Talk:State terrorism

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Contents 1 Major change 2 Organizing this article 3 Civilians? 4 playground 5 Protest against removal Of USA vs Cuba 6 What is it - State Terrorism? 7 state violence 8 Methods slant 9 Original research

[edit] Major change

I have created a list List_of_acts_labelled_as_state_terrorism_sorted_by_state

to reduce this article edit wars, please revert it if the consensus is to have it all here. My apologies if people are pissed off :-(((RaveenS 14:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

i already stated my opinion that i would even go the step further and delete the list, but i support this move. this way editing can concentrate on actually improving the definition. --trueblood 17:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually oppose giving this topic its own article, for the reason that the article has not been created because the subject, on its own merits, deserves a separate article, but merely because doing so solves an editing headache for another article, namely State terrorism. I'm not persuaded of the usefulness of the list even as a subsection of State terrorism: a good many examples are tendentious, giving no further insight into the definition of the term, but merely afford space to writers with axes to grind. That said, a few well-chosen illustrative examples, insofar as they help illuminate the definition of State terrorism, are obviously welcome. Obviously, the examples will be loudly disputed, but so it goes.

Rrburke 22:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

an illusion to think to have a short list of well-chosen examples. how is it going to be different from now? if you have examples, sooner or later someone will come along, feel strongly about some act of state terrorism and add it, and before long we back with the long list and the edit wars. --trueblood 11:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That's probably true, but no truer than it is for a great variety of articles on contentious topics, and they seem somehow to manage. People can resolve that additional examples will be reverted unless generally accepted to be better than those already included. Reversion wars have never really killed anyone anyway.

--Rrburke 19:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organizing this article

The best way to keep individual countries state terrorism from confusing the intent of the article, I propose that we create individual articles on each country such as State terrorism in Sudan, State terrorism in Sri Lanka.... please discuss the merits it. Then this whole article can be a high level article dealing with what state terorism is and link to each countries culpabilitiesHuracane 16:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Huracane, I think this is a good idea, otherwise this article is going to become quite unwieldy and it is hard to keep discussions organized as well since there are so many differing threads going on.--Realstarslayer 17:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

One way to organize this article is define state terrorism and list of types of state terrorist actions such as ethnic cleaninzing, massacres, disappearances, torture. and then link to individual countries state terrorist practices ?RaveenS 17:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I have moved Syria to Sri Lanka to appropriate sectionsRaveenS

How about a Category:State terrorism by country ? That will organize this even better.IMHOHuracane 19:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Civilians?

The previous version does not say that the target is the civilian population. This is crucial.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.20.192.126 (talk • contribs) 21:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] playground

from just scanning through the heated discussion it seems to me that this article could benefit from taking all the examples out.

Whether a particular act is described as "terrorism" may depend on whether the International community considers the action justified or necessary. it's clear from the definition that it always depends on your politics if you call an act of agression state terrorism or something else, this article will always be a playground for edit warriors. i think wikipedia should not be the place for this kind of political discusison (whether the us or israel are commiting acts of state terrorism) and the article would greatly improved by being pruned down to a good definition. trueblood 20:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protest against removal Of USA vs Cuba

The fact that Cuban population has been suffering terrorism attacks since decades has been well known in all the World, including informed Americans (facts covered by European and Latin American news agencies). The allegation that these acts were performed by US sponsored agents was also known and only lacked the official confirmation from US side. This confirmation just came recently with the declassification of some documents from the CIA and the FBI. Perhaps the grammar was not good (I'm not a native English speaker) or the sources not well cited, but the full removal of a section with facts well known outside USA is really disaponting about the seriousness and maturity of the Wikipedia.

By the way, I am not a Cuban, I am a Mexican and I use to write Science and Computing History articles at the Spanish edition of the Wikipedia. --Asierra 16:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The US section is constantly vandalised by unquestioningly pro-US wikipedians who can see no wrong in their countries actions. I have not the time to engage in a revert war with these people.GiollaUidir 23:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

If you're referring to the references to Posada Carriles and Bosch in connection with the 1976 attack on Cubana de Aviación, I removed that section once, not because I am "pro-American" or refuse to believe that the United States would sponsor terrorism, but because all that was mentioned in this section was that the United States has refused to extradite Posada Carriles, and such a refusal does not seem to me in itself to constitute an example of "state terrorism". As for the attack itself, while there is no doubt that Posada Carriles and Bosch had long-standing connections with elements in the U.S. government, in order for the attack on Cubana de Aviación to be an example of "state terrorism," it would be necessary to put forward some evidence that the United States had somehow sponsored or encouraged this particular act, not merely that it did business with criminal thugs who also engaged in acts of terrorism. I have no difficulty calling Posada Carriles and Bosch terrorists and I agree that the refusal to extradite is hypocritical, but unless some evidence is brought forward of a state's encouragement or support of acts of terrorism, I don't believe the example meets the definition. I would encourage you if you wish to restore this section to locate evidence of particular acts of terrorism promoted by the United States.

