![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Whoever edited this page in the first place forgot to mention that India also has provided assistance to USA. The have provided landing facilities and have held joint IndoUS military exercizes all in order to fight the war against terrorism. I was disappointed that the person did not know this. A word about Pakistan - While no doubt that pakistan has provided assisstance, it also remains the chief sponosor of terrorism in world. user: rahul
Someone edited this page (like al-Qaida) to add the assertion that Carter funded al-Qaida, and the link to Zmag. The Zmag article does not make that assertion, though it does discuss Carter funding of unjust regimes and drops the name of Osama bin Laden. If the assertion cannot be verified from a reliable source (Zmag is political advocacy and not news or scholarship) then it must be removed, since if false it constitutes libel. -- FOo
My two dictionaries define extradite as
"To deliver up by one government to another, as a fugitive from justice."
and
"hand over to the authorities of another country [syn: deliver, deport, surrender]"
An extradition request is exactly what it was. The fact that it had an ultimatum attached and the fact that it didn't follow normal procedures do not change that. Finally, Ed, your abuse of VANDALISM IN PROGRESS is absolutely shameful. Vandalism is not "something I disagree with." DanKeshet
Asa, I really like your edits, but I disagree on the first paragraph (or two paragraphs). I think that the "framework" stuff should be part of the introduction, and therefore in the same first paragraph, not cordoned off into a seperate section. Also, what do you think of my idea for the formatting, where we have summaries of the various campaigns, with links to the longer articles? DanKeshet
Since the Bush and bin Laden families are or were both involved in the Carlyle Group, this campaign is seen by some as in internal family feud within the Carlyle Group, with occasional, unfortunate collateral effects (such as death) on non-shareholders. However, while George Bush Sr allegedly remains an employee of the Carlyle Group, it seems that the bin Laden family has allegedly ceased to be an investor since October 2002, so there has been an internal family split in the group. (see NYT ref below)
GABaker, your rebuttal contains interesting information, but could you provide some more context for it? I mean, did someone in particular make this rebuttal? Otherwise I don't know that it's particularly relevant, however true it might be.... Actually I think a more appropriate way to incorporate such information into the article would be to write it above, in the main section describing the War on Terrorism, outlining the logic of the campaign and what it hopes to achieve. Otherwise this is going to degenerate into point-counterpoint nonsense (if it hasn't already). Graft 23:54 Nov 18, 2002 (UTC)
Yes, we could move the rebuttal up, or we could eliminate the section on protests, which was verging on NPOV. Of course, my NPOV is someone else's bias -- GABaker
re: Iraq funding terrorists.
This has also been mentioned on 60 minutes (where they even showed a document with Saddam's signature), and widely reported in a large number of magazines and newspapers. THis is just the first link that showed up on a serach at MSN..
Proof That Saddam Bankrolls Terrorism
216, could you please refrain from flagging large edits as "minor edits"? It's misleading, and some people who choose to hide minor edits will miss these changes. In general a minor edit should only be something that does not affect the meaning of a passage (i.e., spelling mistakes, wiki links, missing or duplicated articles, etc.) If you are adding information to an article, or changing the flow of information in an article, it is not a minor edit. Graft
I wonder about the danger of North Korea vs. Iraq. From what I read it seems North Korea is pretty close to being able to build nukes in at least small quantities and has missle power sufficient to deliver them on Japan. This sounds pretty bad to me.
Hi Kwertii, Who has an arrest warrant out for Kissinger? As far as I know he's only wanted for questioning so far. Graft
Yeah, besides our articles should avoid the passive voice. Don't say that someone "has warrants...issued for him". Say that X issued a warrant. The text above is almost as bad as saying "has been criticized for blah, blah, blah". Always attribute. -- Ed Poor
Regarding "George Bush's personal war"; this is a widespread perception among both mainstream and alternative sources. In 1 minute of google searching, for example, I come up with this Time Magazine article which calls it 'George W. Bush's war on terror', this Phillipine Daily News article which calls it 'US President George W. Bush's global campaign against terrorism', and an Independent (UK) article calling it "President George Bush's campaign against rogue states". Every night as I go to bed, I hear the BBC using the phrase "George Bush's War on Terror".
