Talk:Syrian terrorism

Terrorism vs. provocative or hostile actions
It seems to me that "terrorism" is not the same as "invading your neighbor" or "being involved in nuclear arms research". These are hostile and provacative actions for any country (just ask the U.S.), but they are not the same as terrorist actions such as supporting known terrorist organizations or the alleged assassination of foriegn civilian targets. This article is not titled "Syrian hostility", after all. -Harmil 20:23, 9 August 2005 (UTC)


 * This looks like WP:Point as a response to Israeli terrorism, and given the original author, I can only guess what's going on. As with Israeli terrorism, we need a reputable (preferably non-partisan) source showing of each incident that it was called an act of terrorism by a mainstream newspaper, or otherwise mainstream source. The uncritical inclusion of the Hindawi affair, for example, is dubious, and there are other acts listed not related to terrorism. The long quote at the beginning is inappropriate. I'm going to tag it until these issues are dealt with. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:36, August 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * There are several problems that I have here:
 * The quote is the basis for the article. The original text, which I removed, was a bad re-hash of it. What you've done is removed most of the modern context from it, leaving the old text which alters the sense of it, implying that Syria has not modified their international policies, when it is clear, even fromt he point of view of the U.S. State Department that they have.
 * There is nothing at all "inappropriate" about a long quote, especially one that is so dead on-point. The only problem would be that such a quote would not be defensible as fair use, but in this case its source is the U.S. State Department, and thus it is public domain. I don't, in fact, have to even treat it as a quote, but I am doing so for context.
 * I've removed all of the non-terrorism acts that I found. The invasion itself is not an act of state terrorism. It's an invasion, but it is there for one specific incident among the three or four wartime actions that were originally listed that can reasonably be described as an act of terrorism against the Lebanese populace (e.g. the mortaring of civilian students). I recall the incident, and I do recall several sources at the time refering to it as a terrorist action.
 * I dispute the NPOV tag. There is nothing left in this article, after I stripped it down, but the facts.
 * If you're concerned about the listing of the Hindawi affair, I can quote the EC's findings and their resulting condemnation of Syria, but I'm not sure exactly how you want that to sound "critical"....
 * Overall, I dont't see exactly what it is that you're concerned about now. Yes, the reason for the original creation of the aricle was a violation of WP:POINT (which is why I replaced it with a redirect to state terrorism), but the original author then included enough to go on that I was eventually able to par it down to what I think is now fiarly factual, if perhaps poorly structured. It's just a collection of facts, and could use more context and international commentary. I invite you to actually join in the editing of this article, rather than just chopping out swaths of it.... -Harmil 09:39, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the quote, we're supposed to read research material then write about it, not just quote it word for word. As part of a longer article, such a long quote might be justified, but it pretty well is the whole article as it stands. I haven't had a chance to look at the rest of your changes, but thank you for making them. Regarding Hindawi, I'm unsure of the extent to which that can be called state terrorism. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:45, August 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why you feel this way about quotations. What exactly would I write about this statement? It is concise, in that it covers a broad spectrum of terrorism-related topics which both implicate Syria and indicate a changing tide of foreign relations, but does not elaborate or editorialize. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, nor is it a paper encyclopedia. In either of those media, I could see shortening the quote and distilling out essential materials, but in this case, it seems like the US has been much of the driving force behind continuing to treat Syria as a terrorist state, so inserting the U.S. view in its most consice, but original form would seem reasonable. I suppose I could re-phrase the whole thing, but to do so (even though it's a PD source) seems somewhat unreasonable.


 * That said, I would absolutely welcome other points of view here, in order to achieve a more neutral article. Syria's counter-claims and international views would be valuable in addition to the U.S. statement.


 * As for the requested citation. The actual quote comes from, but more neutral sources document the fallout of the meeting on November 10, 1986 and


 * This was a fairly major event, and records of it are not hard to find. The archive of old EC announcements is currently off-line, but if you look at this Google archive, you will see the announcement on the 10th:


 * Thanks for finding the links. I've added the citation for the quote, and a BBC link about the trial to the first reference of Hindawi. I'll add them later to the references section. I don't agree about the length of the quote, but I won't revert you on it. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:09, August 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * If someone else feels strongly, I'm sure it will be edited. I've also modified the first paragraph, which failed to indicate the broader (that just US) consensus on the isssue. I also don't think citing GWB for what has been consistent US policy for almost 20 years makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your help in editing, and thanks for working with me on this. It's refreshing, especially on what could be a heated topic. -Harmil 18:18, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Is anyone uncomfortable removing the NPOV tag? Just curious. Coqsportif 21:35, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * If we keep the US-centricity out of it, I have no particular problem with removing both. Otherwise, I would go with, sinced I think SlimVirgin and I worked out the concerns over factual accuracy. -Harmil 22:14, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

US centrism
The idea that George Bush and PBS are "diverse" sources is a highly US-centric POV statement. I guarantee that in Turkey, that would not make much sense. There's also the matter of the US image as a conservative nation to consider. A "liberal" in the US is several steps right of a "liberal" in Europe (on average, though that's not to say the US doesn't have socialists and communists), so to say that the BBC, 20 years of US and UK governments and the EC agreed holds much more weight than to say "a US media company and a US president agreed". Further, the latter is a vast understatement of the level of consensus, even in the US. 3 US presidents' State Departments have listed Syria as a terrorist state, and one of those was a nominal democrat (though, again, far right of what a European would consider a liberal).