Rrburke 20:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is it - State Terrorism?

Could anybody explain in plain English?

For example, speaking on the first item - Albania:

Enver Hoxha's dictatorship was one of the most oppressive and isolationist in the world. - true

Religious practice was prohibited through imprisonment, and no political dissent was allowed. - true

It has been estimated that up to one third of Albanians were interrogated by his regime's secret police at one time or another. - may be

Sure, Enver Hoxha was a bad guy, and Albanian regime was a bad regime. But why it was the terrorist state?

... And so on. Just read every item in the list of terrorist states. --HenryS 05:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Layout "Separate discussion topics, with new topics at the end"

The article quotes Baltasar Garzón:

"State terrorism is a political system whose rule of recognition permits and/or imposes a clandestine, unpredictable, and diffuse application, even regarding clearly innocent people, of coercive means prohibited by the proclaimed judicial ordinance."

Here are 3 examples from the last 100 years which fit this description:

• Stalin and the purges
• Idi Amin and his time as "King of Scotland" in Uganda.
• Pakistan Government during and before the 1973 Bangladesh War
• (The bad, mad and ruthless) But there are lots of other cases of state terrorism eg Third Reich to name another obvious one. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the definition by Baltasar Garzón (and, I think, with the term itself) is that virtually every act of any government could be named the State Terrorism, according the quote. It depepends of Point Of View only. Is there any meaningful definition?

--HenryS 10:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC) i agree, the problem with this article is that it treats the term as if it were a very clear term that could be used in an objective way. i don't think that we are going to find a meaningful definition. that's why i proposed to delete the whole list of acts labelled as state terrorism, since such a list can never be free of pov. maybe we could rather have a few examples were the term was used in general discussion, this list could be clearly pov and it should be stated, that it's purpose is to illustrate how the term was/is used. trueblood 12:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and currently I consider the term "State terrorism" as a nonesense. So, before asking to delete the whole article, I try to find out if there is a meaningful definition of the term. According alleged Baltasar Garzón's definition, every state is the Terrorist State. Period. --HenryS 14:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

i don't know about deleting the whole article, but just leave it with some kind of definition, that states that it is a highly controversial term. but there are a lot of people that seem to like this article because it is a platform to fight it out if a certain us american, israelian, cuban etc action is to be considered state terrorism or not. i don't know how to go about. trueblood 17:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the term State terrorism is nothing but propaganda. Most people agree, that terrorism is evil, so propagandists use the term State terrorism against the states they dislike. I'm still waiting if anybody could explain difference between regular state violence and state terrorism. --HenryS 18:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

so having stated this several times, what do you propose trueblood 11:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for bulging in like this, but controversial and vague as the term may be, it is an existing term, used by far more people than Mr Garzon. A google search for "state terrorism -wikipedia" brings up 98 million hits. So any talk of proposing the article for deletion is in my opinion out of the question. I think that under the terms of NPOV the best course to take would be:

• In the opening paragraph, describe the term. Describe the different interpretations authoritative sources give to the term. Mr Garzon could be used as one of these.
• For each one of the instances described in the article as state terrorism, editors must say who described the specific incident as state terrorism, with proper citations.

For example:

In June 2004, Israel assaulted Rafah, Gaza. As a result about 60 Palestinians, including many civilians and children were killed. PM of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan described this as state terrorism (source: The Guardian).

Note the important aspects of the above paragraph:

1. The characterization is not given because the wikipedian (in this case, me) thinks it applies, but rather because someone else applied it.
2. The characterization was applied by someone notable (Turkey's PM).
3. The characterization is sourced from a respected newspaper (The Guardian).

I believe that if every instance referenced in the article as state terrorism was built in a similar manner, the article would be pretty NPOV. Thoughts? --Michalis Famelis (talk) 18:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point

The Guardian is respected source, so I believe that Mr. Erdogan said that.

