Talk:Terrorism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Terrorism is included in the 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection, or is a candidate for inclusion in the next version. Please maintain high quality standards and, if possible, stick to GFDL-compatible images.

This article is a part of the WikiProject on Terrorism, which aims to provide detailed accounts of the individuals who have engaged in terrorism, shaping the world irrevocably over the past thirty years. If this interests you, you are invited to look over, or join our efforts

	This article is supported by the Sociology WikiProject, which gives a central approach to Sociology and related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article Terrorism, or visit the project page for more details on the projects.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

	To-do list for Terrorism:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
Add a section about the causes of terrorism that should include the various POVs in this matter. Done! Include more about Colombia in the article.

This is a controversial topic, which may be under dispute. Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them. Make sure you supply full citations when adding information to highly controversial articles.

Archives
1 2 3 4 5 6 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Contents 1 Link to self-described Terrorists? 2 Kashmir 3 Terrorism of the USA 4 Terrorism map problems... 5 Merge Terrorist with freedom fighter? 6 Article length 7 POV and todo items 8 non-combatants 9 109 definitions 10 Images used 11 Modern-Day Terrorism 12 Economic terrorism 13 Politicians and linguists 14 Merge from Political terrorism 15 interwiki for Croatian (hr) 16 Colombia

[edit] Link to self-described Terrorists?

Not sure how to start this list but there are people who have admitted they are terrorists, as for example United States General William Yarborough. This info is found in Noam Chomsky's book, Hegemony or Survival, p192n9

[edit] Kashmir

It is surprising that terrorism in Kashmir does not find enough mention.--Darrendeng 09:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Some of the attacks listed at Terrorism in Kashmir are on this page. There's not enough room in this article to go into detail about terrorist aspect of every conflict in the world; that's why there's a separate article for "Terrorism in Kashmir". Hopefully there are adequate navigational links to help readers who are interested find more info about any given aspect of terrorism. If not, anyone is free to try to improve them. -- Beland 01:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorism of the USA

I have a question, why does the article not talk about terrorist groups in the USA, or how the United States government has backed terrorist in the past?? --Margrave1206 01:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The OK City bombing, an example of domestic U.S. terrorism, is indeed listed in this article. Coverage of what some people consider to be U.S. government-backed terrorism is found at state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism. -- Beland 01:06, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

However, "terrorism" is a broader term than "state terrorism" or "state-sponsored terrorism", so examples of them are also appropriate here. -- DBooth 03:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The KKK an american group are terrorist, don't forget that. The USA is home to many terrorist groups.--Margrave1206 01:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

An excellent point Margave. I think this article does not do enough to define terrorism carried out by nation states. If terrorism can be defined as the use of violence to achieve political ends (one of the most common definitions), then it is critical to discuss the role of nation states in sponsoring and engaging in terrorism as they are the best equipped to carry out terrorism as well as being the worst perpetrators. Clearly the United States tops this list, but almost every nation state has perpetrated one or more forms of terrorism, either against its own people or those of other nation states. 203.11.72.4 04:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorism map problems...

This article or section needs to be updated. Parts of this article or section have been identified as no longer being up to date. Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

I mean, wouldn't it be much more relevant and helpful if we had a map of say, worldwide terrorist incidents for a year more recent than 2001? I'm sure such a map exists, and would probably give people a better idea of the current worldwide situation, right? 67.165.87.42 08:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Terrorist with freedom fighter?

One thing that should perhaps be considered in the proposed merging of the Articles "Terrorist" and "freedom fighter" is that it could be construed as an inaccurate use of terms. As mentioned in the article "freedom fighter" many people who protest through peaceful means consider themselves to be freedom fighters in the literal sense of the word, and do not, in my personal opinion, attempt to change political matters through the causing of fear (For example, wouldn't Martin Luther King, Ghandi and Mandela be terorists in that case?) If terrorism is viewed as the causing of fear through violence, as the article on this wiki states, then this website would not be acting as an encyclopedia if these two articles were merged, because the information presented would not be accurate. This is also backed up by the following staement copied from the wikipedia terrorism article "(the) only general characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence" (Walter Laquer,1999). Darthvader1990 12:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree that "freedom fighter" and "terrorist" have enough non-overlapping usage on both ends to be treated by separate articles. Especially since this article is already so long. I'll remove the merge tag. -- Beland 00:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article length

As previously recommended, I've split "Tactics of terrorism" off into its own article. The main article is down to 34K, which is reasonable for now. -- Beland 00:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV and todo items

I have removed the "NPOV" and "Globalize/USA" tags from the top of this article, as it has made significant progress from previous versions, I have just re-written the introduction, and nothing jumps out at me as particularly USA-centric anymore. However, perhaps some of you do see room for improvement. If so, could you please tag a specific section or statement that needs attention, or make a specific suggestion on the talk page? Hopefully that will help stabilize the article and focus efforts on improvement.

