User:Vanished user sdfkjertiwoi1212u5mcake/TerrorismProposal

My rough proposal for the Terrorism category hierarchy, spawned from a deletion review discussion at Deletion_review/Log/2006_November_8 Please give any and all comments! -- Irixman (t) (m) 16:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Category: Terrorists
 * Currently Recognized Terrorists
 * Terrorist Organizations
 * ENTITY terrorist organizations - sounds controversial, but could represent such groups as Hezbollah, a Lebanese group recognized by Israel as a terrorist organization.
 * Terrorist Organizations sponsored by ENTITY
 * Individual Terrorists
 * ENTITY terrorists


 * Former Terrorists
 * Former Terrorist Organizations
 * Formerly recognized ENTITY terrorist organizations
 * Former Terrorist Organizations sponsored by ENTITY
 * Formerly Recognized Terrorists
 * Formerly Recognized ENTITY terrorists

Examples
Hesbollah: Terrorist Organizations recognized by Israel, Lebanese Terrorist Organizations.

Nelson Mandela: Terrorist formerly recognized by United States (etc), Formerly Recognized South American terrorists.

Kach and Kahane Chai: Terrorist Organization recognized by United States, Israeli Terrorist Organizations.

Advantages

 * Hierarchical structure, allows easy traversal through nodes.
 * Reduces editorial voice by specifically indicating who identifies who as terrorists.
 * Integrates several top-level categories/lists -- Category:Terrorists, Category:State_terrorism, and List of terrorist organizations

Disadvantages

 * Cumbersome?
 * Lists too many categories on one article?