Also, I do not believe this is a "slam". While some people who oppose the war and oppose Bush try to link the two for negative effect, I think many people who do not opppose the war simply identify it strongly with President Bush. DanKeshet
However, there has been speculation about the administrations plans, and Iran is seen by some as 'next on the list' -- both because of its "axis of evil" status and its geopolitical relationship with Iraq.
This is just a quick addition to -- hopefully -- help develop the section on Iran. -- Sam
"accepted international rules for combatants"? how exactly do they not meet these lofty standards? Regardless, I think a sentence like that reads far to much like Whitehouse PA spin. AW
Because they are neither soldiers nor guerrillas, Al-Queda members who are not captured do not fall under the protections of the conventions. They are "illegal combatants." Another category of fighters who have no protection under the Geneva conventions are mercenary soldiers (this was done in the 1970s on the behest of African states). A third category that does not fall under the conventions are spies and intelligence operatives.
Because of these rules, the U.S. may detain al-Queda operatives. Please note that this does not mean "should."
On the other hand, the Gitmo detainees have access to religious services (one of the few U.S.Navy Muslim chaplains is detailed to the Naval Station for Camp X-ray), sanitation, and the Navy is building relatively permanent, if not luxurious structures. They get rations comparable to U.S. Naval rations, with restrictions to meet a Muslim diet. The U.S. is following the details of the Conventions in terms of treating people. The Conventions do not mandate comfort, just toleratble standards.
The question is--is their status correct? Should the Gitmo detainees be called guerrillas, they may be detained until the conflict reaches a formal end. If they are civilians facing criminal charges, they may require access to counsel. (note the may: they aren't in the U.S., and the Geneva conventions have rules for military tribunals against civilians who break the laws of war.)
I hope this clarifies this. However, please, please, please do not merely cut out my words with the comment "blah blah blah." That was unnecessarily rude. -- GABaker
The following needs to be set out:
(Whether or not this should all appear in this article. -- Sam
Quote from the Washington Post article:
Although no direct evidence of mistreatment of prisoners in U.S. custody has come to light, the prisoners are denied access to lawyers or organizations, such as the Red Cross, that could independently assess their treatment. Even their names are secret.
The para that was placed in this article by Soulpatch clearly states that the US is directly involved in torture. This point needs to be made very clear in the paragraph or it will be removed. And per NPOV you can't make an affirmative statement of a piece of information if that information is in reasonable dispute. -- mav
i believe ive npovd it Vera Cruz
It seems NPOV to me as it is now phrased. There is no "reasonable dispute" that I see to what was posted, which quotes from an investigative report and which cites sources from the US government concerning its activities. Just because we don't like to hear an unpleasant revelation, that in and of itself coesn't constitute "reasonable dispute". soulpatch
I believe the government denies that it's torturing people. It seems to have it's own doublespeak language and thus it's own definitions... Vera Cruz
Nowhere in the Post article does it say that the US is directly involved in "torture". It does say that "stress and duress" techniques are used and that the US sends people to countries where torture is performed. Nowhere does it say that the US id directly involved in torture. -- mav
Those so-called "stress and duress" techniques do constitute a form of torture. What the article says is that the US sends these prisoners to other countries for the use of more severe torture techniques. Either way, the US is clearly culpable in acts of torture, according to what the article describes. soulpatch
I'm not sure why I'm wasting my time discussing this, but that is a really, really bad analogy. I would point out that eyewitness testimony is, in fact, used all the time in courts of law, but that is neither here nor there in this situation. This is a point that you seem to be missing, but is that this NOT a he-said, she-said situation whatsoever. Your analogy simply bears no relationship to this situation. This is not the word of the torturers versus the tortured. On the contrary, the torturers are agreeing that the torture is taking place. The people who are saying that these atrocities are occuring are coming from the side that is commiting them. This is not a case of adversarial eyewitness testimony whatsoever; the people who are commiting these actions are reporting them, and doing so quite approvingly. As for the "absense of physical evidence" having any significance, that might make sense if someone outside of the US government has actually been able to have access to the prisoners. You claim that it "creates doubt", when in fact if anything the shroud of secrecy by the US government that is suspicious. To claim that there is an "absence" of physical evidence is misleading