Ed Poor wrote:
I hate to be picky, but were there any civilians involved in the "military" attack on the Pentagon? Like, passengers in the hijacked airliner? Crashing a planeload of civilians seems to qualify as "terrorist". In the sense that attacking civilians is for the purposing of arousing terror.
Well, what /was/ the purpose? Given the NY attacks, terror is likely. As for civilian deaths, remember the infamous Gulf War "collateral damage". Was that a terrorist attack by the United States armed forces?
Actually, I know people that claim that the Gulf War /was/ terrorism! But we're not going to put that into the article title.
But perhaps this issue is best discussed on the talk page. Unless there is a deeper or wider issue involved. Do we need a definition of 'terrorism'? Is it a question of /whose POV/ says that the hijackings and crashes says were (or were not) justifiable or "acts of war rather than terrorism"?
If somebody maintains that they were acts of war, then the article body -- not the title -- can cover that. We shouldn't make it [[September 11, 2001 war]] either!
Perhaps the problem is that the word 'terrorism' has multiple or shifting meanings. Like 'racism' is (a) prejudice or discrimination against a member of a "race"; but also sometimes (b) /unjustifiable/ racism, as by an oppressive majority against a defenseless minority.
Perhaps this issue cuts across a lot of topics:
- hate crime
- racism
- terrorism
- Communism
It does, I think. Such words generally shouldn't be in article titles. This is not to say that this is a fast rule, and obviously [[Racism]] itself is the right title. But (say) [[Racist church burnings]] is not so good.
To me, because of my simple-minded faith in my oh-so-simplistic "cult", it all boils down to a failure to love other people. Ah, if only we could apply WikiLove beyond the confines of our happy little virtual world!
/We/ can apply them -- even if the rest of the world does not! ^_^
-- Toby