silly rabbit (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No rush. A single reliable source to support the text is fine. The source needs to link US funding to state terrorism. The present lack of this was a problem, and it will be good to have this citation. If the link is to an NGO that gets US funding, it would require particularly careful wording to work well. If WP accuses a US NGO of being a terrorist entity, there is great WP liability if the source is not strong enough. Raggz (talk) 00:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Cuban American National Foundation]]

message: "In 2006, a former board member of CANF, Jose Antonio Llama testified that leaders of the foundation had created a paramilitary group to carry out destabilizing acts in Cuba. The foundation’s general board of directors didn’t know the details of the paramilitary group, which acted autonomously, Llama said. He added that current CANF board chairman Jorge Mas Santos was never told of the plan. The plans failed after Llama and four other exiles were arrested in the United States territory of Puerto Rico in 1997 on charges of conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro.[39][40][41]"
Nothing in the paragraph above has any relevance to the topic of this article. Please move it to the correct article - or link the US to CANF with a reliable source. This cannot be an allegation, an allegation alone does not offer relevance. Raggz (talk) 02:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: BernardL and I have already responded to your objection above. Silly rabbit (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No rush. A single reliable source to support the text is fine. The source needs to link US funding to state terrorism. The present lack of this was a problem, and it will be good to have this citation. If the link is to an NGO that gets US funding, it would require particularly careful wording to work well. If WP accuses a US NGO of being a terrorist entity, there is great WP liability if the source is not strong enough. Raggz (talk) 00:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: CANF

message: Brinkley, Joel (2004 June 9). "Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks". New York Times. 
This article does not discuss state terrorism. Is there a reason for retention? Raggz (talk) 04:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Brinkley, Joel (2004 June 9). "Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks".

message: How many here consider Raggz' recent objections to the article to be bad-faith attempts to delete material?
He doesn't even seem to have a basic grasp of the policies he's referring to.  When a challenge is rejected, he simply grabs at another WP policy to try and find one that will stick.  This seems like "wikilawyering" to me.  Does anyone else here agree?  218.160.176.184 (talk) 05:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This question is absurd.  I suggest that nobody answer it. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 05:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How is that question absurd?  It's the behavior that appears absurd to me and it's already been implied in the comments of three other posters here and I'm just asking for comments openly not going out to e-mail.  What's wrong with that? 218.160.176.184 (talk) 12:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not a formally filed RFC and we don't do RFC's on users within articles. If you want, 218, you can file a formal user request for comment on Raggz' editorial practices, though it might be a bit premature for that. I have found Raggz' editing to be tendentious and have already said so but article talk is not the appropriate place to discuss user behavior in any kind of detail. Let's try to continue to keep it civil and if problems persist then folks can choose to move on to the more advanced stages of dispute resolution.--Bigtimepeace | talk |  contribs 20:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

text: That IP is Stone put to sky. Jtrainor (talk) 12:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFC 

message: I expect to delete the folowing citation since it only makes allegations against CANF, and none against the US.
*^ Investigator from Cuba takes stand in spy trial Miami Herald
There seems no point to discussing it unless there is ALSO some link between the US and CANF? Such a link is needed, and the absense creates a SYN error. Raggz (talk) 23:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of connection between Cuban allegations and the US 

message: Does it make sense to re-order the content starting with the section on Asia, because Asia comes first alphabetically and the events in Japan are first historically as well. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you have a sensible idea. As far as I know the only reason that the articles are in their current order is due to their chronological order of creation. I am not efficient at re-ordering, but,(according to me) you should feel free to do so. BernardL (talk) 03:42, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course I support your idea to reorganize. WP:BOLD Raggz (talk) 17:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that contentious editing has moved to multiple parts of the article including the section in question, I am going to wait until the editing settles down so that it will be easier to follow the history of edits and reverts. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 19:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of content 

message: Raggz editing style is too confusing and requires considerable work by other editors to keep up with. May i suggest editing and discussing ONE section at a time. Then after Raggz is happy with it, only then starting a new section. This would speed the process up and avoid wasting so much time better spent on other articles. Wayne (talk) 05:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There seems to be an emerging consensus to keep it simpler. Agreed. Raggz (talk) 06:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusion

message: ...that i don't edit anonymously.  Those IP's aren't me.  I just did a whois on them and they all go back to the largest ISP in Taiwan.  If i'm not mistaken, then that particular ISP serves well over 10 million people.  I would not be suprised if a few of them take an interest in Wikipedia;  if i'm not mistaken, one of the citations i provided above is from an english teacher who lives in the same city i do.  
At any rate, i think that, for someone who knew how, finding some way to spoof an IP address is probably quite simple.  But whoever it is, that person is not me.Stone put to sky (talk) 15:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: I would simply like to say...

message: There is a consensus (in my opinion) to ignore WP policy. Raggz (talk) 08:02, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Where do you perceive this consensus as having been reached?  For my part, i see nothing but constant reference to Wikipedia policy and guidelines, all in the attempt to explain your own misinterpretations of usage.  It seems to me that there is a wide consensus only that your own usage of Wikipedia policies and guidelines is somehow flawed.  Stone put to sky (talk) 08:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Is there a consensus opposing compliance with WP policies?