I removed two rather vague tasks from the todo list:

• Remove morality judgements
• Determine how to discuss "terrorists" without being pejorative

If anyone has any specific complaints in these areas, elucidating those would be helpful for further improvement. -- Beland 01:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The statement, under Major Acts of Terrorism, "-The killing of Nicaraguan civilians by the United States in the 1980's," represents bias and certainly not general consensus and should therefore be omitted. At any rate, its only correct in an extremely lose sense anyway, as whatever killings occurred were generally done by proxy. Its always annoying when people with strong political agendas try to edit wiki :(. -- Anonymous

Well, that terrorism was real enough (see Nicaragua v. United States, but I agree the above phrasing should be more precise. -- DBooth 03:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] non-combatants

The current article says

deliberately target "non-combatants"

What is a non-combatant? --Philip Baird Shearer 15:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

A civilian - i.e. not a soldier, militiaman or other fighter, and someone who therefore cannot legitimately be shot at or bombed. Interestingly enough, the term combatant/non-combatant has interesting alternative definitions when viewed in relation to The War on Terror.... --JulesVerne 13:01, 29 January 2007 (GMT)

Is an off duty soldier a combatant or a non-combatant? Are civil servants who work in a ministry of defence combatants or non-combatants? Are civilian police officers combatants or non-combatants?

If a soldier is constructing a sangar he is a combatant. But what if a civilian contractor is employed to construct the sangar? What about the person who fixes the digger that the civilian or soldier uses to build the sangar? What about the person in a machine shop who make the part that is needed by the person who fixes the digger, that is used by the civilian contractor build a sangar? The trouble with this simple definition is that the difference between a combatant and a non-combatant is not clear cut given the amount of civilian support which modern combat requires. --Philip Baird Shearer 14:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Well said, Philip! -- DBooth 03:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 109 definitions

The citation is weak. It cites a study (Jeffrey Record, "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism") that cites a book (Bruce Hoffman “Defining Terrorism,” ) that cites a book (Alex Schmid, et al. "Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature") that cites either the study or a book that cites the study (it is unclear at the moment). I left off with the [schmidt] citation if someone can track from there. I suspect its a political statement that biases original information. What is apparent from the secondary or tertiary source I tracked down is that it was survey work among experts and that the author was able to construct a defiintion that "81% of [expert] respondents found fully or partially acceptable". Mrdthree 18:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images used

I believe the photograph of the WTC used in this article invokes doctrined points of view without proof or cause. Although the 9/11 acts can very easily be described as "Acts Of Terrorism", that is an assumption with no solid references. Perhaps a separate article, or subsection, could be dedicated to that particular event. It is possible I am in the minority with this point of view, debate is welcomed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.42.209.103 (talk) 03:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

I doubt there would be much debate about whether the 9/11 acts qualify as terrorism, but I do agree that the choice of one photo over any other adds a certain bias. Perhaps we need an image from the French Reign of Terror, from whence the word "terrorism" derives.^[1] -- DBooth 03:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

9/11 is certainly terrorism but IMHO the debate is still open on who did it and why and, and who benefitted most from it. The entire 9/11 event is the subject of intense propaganda around the world ahs been itself been used to justify the worst terrorism of the 21st century. Where 9/11 is used as an example of terrorism, authors should not give their openions of who did it and why.

