[WikiEN-l] Sep 11

Sat Jan 17 01:56:01 UTC 2004

Viajero wrote:
>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.

Supporting terrorism and having your regular troops commit acts of war are 
very different things. One is secretive and at least somewhat deniable (often 
more than somewhat), while the other is indisputable and direct. That is a 
very real distinction. A nation has a good chance of getting away with one, 
while the other will get them into a war. So 'state sponsored terrorism' is a 
very real thing. 

>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.

Yes of course! The accuracy of their usage is not relevant; only the fact that 
they say that is relevant. That is the type of info that can and should be in 
appropriate articles on the subject. But page titles follow common usage of 
English speakers (again, with the caveats of ambiguity and unreasonable 
offensiveness). 

>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. 

I thought that the phrase at OBL was "in the West he is widely regarded as a 
[[terrorism | terrorist]]". This is factually correct and taking it out is 
censorship and advocating for a certain POV. That will not be tolerated. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)