and disingenuous; the prisoners have been holed up and are inaccessible. What we do have is the admissions of the torturers and their allies themselves (and guess what--no one tortured them to produce those admissions!) (I really doubt that you are always so skeptical about everything that is ever reported by eyewitnesses, quite frankly). If you wish to maintain a level of "doubt" into this article out of adherence to the Holy Grail of NPOV, I think there is a sufficient level of that cautiousness already in the article, unnecessary in this case though it may be. I recognize that even the genocide articles in this encyclopedia often hedge in historical incidents of genocide that are quite obviously true, calling such things merely "charges of genocide". Sometimes this encylopedia refuses to call a spade a spade, and that is unfortunate, because it also can lead to whitewashing history. And, unfortunately, it really comes into play whenever anything involving the United States is involved, because apparentlyl the United States must always be portrayed as lily white and pure and incapable of doing wrong, even when the facts say otherwise. soulpatch
america is a democracy and the greatest country on the planet and the greatest supporter of peace and goodwill and human rights and the greatest ever and it would never ever throughout any of its history never ever torture anybody. Vera Cruz
Overturning previous regulations which prevented the CIA from operating against US citizens, President Bush has granted the CIA broad authority to secretly assassinate U.S. citizens (in addition to anyone else) anywhere in the world if the CIA thinks that they are working for Al Qaida. The individuals in question need not be tried or convicted in any court of law, or even formally charged in order for them to be targeted for assassination.
This needs a very good citation or it will be removed. -- mav
It was in the news about a month ago. Vera Cruz
A simple search in news.google.com found dozens of articles on the subject. Here is just one, picked at random: [2] (The vast majority of this Wikipedia article makes all sorts of claims that lack any "good citations". It is not clear why this particular block of text, among all the bits of text in this article, was targeted for requiring a "good citation", since no explanation was given as to why anyone might have considered it to be in doubt. Perhaps I should demand proof for every other claim that is made in this article and threaten to delete the text if it isn't presented.) soulpatch
Looking at the date I see that I was on vacation when it hit the news so I missed it. Any fact in any article that seems surprising to the viewer can be removed unilaterally unless it is backed-up by a citation and is relevant. Such is the WikiWay. Notice I didn't remove the text but simply asked for a citation. -- mav
I think it was a mistake to move the torture section into the "opposition" section. In the same way that GABaker's "rebuttal" of the opposition was better placed in the main article, this is information about the War on Terrorism. (We could rename it "Interrogation techniques" if people so desired.) The "opposition" section should be about, well, the movement opposing the War on Terrorism. DanKeshet
I have moved the Yemen and Pankisi Gorge pages to non-subpage style pages and updated the links accordingly. We no longer support subpages (support meaning having automatic links to higher level pages etc.), and the slash-syntax is not particularly elegant. I'm not sure having all these separate "War on Terrorism" articles is such a good idea - we don't lose coherence by placing the yemen operations in "History of Yemen" or "Politics of Yemen", for example, both of which aren't particularly long. -- Eloquence
Though I lack references, I have moved this information to "opposition" because this is a frequent criticism. DanKeshet
I believe this more properly belongs on the War on Iraq page. France and Germany have not checked out from the War on Terrorism, so far as I know. DanKeshet
This title may be NPOV, as questions might be raised about the precise definition of "terrorism." The phrase "war on terror" is more questionable. But perhaps it is appropriate, because the title in and of itself expresses a POV. -- Daniel C. Boyer
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Whoever edited this page in the first place forgot to mention that India also has provided assistance to USA. The have provided landing facilities and have held joint IndoUS military exercizes all in order to fight the war against terrorism. I was disappointed that the person did not know this. A word about Pakistan - While no doubt that pakistan has provided assisstance, it also remains the chief sponosor of terrorism in world. user: rahul
Someone edited this page (like al-Qaida) to add the assertion that Carter funded al-Qaida, and the link to Zmag. The Zmag article does not make that assertion, though it does discuss Carter funding of unjust regimes and drops the name of Osama bin Laden. If the assertion cannot be verified from a reliable source (Zmag is political advocacy and not news or scholarship) then it must be removed, since if false it constitutes libel. -- FOo
My two dictionaries define extradite as
"To deliver up by one government to another, as a fugitive from justice."