Mr. Erdogan is highly respected Turkey's PM

But:

He is a politician, not scholar, so as a politician he may and he will use the controversal definitions and even coin them. Just to reach his political goals.

So until we have any rational definition, which shows the diference between any military or police actions by state and the acts of State Terrorism, it is clear for me, that the term State Terrorism is nothing but propaganda. I would not object if the article would start with words

State Terrorism - the term used in propaganda, which describes some violent acts by a state. What states and/or acts are considered terroristic depends on POV

After that statement one could place any idea with his/her POV.

--HenryS 15:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me begin by quoting you, phpbb-style:

"He is a politician, not scholar, so as a politician he may and he will use the controversal definitions and even coin them. Just to reach his political goals."

I daresay that you seem to misunderstand an important aspect of Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Let me quote a phrase from it:

"assert facts, including facts about opinions — but don't assert opinions themselves"

It is a fact that Mr Erdogan used the term. Our job is not to say why he did it, or what were his motives, or political outlook that drove him to do it or even to infer that ourselves. It would be part of our job to report such things, if someone else, eg a political commentator, made this analysis. Mr Erdogan, or Mr Garzon have every right to express their views, even if it is completely for propagandistic reasons. And any wikipedian can report those news (properly cited of course). It is Wikipedia policy to leave it to the reader to decide for themselves if these opinions are propaganda or not.

I hate to bring up the most worn out argument in the history of the internet, but for example, on Wikipedia we do report the Nazi opinions regarding Jewish people. These are clearly nothing more than the worst kind of propaganda, but it is a fact that an (once) existing political entity expressed them. Wikipedia does not endorse these opinions. Actually Wikipedia is not supposed to endorse anything. But Wikipedia reports them.

We as wikipedians, are not here to present our opinion of what State Terrorism is. We are here to report that politicians, commentators, reporters, writers, political entities etc have used the term to describe a range of situations.

--Michalis Famelis (talk) 17:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

hey, this is what i had in mind only you put it more eloquently, rather than a list of instances of state terrorism we would have a list of examples of usage of the term state terrorism. but there seem to be a lot of people who are very fond of this list. it seems a bit bold to just delete the whole list, that would surly start an edit war. --trueblood 17:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

This could be solved wiki-style, with a straw poll. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 17:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It does not matter how do you name it State Terrorism or State Violence. The point is that you must provide reliable sources for the term. --HenryS 11:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I am really tied. That is Wikipedia official policy: Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Beware false authority

Use sources who have postgraduate degrees or demonstrable published expertise
in the field they are discussing. The more reputable ones are affiliated with 
academic institutions. The most reputable have written textbooks in their field: 
these authors can be expected to have a broad, authoritative grasp of their subject.  
In general, college textbooks are frequently revised and try to be authoritative. 
High school and middle school textbooks, however, do not try to be authoritative 
and they are subject to political approval.

What postgraduate degree has Mr. Erdogan? What academic institution is he affiliated with? Why is he allowed to coin definition for encyclopedia?

My other question is, who are we? Reporters or encyclopedians? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by HenryS (talk • contribs) .

We are not reporters. Reporters can write about things they witnessed themselves. They can write about things someone else witnessed , but has never told anyone before. We can only write about things someone else has already written about. See WP:NOR.

Now, as for the postgraduate degrees. Mr Erdogan could have majored in rocket science, we couldn't care less. We are not referring to him for his expertise or his degrees. Actually we are just referring to what he said, to his opinion. We do not expect any scientific analysis or absolute truth from him. But on this article we are trying to demonstrate how the term is used. And one of its uses is political, by politicians who may have majored in rocket science, accounting or nothing at all.

Of course if one could provide an academic resource for term, that would be of much greater importance than what Mr Erdogan said, and should take up more space in the article. But that is quite a different sotry. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 09:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well.

Before talking we have to undersdand what we are talking about. Right?

If we are talking about the "State Terrorism" we have to understand what is the "State Terrorism".

Hence, there should be a definition. Right?