[edit] Modern-Day Terrorism

A small comment: I believe that terrorism is too general a term to describe the different types of terrorism. Modern day terrorism and pre-9/11 terrorism are two very different things. Today, terrorism mainly is derived from islamist extremism ideology, with its goal being to destroy democracy and human rights of the west and to destroy Israel. I suggest the article be refined so that it reflect the fact that modern day terrorism and pre-9/11 terrorism are completely different things. This site here gives a little more information about modern-day terrorism in the middle east: linkBen339 05:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Wikipedia articles should be neutral POV. -- DBooth 03:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not saying you need to change the POV. Differentiating between modern day terrorism and pre-9/11 terrorism does not change the point of view. All that is needed is a simple comment linking to religious terrorism saying that this is about pre-9/11 terrorism and religious terrorism is completely different.Ben339 14:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is about terrorism in general -- both pre- and post-9/11 -- so of course it is broad. Claiming that there is a significant difference between pre- and post-9/11 terrorism seems to me to reflect a POV that is biased by your own particular criteria of what differences you think are important -- above and beyond the criteria that distinguishes terrorism from other acts. Furthermore, claiming that "Today, terrorism mainly is derived from islamist extremism ideology, with its goal being to destroy democracy and human rights of the west" reflects an extremely biased POV. You can be sure that even islamic extremists would not characterize the goal of their jihad that way, but would more likely characterize it as righting or revenging wrongs or evil that they see, which, BTW, you can be sure is different than their enemies see, because their perspectives are different. It isn't easy to write articles that are neutral POV, but as much as possible it should be attempted. -- DBooth 04:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree with DBooth 100%. Ungovernable Force^{Poll: Which religious text should I read?} 05:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I see both of your points 100%. I am glad that now there is a sidebar which gives a link to information on different kinds of terrorism, that was all I wanted... Ben339 20:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Economic terrorism

Should add a link to Economic terrorism —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Philogik (talk • contribs) 07:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Politicians and linguists

Politicians and linguists/political activists are not researchers in the field of terrorism, and are therefore not reliable sources when it comes to terrorism. Polemics and political speeches are fine for propaganda tracts, but not for Wikipedia. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Pofessor Noam chomsky is more known for his critique research than his linguistic. Try to read the second paragraph in "Noam Chomsky". And a Journalist's sole profession is to dig and that what research about. BUT I upon your objection I have changed the word "researchers". Dont show your extremism please. I also dont like many articles in wikipedia but I have to tolerate them. Be fair to your conscience.VirtualEye 13:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Chomsky is a linguist and political activist, and is not any sort of expert in Terrorism. Galloway is a radical politician. Phrases like "Dont show your extremism" are violations of WP:CIVIL. If you continue I will take this to the admin noticeboard. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A person who is not liked by Americans, makes him radical? And the person who speaks for your president and other OIL sellers that is a good expert and the prson who is declared as one of the most finest minds of the 20th century, that you call "not a terrorism expert". Is'nt it biased and extreme? VirtualEye 14:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Pofessor Noam chomsky opinion is important on the meaning of the word terrorism and its use in political language as an expert in linguistics who specialises in taking apart the speaches of politicians to show what they really say (and don't). So he is not a reliable source on what is terrorism, but he is a first class source on the use of the word/concept terrorism in political polemics.

Galloway is a current sitting British MP and head of his own political party and famous for his Anti-war stance on the current Iraq conflict. These facts make him notable by wikipedia standards to criticise the policies of his own government and its allies, he repeatedly calls the Iraq war and extrodinary rendition terrorism, i'd look on the BBC for a quote if you want it to meet the verifability standard as well as it meets the notability standard. Hypnosadist 15:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Chomsky is a linguist and polemical political writer, and the POV insertion was an allegation about the actions of the United States government, not the meaning of the word terrorism. Galloway a radical politician. Neither are experts on this subject. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

"and the POV insertion was an allegation about the actions of the United States government" Yes thats the point Jay, many people have the POV that the american government commits acts of terrorism and as Npov is produced by the inclusion of different POV's then this "allegation" of terrorism should be included and Galloway is notable for that. Given there are now 30+ europe wide arrest warrents for american citizens for crimes commited against EU citizens durring the war on terror (rangeing from murder to kidnap) this could even be said to have a legal basis as the EU wide arrest warrents are for terrorism/security related crimes only.Hypnosadist 18:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hypnosadist, Is is neccessary for Professor Noam Chomsky to become a memeber of house of congress to be accepted as a notable critique about terrorism? All his bestsellers books and videos were to know what is terrorism in linguistics? Come on ! Do you think that millions of people in the world are reading linguistics? People are searching for truth through critique. And Chomsky's critique makes him very well known against the war on terror. His allegation towards American Regime to be terrorist makes him unreliable? ok dear, thanks for the True and fair thinking. VirtualEye 16:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

And by the way, A big part of the world hates America (not americans as individuals), there are many many people who wrote millions of pages of critique and thousands of books. How many of those have you people mentioned in wikipeida? You people simply dont accept what clashes your personality. Because, how will you feel proud being American if you have to accept the opinions of people like Noam Chomsky, Robert fisk and george galloway? Are these people bit by dogs that they are out to criticize? could anyone prove that they do this for money? could anyone prove that Noam Chomsky does it for religion (when he is just an atheist)???? Rejection and biasness is the habbit of only those people who just cant see their own face in the mirror.