and
"hand over to the authorities of another country [syn: deliver, deport, surrender]"
An extradition request is exactly what it was. The fact that it had an ultimatum attached and the fact that it didn't follow normal procedures do not change that. Finally, Ed, your abuse of VANDALISM IN PROGRESS is absolutely shameful. Vandalism is not "something I disagree with." DanKeshet
Asa, I really like your edits, but I disagree on the first paragraph (or two paragraphs). I think that the "framework" stuff should be part of the introduction, and therefore in the same first paragraph, not cordoned off into a seperate section. Also, what do you think of my idea for the formatting, where we have summaries of the various campaigns, with links to the longer articles? DanKeshet
Since the Bush and bin Laden families are or were both involved in the Carlyle Group, this campaign is seen by some as in internal family feud within the Carlyle Group, with occasional, unfortunate collateral effects (such as death) on non-shareholders. However, while George Bush Sr allegedly remains an employee of the Carlyle Group, it seems that the bin Laden family has allegedly ceased to be an investor since October 2002, so there has been an internal family split in the group. (see NYT ref below)
GABaker, your rebuttal contains interesting information, but could you provide some more context for it? I mean, did someone in particular make this rebuttal? Otherwise I don't know that it's particularly relevant, however true it might be.... Actually I think a more appropriate way to incorporate such information into the article would be to write it above, in the main section describing the War on Terrorism, outlining the logic of the campaign and what it hopes to achieve. Otherwise this is going to degenerate into point-counterpoint nonsense (if it hasn't already). Graft 23:54 Nov 18, 2002 (UTC)
Yes, we could move the rebuttal up, or we could eliminate the section on protests, which was verging on NPOV. Of course, my NPOV is someone else's bias -- GABaker
re: Iraq funding terrorists.
This has also been mentioned on 60 minutes (where they even showed a document with Saddam's signature), and widely reported in a large number of magazines and newspapers. THis is just the first link that showed up on a serach at MSN..
Proof That Saddam Bankrolls Terrorism
216, could you please refrain from flagging large edits as "minor edits"? It's misleading, and some people who choose to hide minor edits will miss these changes. In general a minor edit should only be something that does not affect the meaning of a passage (i.e., spelling mistakes, wiki links, missing or duplicated articles, etc.) If you are adding information to an article, or changing the flow of information in an article, it is not a minor edit. Graft
I wonder about the danger of North Korea vs. Iraq. From what I read it seems North Korea is pretty close to being able to build nukes in at least small quantities and has missle power sufficient to deliver them on Japan. This sounds pretty bad to me.
Hi Kwertii, Who has an arrest warrant out for Kissinger? As far as I know he's only wanted for questioning so far. Graft
Yeah, besides our articles should avoid the passive voice. Don't say that someone "has warrants...issued for him". Say that X issued a warrant. The text above is almost as bad as saying "has been criticized for blah, blah, blah". Always attribute. -- Ed Poor
Regarding "George Bush's personal war"; this is a widespread perception among both mainstream and alternative sources. In 1 minute of google searching, for example, I come up with this Time Magazine article which calls it 'George W. Bush's war on terror', this Phillipine Daily News article which calls it 'US President George W. Bush's global campaign against terrorism', and an Independent (UK) article calling it "President George Bush's campaign against rogue states". Every night as I go to bed, I hear the BBC using the phrase "George Bush's War on Terror".
