Talk:September 11 attacks/Archive 4

message: Okay, so this has been sitting for a few weeks, and we need to come to a decision.  People continue making changes without a consensus.  The poll indicated a majority favors the new name, although I'm suspicious of many of these "users", but anyway I don't see a poll as being the answer.  The goal should be consensus, and this has just turned into a straw poll on anti-US sentiment, which of course is going to go badly given the leftist predominance among Wikipedians.  We might as well take a poll on whether Bush should be called "stupid" in his article.  The facts, however, remain:
* Wik's massive changes were made without prior discussion, and the arguments he presents betray a failure to understand the basics of this project; in particular, claiming there is no difference between the fire-bombing of Dresden and 9/11 demonstrates his lack of grasp of the notion of POV.
* No one has provided any argument that the attacks were not "terrorist attacks".  Brevity is the only vaguely relevant argument (though not persuasive - attacks is too general).  Nevertheless, there has been an attempt to pull the word "terrorist" from all the articles.
So I think it should be changed back, and this page should not be used for people's individual rants about how much they hate America. -- VV 18:10, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I love America and I am a very patriotic American. Yet I voted to leave out the word 'terrorist' in the title because it is not needed for disambiguation nor is this event more commonly refereed to with it. The poll was needed because Step 1 of Wikipedia:Conflict resolution broke down so we went to Step 2 (poll). --mav 21:05, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, I'm not saying all who voted that way are America-haters, but this debate has sure flushed them out.  And, as I noted above, the brevity argument holds some water, but attacks is a bit too general, like calling it the September 11, 2001 incident or the September 11, 2001 event. -- VV 22:45, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: Wik did not compare 9/11 to the US government bombing of Dresden (and Tokyo, and Hiroshima, and Hanoi), I did.  As far as "lack of grasp of the notion of POV" for this comparison on a discussion page - clearly NPOV must be in place on article pages - are you saying this must be stated in every comment in a talk/discussion pages now as well?  As far as no one providing arguments that this was not a terrorist attack, I did, and I know you read it as you mentioned it.  First, the Pentagon was hit in the attacks, this is clearly a strike against a military target as far as most people are concerned.  And as I said, the US has targetted civilians in every war it's ever fought - Dresden, Tokyo, Hanoi, Hiroshima.  Osama Bin Laden was doing the same kind of attacks against communist Afghanistan when the US was aiding him, but Reagan called the mujahideen he was in "freedom fighters".  Apparently he only became a "terrorist" when he turned his guns on his old allies. -- HectorRodriguez 21:53, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Your first argument is valid.  Calling the attack on the pentagon "terrorist" is POV at best, incorrect at worst.  However, the attack on the WTC is indisputably terrorist.  If you'd like to provide verifiable opinions otherwise, then feel free to add them, and we can have an entire section of this article devoted to whether or not the WTC attacks were terrorist.  As for your second argument, it just isn't an argument.  Dresden, Tokyo, Hanoi, and Hiroshima are irrelevant to the question of whether or not the WTC attacks were terrorist attacks. Anthony DiPierro 21:59, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: HR, you are wrong; Wik did compare them, look again (you did too).  The Pentagon arm of the attack is more uncertain than the others (peacetime attack on a military office building, maybe), but was less than 10% of the death toll.  Anthony is correct about the irrelevance of the other cases; OBL's history (disputable) is also irrelevant. -- VV 22:13, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd just like to say that personally I feel even the attack on the pentagon was "terrorist."  While ostensibly the Pentagon may seem like a military target, it seems clear to me that the goal of that attack was not military in nature.  However, it is POV.  And while I'm adding my personal feelings, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima was "terrorist" as well, for the same reasons.  Anthony DiPierro 22:22, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: Attacking the Pentagon per se is to me not so clear, but the attack on the Pentagon was terrorist, inasmuch as it used a civilian airline.  The bombing of Hiroshima is an interesting debate, but one that doesn't belong here.  -- VV 22:44, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Why does using a civilian airline make the attack terrorist?  I suspect someone arguing against the attack being terrorism would bring up the term "collateral damage." Anthony DiPierro 23:11, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terrorism in title issue 

message: : Oh very well, perhaps this isn't as wild as his other stuff. Evercat 00:09, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Equivocations

message: : Still, I'm curious about the "fable about the nineteen muslim hijackers with box cutters". If that's a fable, perhaps Plautus could tell us what really happened. Evercat 00:13, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Further Issues