I think after watching This video, you should simply put Galloway in the list of trashed people, because you will surely not like him. VirtualEye 16:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Martin Rudner's quote is circular logic. He could just as well flip his thesis around and say "The idea that one man's terrorist acts are another man's freedom fighter acts is complete rubbish, because they are cetainly terrorist acts when they are commited by terrorists." Maybe his quote is taken out of context, but it comes across as pseudo-intellectual garbage. -- Kendrick7^talk 17:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Rudner's quote is not circular at all. He is saying that terrorism is about means, not ends; regardless of the intent or ultimate goal of your cause, if you use terrorist actions to achieve that goal, then you are a terrorist. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:29, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Jay that is Not what he says re-check the quote below.Hypnosadist 15:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that is what he says. What "quote" are you referring to? Rudner didn't say "they are cetainly terrorist acts when they are commited by terrorists", or anything even remotely like that; it was Kendrick7 who said that. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Jay you are right, i was taking Kendrick7 words on good faith, the real quote is not "pseudo-intellectual garbage" and is logical. Sorry, now can we get back to Galloway and whether the american government is accused of terrorism (Maybe Putin has someing to say on this in the speach he gave yesterday).Hypnosadist 16:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I went back to the source and read the quote in context. I stand by what I said that the way we quote him is meaningless here ("if one commits terrorist acts, it is terrorism") because we don't include his definition of terrorist acts. I'm saddened no one else sees this quote, by itself, is circular reasoning. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

No-one sees it because it is not there. Differentiating between ends and means is a powerful and logical argument, not a circular one. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

In anycase, I clarified this in the article. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I clarified your clarification. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Kendrick7 says:

"they are cetainly terrorist acts when they are commited by terrorists."

Thats what you say, right? War heros of one nation can be terrorists for the other. Palestinians are freedom fighters in the eyes of many while terrorists in the eyes of many. Israeli forces are retaliating in the POV of some but terrorists in the POV of many people.

You think only America is the absolute authority to declare someone as terrorist? Does that mean there are no clashes of ideolgies in the world? Does that mean world is one country? Does that mean West does not have clash with communism of China? If no clash then go kiss china and dont moan over their policies. People who are killed in China are considered terrorists while they are considred as innocent in the eyes of America.

You just wanted to waste my time in convincing you or you got some benefit too? VirtualEye 06:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

That's the point; that the circular reasoning I was parroting isn't helpful. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Misrepresenting powerful reasoning is not parroting circular reasoning; perhaps you should review circular reasoning. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I did understand that part (ends vs. means) of what he was saying, though that's fairly boilerplate too. Doesn't anyone fighting for a cause believe their cause is just? Powerful reasoning, OTOH, might consider the relationship of terrorism to the philosophy of clothes -- that whether or not its permissible in our society to kill and be killed largely comes down the the question of who your tailor is. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Powerful reasoning points out the excuses which are used to justify terrorism, based on the fact that the people who justify it insist their cause is just. However, as you point out, everyone fighting for a cause thinks their cause is just; therefore, it is the "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter" pseudo-aphorism which is weak and morally bankrupt boilerplate, whereas Rudner's statement is the bracing refutation of that kind of feeble Newspeak. Oh, and please try to avoid violations of WP:CIVIL in your edit summaries. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is becoming a sterile argument. Not all acts labeled terrorism have the same level of opprobrium for a third party observer. Just as in the case of "military necessity", one has to consider "distinction" and "proportionality". As an example there was widespread outrage in the Republic of Ireland over the second of the Warrington bomb attacks (1993) by the IRA, -- The bomb was in a bin close to a McDonald's and people thought that the IRA should have considered that children could be casualties, and not planted it there. The negative reaction to the much larger London Bishopsgate bomb (1993) was much more muted as the IRA argument that it was a legitimate economic target could not be totally discounted -- The damage was so large that it forced the British government to underwrite some of the cost of the damage, something they resisted because it made a political statement that this was war damage not criminal damage. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from Political terrorism

Please merge any relevant content from Political terrorism per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Political terrorism. (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-02 07:42Z

[edit] interwiki for Croatian (hr)

Please add an interwiki link for Croatian. I cannot, because the article is protected.

Code:
[[hr:Terorizam]]

Thanks. --89.172.63.165 22:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --JohnnoShadbolt 02:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Colombia

Colombia is poorly mentioned (see the very red spot in the map of terrorist acts?)--((F3rn4nd0 ))^{(BLA BLA BLA)} 23:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)