Comments

 * Please comment/flame away :) -- Irixman (t) (m) 16:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I placed this proposal for views on Wikipedia talk:Categorization, Village pump (policy), and Requests for comment/Policies. -- Irixman (t) (m) 16:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, on second thought, this isn't really a policy matter, so it seems misplaced at those locations. I removed the posts from Village pump (policy) and RfC/POLICY. I placed it at Village pump only, in order to get some comments. -- Irixman (t) (m) 17:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * While this may work for more localized terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh, that other countries simply haven't bothered to "recognize," international terrorists such as bin Laden would literally have hundreds of "Terrorists recognized by X" categories. Think also of the effect of opening of the categorization simply based on some country or organization declaring it; how many such categories would George W. Bush have?  ("Terrorists recognized by Venezuela," etc.?)  It would also encourage "War criminals recognized by X," etc.  That may be perceived by some as even-handed, but I think it just gives even more attention and weight to minority and extremist views than we have under the simple designation of "terrorist," which necessarily requires Wikipedia editors to consider all such designations, as well as how the subject is designated in the media, academics, and what their conduct actually was.  Postdlf 17:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Excellent thought, which I tried to address only to be hit with an edit conflict ;-) I tweaked the proposal a bit. I think the gist of the proposal, (at least the gist I want to convey) is to merge several extremely similar categories/lists into one, and try to remove the editorial voice from "terrorist". I strongly believe the actual merit of who is/isn't a terrorist should belong in the article talk page. I thought about Bush being labeled a terrorist, actually... hm. goes to the problem of what is a terrorist. Perhaps I should focus mostly on the category merger ;-) -- Irixman (t) (m) 17:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * In the CFD, I compared the supposed "editorial voice" in the use of "terrorist" to the use of "murderer." Both involve a necessary judgment as to the character and intent of the conduct at issue.  Yet it seems clear that it would be incorrect to equivocate all of those who have killed (soldiers, serial killers, police, domestic abusers, domestic victims acting in self-defense, hit men), without regard to whether that killing was "justified" or constituted "murder."  I'm not yet clear on why "terrorist" is necessarily of a different quality than "murderer," or what more bland term similarly embraces "terrorist" in the manner that "kill" does "murder."  Postdlf 17:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, but I think most of the griping regarding the "editorial voice" comes from the political connotation of "terrorist." I tend to agree that terrorist involves a judgment of intent; however, some would judge the intent differently. Some would claim that terrorist groups are no more evil than any partisan group. Personally, I feel the intent of a terrorist organization is to target civilians, specifically, and that is the marker of who is/isn't a terrorist. The issue of intent wouldn't play in as much with murderer -- a police officer who acts in self defense wouldn't be labeled by most as a murderer. I don't really see any way around the terrorist label. 136.165.202.187 18:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * But just as not everyone who kills is a murderer but all murderers have killed, what is the corresponding larger group to which terrorism belongs? Postdlf 18:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * "Freedom fighters", obvious! --Stephan Schulz 18:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No, that implies societally justifiable conduct in the same way that "killing in self-defense" does, rather than being devoid of that context in the manner of "killing." Also, not all terrorists are acting to secure "freedom" in any sense, even in their own words.  At best, it's another subset of the same parent as "terrorist."  Postdlf 19:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, can you name a counterexample? Of course, "freedom" is another wishy-washy concept...--Stephan Schulz 19:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The desire to reinstate a Shariah-based caliphate across half the world is hardly a goal to attain "freedom," nor do I think al-Qaeda has even attempted to characterize it as such. Postdlf 23:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, they do claim that they want to free the holy sites of Islam and Muslims in general from Western imperialism and influences. And Osama bin-Laden was regarded as a freedom fighter by the west in the cold war era, when he fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan. From his point of view, neither motivation nor methods have changed significantly, just the enemy. --Stephan Schulz 00:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That there may be overlap does not mean that "freedom fighter" completely embraces "terrorist" as you asserted above. Directly fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan to remove them from Afghanistan is a far cry from crashing hijacked planes into office buildings or bombing nightclubs.  But regardless, you had asserted that "freedom fighter" embraced "terrorist" as a neutral parent, just as "to kill" embraces "to murder," which is not what we're arguing about anymore.  Do you still assert that?  If not, let's move on to discuss "militant."  Postdlf 01:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I probably should have put a smiley on my original comment. It was intendet to illustrate the arbitrariness of the term "terrorist" as opposed to "freedom fighter". The designation is much more often political than based on the actual deeds of a person or organization. --Stephan Schulz 01:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think most people would hesitate to include "flies hijacked passenger jets into office buildings" as among the methods "freedom fighters" use, or "establishing a theocracy" as among the goals of "freedom fighters," outside of any particular political overtones. Had bin Laden captured a Russian airliner in the 1980s and flown it into the Hotel Leningradskaya, it's hard to imagine even the staunchest of Cold Warriors considering that within the realm of "freedom fighting."  Postdlf 04:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * What if the passenger jet carries a 4th Reich SS brigade (plain SS is civilian...) on their way back from a Kraft durch Freude holiday of rape and pillage in occupied Thailand and the office building contains the Reich Redhaired Relocation Administration? Or for another example: Independence Day (movie) portraits a kamikaze attack killing millions of sentinent beings in a positive way. Compare the bombing of USS Cole...Stephan Schulz
 * 1) Anachronisms of applying "terrorist" to Nazi-era conduct aside, no, that would not count as "terrorism" because the civilians were killed as an end in themselves ("civilian" has little meaning too if the civilians in question are acting as armed members of an occupying force). That would be closer to assassination, or perhaps simply mass murder.  2) Setting aside the issue of whether non-humans could be the victims of terrorism, no, that would still not be terrorism because the aliens in that film were not civilians in any meaningful sense, but rather invading soldiers waging war on Earth, and the kamikaze pilot wasn't really a non-state actor as he flew a military jet alongside the U.S. president.  Pearl Harbor was also not an act of terrorism by modern definitions.  If you're then going to analogize to Iraqis suicide bombing the invading/occupying U.S. troops, that's not terrorism either.  3) No, the U.S.S. Cole bombing was not an act of terrorism under U.S. law (as the article points out) or our definition, because the targets were not civilians.  Postdlf 14:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

A possible substitute term for "terrorist" might be "militant," so we should discuss whether it necessarily includes non-state actors who use methods of violence that intentionally target civilians, or whether it is overinclusive. Postdlf 19:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * For me, at least by connotation, someone like bin-Laden is not a militant, as he does not (to my knowledge) engage in physical violence himself. On the other hand, Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli troups are militants, but not terrorists. So I think that "militants" may be a useful label, but it is not a more neutral version of "terrorist".--Stephan Schulz 09:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * My problem with this category is that it will inevitably lead to edit wars. I don't think everyone will ever agree on what the definition of "terrorist" is, and what constitutes a terrorist group, especially with regards to former organizations. Perhaps the category needs to come with a template that says. "This group is recognized as a terrorist organization by x, y, and z. See the talk page before changing this article's category, etc etc." Perhaps a group needs to be recognized by more than (#) countries in order to be put in this category to avoid controversy? shoy 02:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)