Talk:Militant

I corrected an NPOV section with (in my opinion) pro-Israeli bias, referring the use of the term "militant" in relation to Palestinians by adding "in the opinion of many Israelis" and adding a counter argument. Kingal86 23:21, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I follow you, this article was not neutral, as, in that conflict, militancy and zealotry, to the point of lunacy, are obviously on both sides, and btw it is also a menace for the rest of the world, and those crazies on both sides should be brought back to reason. But the problem is that to put this debate in this article makes it fuzzy. It could also open it to endless discussions about other kinds of militancy (think about the "altermondialist" activists, or about pro-cults and anti-cults) and drown completely the topic. So maybe some specific article about the palestinian - israelian conflict could contain the debates, with just a link from this page. --Pgreenfinch 07:50, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * If the above is your view of the conflict, you have a NPOV problem. People who blow up discotheques are the same as those who try to stop them from doing so according to you. An interesting comment. Do you think the British police and the terrorists who blew up the underground station are both equally characterized by "militancy and zealotry, to the point of lunacy?"  Mewnews (talk) 23:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

"Militant" as euphemism for "Terrorist"
According to the definition of "terrorism" as using means clandestine in their preparation and maximally difficult to ignore in their result, such as car bombs, to indiscriminately attack non-clandestine civilian targets of little or no military value:
 * Osama Bin Laden is a terrorist.
 * Al Qaeda is a network of terrorist organizations.
 * The Beslan school hostage crisis was a terrorist attack.
 * Terrorists who were allegedly members of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 and flew it into the World Trade Center, instantaneously killing 664 people.
 * The September 11, 2001 attacks are a terrorist incident.

That said, there are ways to say these things without diminishing the crime of terrorism, by whitewashing it or by distractions over the definition of terrorism. It would be distracting to involve such definitions as "political force", because that is almost the definition of politics. For someone who believes in government, this can distraction can be meaningless and insensitive. Definitions can be as simple as defining terrorism as "policy of intimidation" or "terrorizing".

Instead of:
 * Osama Bin Laden is a militant.
 * Al Qaeda is a network of paramilitary organizations.
 * The Beslan school hostage crisis is a battle executed by a band of Chechen paramilitaries.
 * Militants who were allegedly members of the Al Qaeda paramilitary organization hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 and flew it into the World Trade Center, instantaneously killing 664 people.
 * The September 11, 2001 attacks are a militant incident.
 * Timothy McVeigh was a militant.

I prefer to show the possibility of strongly condemning something or someone without weakening that condemnation with some abstract confusion over the definition of a word. This shows the possibility:
 * Osama Bin Laden issued a fatwa calling for the death of military and civilian people as needed for Muslim rule over holy sites and the destruction of the USA and its allies as a world power.
 * Al Qaeda is a network of organizations determined to use political violence against military and civilian people.
 * In the Beslan school hostage crisis, a band of Chechen nationalists took more than 1200 people hostage, resulting in many civilians killed, including many civilian children.
 * Militants who were allegedly members of Al Qaeda hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 and flew it into the World Trade Center, instantly killing 664 people, most or all of which were civilians.
 * The September 11, 2001 attacks targeted civilians to be killed, and except for the attempts on the White House, the Pentagon, and Camp David, had no military value whatsoever.
 * Timothy McVeigh blew up an occupied FBI building, killing many people. If not for his other lesser offenses, he might have remained free and unidentified to this day, able to attack again. He was caught due to his driving while missing a license plate, was identified three days later as the subject of a nationwide manhunt, and was executed for blowing up an occupied FBI building.