Also, I do not believe this is a "slam". While some people who oppose the war and oppose Bush try to link the two for negative effect, I think many people who do not opppose the war simply identify it strongly with President Bush. DanKeshet
However, there has been speculation about the administrations plans, and Iran is seen by some as 'next on the list' -- both because of its "axis of evil" status and its geopolitical relationship with Iraq.
This is just a quick addition to -- hopefully -- help develop the section on Iran. -- Sam
"accepted international rules for combatants"? how exactly do they not meet these lofty standards? Regardless, I think a sentence like that reads far to much like Whitehouse PA spin. AW
Because they are neither soldiers nor guerrillas, Al-Queda members who are not captured do not fall under the protections of the conventions. They are "illegal combatants." Another category of fighters who have no protection under the Geneva conventions are mercenary soldiers (this was done in the 1970s on the behest of African states). A third category that does not fall under the conventions are spies and intelligence operatives.
Because of these rules, the U.S. may detain al-Queda operatives. Please note that this does not mean "should."
On the other hand, the Gitmo detainees have access to religious services (one of the few U.S.Navy Muslim chaplains is detailed to the Naval Station for Camp X-ray), sanitation, and the Navy is building relatively permanent, if not luxurious structures. They get rations comparable to U.S. Naval rations, with restrictions to meet a Muslim diet. The U.S. is following the details of the Conventions in terms of treating people. The Conventions do not mandate comfort, just toleratble standards.
The question is--is their status correct? Should the Gitmo detainees be called guerrillas, they may be detained until the conflict reaches a formal end. If they are civilians facing criminal charges, they may require access to counsel. (note the may: they aren't in the U.S., and the Geneva conventions have rules for military tribunals against civilians who break the laws of war.)
I hope this clarifies this. However, please, please, please do not merely cut out my words with the comment "blah blah blah." That was unnecessarily rude. -- GABaker
The following needs to be set out:
(Whether or not this should all appear in this article. -- Sam
Quote from the Washington Post article:
Although no direct evidence of mistreatment of prisoners in U.S. custody has come to light, the prisoners are denied access to lawyers or organizations, such as the Red Cross, that could independently assess their treatment. Even their names are secret.
The para that was placed in this article by Soulpatch clearly states that the US is directly involved in torture. This point needs to be made very clear in the paragraph or it will be removed. And per NPOV you can't make an affirmative statement of a piece of information if that information is in reasonable dispute. -- mav
i believe ive npovd it Vera Cruz
It seems NPOV to me as it is now phrased. There is no "reasonable dispute" that I see to what was posted, which quotes from an investigative report and which cites sources from the US government concerning its activities. Just because we don't like to hear an unpleasant revelation, that in and of itself coesn't constitute "reasonable dispute". soulpatch
I believe the government denies that it's torturing people. It seems to have it's own doublespeak language and thus it's own definitions... Vera Cruz
Nowhere in the Post article does it say that the US is directly involved in "torture". It does say that "stress and duress" techniques are used and that the US sends people to countries where torture is performed. Nowhere does it say that the US id directly involved in torture. -- mav
Those so-called "stress and duress" techniques do constitute a form of torture. What the article says is that the US sends these prisoners to other countries for the use of more severe torture techniques. Either way, the US is clearly culpable in acts of torture, according to what the article describes. soulpatch