Please, show me one which is reliable according Wikipedia Standards (Mr. Erdogan is not authorative, accordind standards)

BTW. That was me, who wrote the unsigned comment above. (I was tied). But how could you recognise me?--HenryS 11:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

please reread the argument that was made, the proposal was that since it is a rather vague term, that there would be a definition that also states that it depends on the speakers political standing would he defines as state terrorism. the examples are not supposed to be npov, they will be very pov. they are only to illustrate the fact the state terrorism is not a term that has a clear and scientific definition. i feel like the same argument gets repeated other and other again here.--trueblood 18:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I recently took a course on terrorism and governmental responses to terrorist acts, and we had several discussions on this very topic. The professor iterated that some peoples and governments felt that there was such a thing as "state terrorism", as exampled in the article. However, he also made it clear many in the international community felt that there is no such thing as state terrorism per se, rather "terrorism" is carried out by rogue agents and non-state actors, and that state violence or state-sponsored violence upon another state is an act of war, and therfore, the examples in the article of torture, etc. would fall under "state-sponsored terror", if the perpetrators are backed or supported by a nation's government. These acts of torture would be classified as war crmes, rather than "state terror", or crimes against humanity, etc. if members of the government or members directly controlled by the government (such as military)perform these acts. No counter-point is really addressed in this article; and I believe that i is at least worth addressing that some in the international community feel differently, or at least address that this idea is not held in consensus of thinkers. I will help discourse, and retrieve some of the texts we used in class, and a list of articles and papers cited by the professor as soon as possible. [that is not to say that "terrorist-states" do not exist, (such as Stalinist Russia, brought up in earlier discussions,) but rather that "state on state terrorism" would fall under the realms of "an act of war"] -Evan 05 July 2006

"State Terrorism" is those systemic and spontaneous acts perpetrated by a State against a defined (largely civilian) population that if done or attempted by an individual or non state organisation would be otherwise labeled as terrorist acts by the US Government (as The world leader" in "The War Against Terrorism"). Linking the definition of "State Terrorism" to a widely accepted definition of "individual and non-state terrorism" avoids some of the hypocrisy implicit in the misuse of the terrorist label in propaganda. Labeling the phrase "State Terrorism" as merely propaganda ignores and diminishes the fear and suffering experienced recipients of acts of terror. One may note that most terrorist acts perpetrated by individuals and non-state organisations appear, to be in direct response to acts of "State Terrorism", or insufferable state opression and might in previous centuries be described as revolutionary, or guerilla warfare. jw 31july 2006

[edit] state violence

i don't see the necessity of this merge with state violence, which is just a stub anyway. if there are no arguments brought forth the merger box should go. --trueblood 18:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Methods slant

As a researcher, writer, and someone who tries to use a little common sense, I think it unabashadly biased to only list Hamdi v. Rumsfeld as THE example of state terrorism. This is ludicrous hypocracy, for a number of reasons, designed to make the United States look bad--plain and simple.

1. There is no legal discussion on his status. Although one can go to the article, alone it leaves a gravely mistaken impression. The way it is written implies he was simply a citizen of the US who was thrown in jail, not charged, and had to petition for habeus corpus. In fact, he was caught with a group of Taliban on foreign soil (presents legal issues), was thought to be fighting with them against a UN-sanctioned multilateral operation (again presents questions), and was not immediately identified as a US citizen.

2. Here, the courts worked and acted as a check on presidential authority. Does this really sound like State terrorism? Did the high court of the Soviet Union declare illegal Stalin's murder of 40 million people? Did the indepenent judiciary shoot down China's imprisonement, torture, and execution of political dissidents, writers, Wikipedians, journalists, and democracy advocates? Has the UN or court system in Sudan done anything to stop the Khartoum-supported militias that have killed over 1 million in Darfur? In this case, the US system worked for Hamdi--yet somehow the author has managed to twist it into anti-American propoganda.

Some people may view the US actions as State terrorism--however ridiculous that might be--however, we need to look at it in context. Doing so should make you laugh at this citation. Even the author supports my ideas--he cites an Amnesty Int. report on torture. Despite the fact that there are 82 countries that torture (according to AI), his example of State terrorism is a successful lawsuit by a US citizen caught fighting with the enemy to be brought into the US legal system and stand a citizen's trial. Does the the US system sound like terrorism, considering he was allowed to petition the courts, much less win?

Based on these observations, I'm simply taking all the references out--they can be biased and lend nothing to the definition. If anyone adds this one back, I'll simply try to make a fair and representative display by citing courts cases, executions, torture, wrongful imprisonement, etc, etc in every other country, including Western Europe. Would love to hear discussion...

[edit] Original research

This article carries no inline citations and seems to comprise largely of original research, Therefore I have tagged it. Whatsmore, the fast and loose interpretation of WP:NOR and WP:V on this article is causing numerous problems on articles throughout wikipedia. I have come across three articles/afd's etc only today where users are pointing to this article as a source for keeping their own sections on various matters.--Zleitzen 16:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)