This edit would not have been POV, and Isarig's reversion of it is wrong. The edit simply contradicts his own opinion.24.7.38.227 22:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Misleading
This whole article is very heavily non-neutral POV. The section on legal restrictions is false and misleading. It implies that international law sanctions murder of civilians and that there may be a legal "penalty" for calling Osama bin Laden or suicide bombers terrorists. The use of the word "militant" was, on their own admission, adopted by news services like Reuters because they were threatened with retaliation if they used the word "terrorist." Intentional murder of civilians has been condemned by the UN, HRW, Amnesty International and Muslim religious leaders. Murder of civilians is condemned by rights organizations as a "crime against humanity." The current definition gives OBL and others a license to kill. There is no reason NOT to call such people terrorists. It is misleading to call them "militants" because that implies that they are in the same category as "militant" sufragettes who demonstrated for voting rights or groups that really do fight occupation in legitimate ways by targetting soldiers. A group that blows up a mosque with 130 people in it in Iraq is not a "militant" group, and a group that fires rockets in civilians in Israel or Iraq or anywhere else is not a "militant" group. They are terrorists. This term and the article is further abused when other articles describing terrorist groups or attacks call them "militant" and link to the "militant" article. Groups that are listed by numerous countries as terrorist and that routinely target civilians - eg - Al-Qaeda, Mujaheddin el Khalq, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah are not "militants." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mewnews (talk • contribs) 13:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * If there is a legality/definition problem, we should find a reliable source to the issue. I can't recall a case where a suicide bombing on civilians was subtitled as "militant" over the dictionary definition of "terrorist".
 * Loosly taking in from your comment,
 * I suggest you find a source about international law regarding terrorism and it's definition and I'll try to help you work it into the article.
 * The reuters story sounds interesting. If you can find a reliable source reporting about the issue (maybe reporters for freedom), then I'll help you with that one also.
 * On the generic topic, we usually say "declared terrorist by countries X,Y,Z" or something similar.
 * cheers,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  19:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The articles on terrorist, terrorism, etc. struggle considerably with the definition. The US State Department's definition seems to be often invoked, but some - with some justification - glosses over terrorism committed by sovereign governments. I agree that "militant" has become a euphemism, and my expectation is that the semantic shift will overcome it, making it synonymous by what we mean today with "terrorist." In the meantime, we can certainly concentrate on the specific crimes that the individuals commit. Blowing up buses with schoolchildren is murder. Flying airplanes into building is hijacking, kidnapping, and murder. I would be inclined to refer to OBL, etc. as "admitted murderers," or "indicted murderers," whatever the case may be. --Leifern (talk) 03:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup, words vs. terms
Wikipedia articles are normally about concepts or things, not about words. The current state of this article focuses on militant the term, rather than the concept itself, which I think is problematic. Earlier this month, User:DexDor used this coverage as a rationale for moving the article, though I think the better approach is to restore the earlier title and edit the article accordingly (in either order).

This is not to say we can't discuss how the term is used in the article, but that should take a back seat to coverage of actual militants, militant groups, or the phenomenon around them. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 02:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I've removed the cleanup tag as this is an article about a word - the lead has begun "The word ..." for a long time. The content of this article is (by the standards of much of WP) clear and well cited and the usage of the word may be notable so the content shouldn't be deleted (unless it's moved to Wiktionary). As this article explains there's several distinct (albeit related) meanings - left-wing politics, religion, terrorist/insurgent. I don't think it'd be easy to write an encyclopedic article on the last of those meanings (terrorist and insurgent are both currently redirects). DexDor (talk) 20:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I wasn't clear. I understand that the article currently covers this topic as a word, I'm saying that it shouldn't.  — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  20:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I notice you've removed the tag that I placed. I would think that my proposal was worthy of some tag or another; if a cleanup tag isn't in order, perhaps an NPOV one is?  Your call. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  20:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If you want to create an article about (a particular type of) militants then go ahead - the existence of this article doesn't prevent you from doing that. Whether this article should exist is a separate matter; WP does have some articles that are about the usage of words (Nigger, Bollocks ...), but if you don't think the usage of this word is notable then I suggest you take it to WP:AFD (possibly after copying some of it to Wiktionary). Regarding NPOV - you'd need to explain what it is about the article that is biased. DexDor (talk) 21:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)