Daniel Mayer wrote: That's trivialization. You apply NPOV to titles by avoiding characterizations. This makes titles shorter, not longer. If so, say it in the text. Orwell's society did not ban the word "freedom". It just reserved the right to insist that you understood it in a politically correct way. Totalitarian principles are more effectively spread when the subject population believes that it has freely adopted those ideas. I'm not saying that the word should be completely banned; there are places for it. Just not in most titles. Ec

I respond below to some of the issues Mav and others have raised in recent posts, arguing that labelling people like Bin Laden "terrorists" is passing a moral judgement, and if we indiscriminantly do so, then others can insist that the actions of our governments (US/UK for the sake of argument) should also be labelled "terrorist". My conclusion is that it is not in the interest of Wikipedia for the CIA to be labelled a "terrorist network". On 01/15/04 at 06:35 PM, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> said: No, I would argue that "terrorism" is really sui generis. Given its highly controversial nature, its strongly negative connotations, and its primacy in current affairs, I don't think we should draw any general principles. Ok, here it is: The Gulf War is not a good example, But I think we must acknowledge that there are a lot of people in the Third World, using *their* definition of "terrorism", who believe that the US has committed "terrorists acts" against civilian targets. As others have already pointed out in this lists, a "terrorist" or a "terrorist act" is largely in the eye of the beholder. As for 3) "by definition governments cannot commit terrorism": It seems to me that this qualification is selectively applied. "State terrorism" is a contradiction in terms where Western governments are concerned but not when it involves our "official enemies". Do a Google query on "libya + support + terrorism" (190,000 hits) or "Iran + support + terrorism" (476,000 hits) and you find documents containing such texts as: Does Iran sponsor terrorism? Yes. The State Department calls the Islamic Republic of Iran the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism." (http://www.terrorismanswers.com/sponsors/iran.html) Over the past twenty years, Libya has been foremost on the list of countries supporting terrorism. (http://www.ict.org.il/articles/article3.htm) If "sponsoring" or "supporting" is a meaningful distinction (I think not), than someone could argue that bin Laden is not a "terrorist"; he only supports it. In any case, it is beyond a doubt that the Reagan adminstration "supported terrorism" (first legally, later illegally) by its backing of the Contras whose goals were very much which Mav defines above, ie "to terrorize the civilian population." I regard this is strictly a tactical problem -- not a moral issue! This rationale does not hold water since countries like Libya and Iran. which we can assume do have something to loose, still appear to support it. I take it back. "Banning" was too strong a word. No, you are quite right: we do not want to "ban" words or ideas from Wikipedia. But I think we need to look carefully at how the term is used. To begin with, in recent days, two discussions have taken place on Talk pages ([[Osama bin Laden]] and [[Shining Path]]) over the insertion of the phrase "... is considered by many people to be a [terrorist | terrorist organization]" I am opposed (along with several others) to the inclusion of this phrase. I believe it uses weaselspeak to insert a moral judgement on the subject. We should simply allow the facts to speak for themselves. In the case of Shining Path, its atrocities were numerous, unambiguous, and well-documented. The case, as it were, speaks for itself. In [[Shining Path]], in response to the above, another user replaced it with the following text at the end of the article: Internationally, Shining Path is widely regarded as a terrorist group. The organization is on the United States Department of State's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, meaning (among other things) that it is illegal for US citizens to provide any aid to the group. The United Kingdom and European Union likewise list Shining Path as a terrorist group and prohibit providing funding or other financial support, although membership is not prohibited. This is an improvement. However, the assessment of an organization as "terrorist" is hardly just a technical, bureaucratic matter; it is not like declaring it in arrears or something. It is a moral judgement, and given that a state is not a moral agent (unlike say the Catholic Church) I would question the appropriateness of any government taking the high moral ground in this way, above all the US and the UK, given the fact they recently launched an illegal war against Iraq. "Let he without blame cast the first stone". However, in another article, [[Binational solution]], which many of you may have seen since it was one the Main page over Christmas, there is an instance of the use of the word "terrorist" which is appropriate. It forms an integral part of the historical narrative and is not included essentially as a moral judgement: The 1973 Yom Kippur War was both a military and a political disaster for the Arabs and the Palestinians in particular. The crushing defeat of the Arab armies prompted a fundamental political rethink among the Palestinian leadership. It was realised that Israel's military strength and, crucially, its alliance with the United States made it very unlikely that it could be defeated militarily. In December 1974, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) -- regarded as a terrorist group by the Israeli government - declared that a binational state was the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The change in policy was met with considerable confusion, as it was official PLO policy to replace Israel with a secular state with a full right of return for all displaced Palestinians. As I said in an earlier message, passing moral judgements -- directly or by means of weaselspeak -- goes both ways. If we insist on labelling Al Queda "terrorist", others can do the same with the CIA for example. Aside from whether I personally agree with this (an irrelevant matter), having the CIA labelled a "terrorist network" in the interest of balance is, from a strictly utilitarian point of view, counterproductive; it will only alienate an important part of our audience. Hence, lets not go down the slippery slope of labelling -- gratuitously at least -- bin Laden et al with moralistic, emotionally-laden terms like "terrorist". V.