I'm not sure why I'm wasting my time discussing this, but that is a really, really bad analogy. I would point out that eyewitness testimony is, in fact, used all the time in courts of law, but that is neither here nor there in this situation. This is a point that you seem to be missing, but is that this NOT a he-said, she-said situation whatsoever. Your analogy simply bears no relationship to this situation. This is not the word of the torturers versus the tortured. On the contrary, the torturers are agreeing that the torture is taking place. The people who are saying that these atrocities are occuring are coming from the side that is commiting them. This is not a case of adversarial eyewitness testimony whatsoever; the people who are commiting these actions are reporting them, and doing so quite approvingly. As for the "absense of physical evidence" having any significance, that might make sense if someone outside of the US government has actually been able to have access to the prisoners. You claim that it "creates doubt", when in fact if anything the shroud of secrecy by the US government that is suspicious. To claim that there is an "absence" of physical evidence is misleading and disingenuous; the prisoners have been holed up and are inaccessible. What we do have is the admissions of the torturers and their allies themselves (and guess what--no one tortured them to produce those admissions!) (I really doubt that you are always so skeptical about everything that is ever reported by eyewitnesses, quite frankly). If you wish to maintain a level of "doubt" into this article out of adherence to the Holy Grail of NPOV, I think there is a sufficient level of that cautiousness already in the article, unnecessary in this case though it may be. I recognize that even the genocide articles in this encyclopedia often hedge in historical incidents of genocide that are quite obviously true, calling such things merely "charges of genocide". Sometimes this encylopedia refuses to call a spade a spade, and that is unfortunate, because it also can lead to whitewashing history. And, unfortunately, it really comes into play whenever anything involving the United States is involved, because apparentlyl the United States must always be portrayed as lily white and pure and incapable of doing wrong, even when the facts say otherwise. soulpatch
america is a democracy and the greatest country on the planet and the greatest supporter of peace and goodwill and human rights and the greatest ever and it would never ever throughout any of its history never ever torture anybody. Vera Cruz
Overturning previous regulations which prevented the CIA from operating against US citizens, President Bush has granted the CIA broad authority to secretly assassinate U.S. citizens (in addition to anyone else) anywhere in the world if the CIA thinks that they are working for Al Qaida. The individuals in question need not be tried or convicted in any court of law, or even formally charged in order for them to be targeted for assassination.
This needs a very good citation or it will be removed. -- mav
It was in the news about a month ago. Vera Cruz
A simple search in news.google.com found dozens of articles on the subject. Here is just one, picked at random: [2] (The vast majority of this Wikipedia article makes all sorts of claims that lack any "good citations". It is not clear why this particular block of text, among all the bits of text in this article, was targeted for requiring a "good citation", since no explanation was given as to why anyone might have considered it to be in doubt. Perhaps I should demand proof for every other claim that is made in this article and threaten to delete the text if it isn't presented.) soulpatch
Looking at the date I see that I was on vacation when it hit the news so I missed it. Any fact in any article that seems surprising to the viewer can be removed unilaterally unless it is backed-up by a citation and is relevant. Such is the WikiWay. Notice I didn't remove the text but simply asked for a citation. -- mav
I think it was a mistake to move the torture section into the "opposition" section. In the same way that GABaker's "rebuttal" of the opposition was better placed in the main article, this is information about the War on Terrorism. (We could rename it "Interrogation techniques" if people so desired.) The "opposition" section should be about, well, the movement opposing the War on Terrorism. DanKeshet
I have moved the Yemen and Pankisi Gorge pages to non-subpage style pages and updated the links accordingly. We no longer support subpages (support meaning having automatic links to higher level pages etc.), and the slash-syntax is not particularly elegant. I'm not sure having all these separate "War on Terrorism" articles is such a good idea - we don't lose coherence by placing the yemen operations in "History of Yemen" or "Politics of Yemen", for example, both of which aren't particularly long. -- Eloquence
Though I lack references, I have moved this information to "opposition" because this is a frequent criticism. DanKeshet
I believe this more properly belongs on the War on Iraq page. France and Germany have not checked out from the War on Terrorism, so far as I know. DanKeshet
This title may be NPOV, as questions might be raised about the precise definition of "terrorism." The phrase "war on terror" is more questionable. But perhaps it is appropriate, because the title in and of itself expresses a POV. -- Daniel C. Boyer