I hope this helps you to understand why citing US groups in the introductory paragraph isn't helping this article any. -Harmil 22:05, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes I take your point, there are many different examples of Governments, Institutions etc. of course who believe the Syrian regime guilty of funding/organizing terror. I have no desire to impose US-centric views but I can't agree that the assertion that the "US image as a conservative nation" is true, let alone well based, let alone relevant to this discussion. The generalization is neither true nor relevant. I won't enter into an edit war with you about it though, as I think you have dealt with the article very well despite wanting to delete it probably. I congratulate you on that. Coqsportif 23:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Citation requests
Recent additons of  seem to have been (I'm assuming good faith here) made rashly. For example: the lead sentence in a section was marked as such, and yet the entire section goes on to detail the citations that back up the claim. This article has been painfully sifted over for POV remarks (we really should have removed the  tag at this point), and simply going through and marking everything that doesn't (and sometimes that does) end in a specific citation without comment is counter-productive. The references section fairly reasonably covers the bases that are not already covered by all of the inline links. Piling the article with one inline link per sentence isn't going to make it any more readable, and won't actually add any information.

Now, should you come across something that you find is not backed up in the cited references, please do point it out. I'm not particular to anyone's POV here, I just came to clean up the article, so if you give me good reason to rip something out or find a citation for it, I'll be happy to do so. -Harmil 15:55, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Harmil, I agree that citations are needed. Most of the examples would not be considered acts of terrorism by mainstream sources. In particular, who has called the occupation of Lebanon terrorism? I moved the Hindawi material to its own section, which could do with a rewrite, as the key issue of the Hindawi affair was not that the European Union discussed it, but that Nizar Hindawi tried to down an El Al flight. As a matter of interest, where was the list of alleged terrorist acts taken from? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:10, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:SlimVirgin) Hi there. Your restoration of the "sources" in the intro of Syrian terrorism sort of misses out on the discussion that had been going on in the talk page. Specifically, those are not the sources involved. There is a much, much wider range of opinion addressed in the article, and to focus in on two US voices makes the whole article sound like a US-centric rant. The truth of the matter is that the EC was taking a hard-line against Syrian state-sponsored terrorism in 1986 without any need for a U.S. opinion on the matter (thought the U.S. did support the EC at the time).

You can see how this hurts the article by making it sound more POV than it is, I hope, and I ask you to please revert your edit. Thanks. -Harmil 16:59, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Hamil, I disagree with you about sources. An article like this has to be particularly careful to cite good sources. If you feel that two American sources in the intro is POV, by all means find others, but it makes no sense to delete the ones that are there and replace the sentence with: "Syrian terrorism is used here to describe [acts] ... which sources as diverse as many western governments and press organizations have called "state terrorism." If you can find the European Union, or any other Western government, referring to any of the acts you list as "state terrorism," by all means add them. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:16, August 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, and for the record, you've left off the citation there. The full text was


 * Syrian terrorism is used here to describe some Syrian military actions, covert operations, and financed operations, which sources as diverse as many western governments and press organizations have called "state terrorism".


 * Later -Harmil 17:22, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * You seem to be reacting to information that is simply not asserted by the article, and you also seem to think that I have an interest in this subject matter. It isn't and I don't.


 * I came here to clean up some POV assertions that I saw in a Recent Changes scan. I did so. Beyond that, I'm done. I don't have time or interest enough to want to fight over this article, and I've already spend way too much time on it, with my mycology and Native American work suffering for it.


 * For what it's worth re-read what I wrote in the intro of the Lebanon section. Note that no assertion is ever made that the invasion was a terrorist act. The assertion was that after the occupation, Syria was repeatedly accused of state terrorism (yes, state terrorism as it is defined by Wikipedia includes acts against a state's own people or occupied territory) in relation to their shelling of civilians in Lebanon and their (support of) assassinations of Lebanese citizens and their support of the Hizballah. The references in the references section are pretty clear on the matter, and having been a teen in the 1980s, I recall those assertions from the nightly news at least once a month.


 * But, like I say, I have more important work to do than keep re-editing content to find citations for every sentence of a document which is already fully cited in the refences section and throughout the body. As far as I'm concerned you can add the  tag in bold red to every other sentence and leave them there. Enjoy -Harmil 17:17, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * You cite Ta bu shi da yu on your user page as saying: "The best tonic for stupidity is correcting it with good sources," and he's right. If Syria has been repeatedly accused of state terrorism, it should be no problem finding good sources who say that. I'm sorry you feel this is a well-cited article, because it isn't, and our memories of what we've heard on the nightly news don't count. We need citations from mainstream academics, journalists, politicians, human-rights organizations, counter-terrorism experts, and the like, and we should either link to articles quoting them, or give a full citation if the material is not online. See Cite sources. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:30, August 12, 2005 (UTC)