message: *What is a POV Fork?
"A POV fork is an attempt to evade NPOV policy by creating a new article about a certain subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. This is generally considered unacceptable. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major Points of View on a certain subject are treated in one article.”’’.
*Look at the definitions section. Why doesn’t the text in this article comply with the definitions in this article? Why the variance with state terrorism from which this was forked? Raggz (talk) 04:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Raggz, you are misapplying this section of FORK. FORK would apply if we had an article "Allegations of State Sponosored Terrorism by US" and an article say "Defense of alleged US sponsored Terrorism". This article is a perfectly legitimate, seperate, SUB TOPIC of the more general "State Sponsored Terrorism" article and has nothing at all to do with POV FORKing. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 15:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Does this article fail to comply with NPOV because it is a POV Fork?

message: No one has shown any how there is any SYN, or that citations to not reflect what is being said. The only valid issue that remains for the whole article is one of NPOV balance. So I'll remove those other two tags from the top. The tags can remain for the one section that still has those problems. I expect that no one will replace those tags unless they point out the actual problem so we can fix it. Also, this article it not too long. In fact is needs significant expansion. There is a lot more informatin about this subject.Giovanni33 (talk) 20:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do not remove the article length tag. I placed it there only today and started a discussion on it. John Smith's (talk) 22:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tags 

message: If one removes all of the formatting for footnotes and citations the page length is reduced to ~65K.  
Obviously, relying solely on the length of the page does not reflect the actual content that is being presented.  65K is a a very common page length, especially in some of the more technical and scientific articles.
It is obviously quite premature to be speaking of reducing this page's length.  
Is there consensus for removing the "Too long!" tag at the top, now?  Or does John Smith still harbor reservations? Stone put to sky (talk) 12:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I do still harbour reservations. So, no, there is not consensus. At the very least wait until the peer review is concluded. If there are no concerns over length in the peer reviews made, by all means remove it. If there are concerns then keep it. John Smith's (talk) 12:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Oh, and you could easily reduce the size by cutting out some of the citations that are controversial (e.g. from a propaganda mouthpiece/controverisal source) and have other more independent sources on the same point. Also, use the "refname=X" tag instead of repeating sources, "ibid", etc. Though even 65k of text can be considered a lot. John Smith's (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: While the article IS long (I don't see anyone debating that point) simply stating that "It is _too_ long." is not a valid arguement for willy nilly cutting to meet arbitrary size target. What _specifically_ DOES NOT BELONG in this article as being out of the focus of the article or innacurate or redundant? Stone put to sky has made an arguement below that generically provides support for including the material in this article. If you have specific content that you feel should go and valid rationale for reducing the material in the article without hampering its ability to accurately report the issues it is covering or leaving it vulnerable for future deletion nominations, please provide SPECIFIC examples for discussion. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How can I be proposing to cut material "willy nilly" if I don't make suggestions as what to cut? Though if you honestly can't think of anything yourself, I would suggest seriously cutting down the quotation in the "Sister Dianna Ortiz and General Gramajo" sub-section, given the material is apparently all available on the link provided. Similarly the El Savador blockquote could be cropped. There's the additional factor that the latter comes from a copyrighted work, so really direct quotations should be kept to an absolute minimum - use the "........" method if you need to link points. John Smith's (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you again for being specific about where your concerns are focused. Having actual parts of the article to work with will be much more productive for gaining concensus than blanket claims of 'its toooooooo long.' I probably wont have any time tonight to tackle your area of concern, but if you would like, feel free to create a sandbox and start playing with the section to cut the fat and leave the meat and when you have something you think may meet concensus from the other project editors, bring it back for comment. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 00:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At the moment I only have time to make comments on talk pages or quick edits. Sandboxing is probably too much for me, so I will leave it in your capable hands for now. As I said to Sky, if at some point I think I can help out properly I will make a sandbox. John Smith's (talk) 21:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Finally, one more VERY IMPORTANT POINT regarding Page Length 

message: {FBI definition of terrorism}
{State department definition of terrorism}
After President George W. Bush began using the term "War on Terrorism", Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT and a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, stated in an interview:
Chomsky has characterized the tactics used by agents of the US government and their proxies in their execution of US foreign policy — in such countries as Nicaragua, Chile, Costa Rica, Honduras, Argentina, Colombia, Turkey, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia — as a form of terrorism and has also described the U.S as "a leading terrorist state."    Keith Windschuttle accuses Chomsky of using evidence that was "selective, deceptive, and in some cases invented" Windschuttle, Keith. "The hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky", The New Criterion, May 9 2003 within the works Chomsky has written on this topic.
====alternate proposed by Raggz====
:Chomsky should get a sentence, maybe two. He is not the topic.
{FBI definition of terrorism}
{State department definition of terrorism}
{Chomsky definition of terrorism}
{Cuban definition of terrorism} Raggz (talk) 06:05, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed re-working of information 

message: :Chomsky should get a sentence, maybe two. He is not the topic.
{FBI definition of terrorism}
{State department definition of terrorism}
{Chomsky definition of terrorism}
{Cuban definition of terrorism} Raggz (talk) 06:05, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: alternate proposed by Raggz