User talk:Geo Swan/archive/2011-10

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Guantanamo military commission

I worked backwards from Military justice to Military tribunals in the United States. This article needs work on the cases settled so far and the current situation of the commissions. See Talk:Military_tribunals_in_the_United_States#Changes_proposed_.2F_saved_sections. Then I'm ready to tackle Guantanamo military commission.

Cheers! Mnnlaxer (talk) 20:42, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

OK. Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 21:35, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

TB

Hello, Geo Swan. You have new messages at Sven Manguard's talk page.
Message added 17:19, 23 October 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Sven Manguard Wha? 17:19, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

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Reliability of US military summary reports

Regarding this RS/N discussion.

• A government instrumentality is an agent, capacity, instrument, function, department, council, board, officer, etc of a government. A clearly involved instrumentality is a clearly involved party. Ie: they're involved in the incident they're reporting on.
• Proper seating and contextualisation of a document is putting the document in its proper context, "Report 14, a report written by Fred, a junior officer who wasn't present, but assembled the report based on interviews conducted by field officers with unreliable civilians who may or may not have been present, and who given the general civilian opposition to the military mission had very good reason to lie, said....". That seats (fixes into the discourse and narrative) and contextualises (gives the context surrounding) the document. This seating and contextualisation is quite obviously _original research_ which is one of the reasons why we don't use primary sources.

We don't and can't use primary sources, regardless of the perceived "authority" producing the source, as we would need to conduct original research to make proper use of them. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:46, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I saw from User:Fifelfoo that you are in the process of resigning. So forgive me for responding. I reverse order:

• One of my frustrations with wikipedia policies is how frequently they are changed. There seem to be subtle policy creepage in many policies, that is the result not of discussions that the policies should change, but rather due to good faith contributors making what they think are innocent and non-controversial copy-editing.

  You write that we can't use primary sources. My recollection is that various policy documents say primary sources can be used, so long as they are used carefully.

• Thanks for your clarification of "seating and contextualization".

  I'll ask, rhetorically, if you read Stephen Abraham's affadavit about his experience with OARDEC. Abraham was a reservist, an experienced intelligence officer, and a lawyer in civilian life. Many reservists who are lawyers in civilian life, serve as JAGs when called up. In his affidavit Abraham is critical of the inexperience and naivette of the other officers he worked with at OARDEC. That affidavit may provide some of the context setting you looked for.

  However, I wonder whether calling upon Abraham's comments would comply with WP:SYNTH.

• As to whether OARDEC -- the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants is, in your terms, "a clearly involved party -- involved in the incident they're reporting on." I think I addressed this in the discussion. Other people have told me they think OARDEC officers were involved in the captives' detention, interrogation. This is not supported by the documents.
  1. OARDEC officers were all chosen for their previous uninvolvement with the captives. None of the OARDEC officers had served as interrogators in Guantanamo, or as analysts in Guantanamo. None of them had previously served in Guantanamo at all.
  2. OARDEC did not answer to the camp commandants, or to the officers commanding Southern Command, that included Guantanamo in their command. OARDEC was a whole separate agency. Officially, those serving in OARDEC reported solely to the Designated Civilian Official.
  3. The OARDEC transcripts contain many passages that I suggest document how thoroughly unconnected the OARDEC officers were from the Joint Task Force Guantanamo chain of command.
     1. Captives were supposed to be given a copy of their allegation memo a few days prior to their tribunal. They were supposed to be allowed some paper and a writing implement, to make notes. One captive told his OARDEC Tribunal that guards had seized his papers, seized his writing implements. The officers told the captive this was between him and the camp authorities. They had no control over whether the camp authorities allowed him to keep his papers.
     2. As you may know all the captives had their hands and feet shackled, and bolted to the floor. Over a dozen captives complained that their handcuffs were too tight. The officers routinely told the captives that the handcuff rule was a JTF-GTMO rule -- one over which they had no control.
     3. An OARDEC officer was supposed to meet with the captives, prior to their Tribunals. They were to go over the allegations, ahead of time. They were supposed to learn if the captive thought there were witnesses or documents they needed. Dozens of captives were told that exculpatory documents, like their passports, or their address books, couldn't be found. Those captives said, (paraphrasing) -- "But I know my passport is here in Guantanamo! My interrogator had it with him during my interrogations!" I suggest this confirms the independence of OARDEC from JTF-GTMO. They could not secure enough cooperation from JTF-GTMO to get temporary access to exculpatory documents in the JTF-GTMO evidence locker.

On paper, OARDEC was a fully independent agency. Okay, The Designated Civilian Official was also Secretary of the Navy (and later a DEPSEC). On paper however it was a separate job.

It seems to me, given that OARDEC was designed to appear independent, wikipedia contributors who want our coverage to be based on the idea OARDEC was not independent are relying on original research. Geo Swan (talk) 04:49, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• SYNTH and OR the lot of it. Go publish in a peer reviewed journal. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:52, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I understand you are planning to retire. Let me say more briefly, I have to wonder whether it isn't you, or anyone who asserts this nominally independent agency, is not truly independent, is the one who has indulged in original research. Geo Swan (talk) 04:58, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
    • You are drawing original claims from a primary source; this is original research. It is this simple. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
      • WP:No original research says: "Wikipedia articles must not contain original research." some of what I wrote above would violate NOR -- if it was in article space. This is not article space, and I have never inserted those ideas in article space.

        On the other hand, I suggested that the idea that OARDEC is not independent is not "obvious", is not a "fact". It is a conclusion. So far as I can see, it is an unsupported conclusion, and I honestly can't see why modifying articles based on this unsupported conclusion isn't the lapse from NOR.

        Your replies are getting more terse. I thanked you for your first reply. Sorry, I am not finding these terser replies so helpful. Don't feel obliged to leave another response, if it is a terse one that won't actually help advance a meeting of minds. Geo Swan (talk) 05:35, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

        • Presuming that a primary source is neutral is a presumption. If you have a problem with policy, take it up with policy pages. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:21, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
          • The last time I checked policy did not prohibit the use of primary sources. Policy said primary documents can be used, so long as they are used carefully, and it said that primary documents didn't establish notability. Geo Swan (talk) 18:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Abdu Ali al Haji Sharqawi

I just stepped into a hornet's nest by moving the previous title, Al Hajj Abdu Ali Sharqawi to Abdu Ali al Haji Sharqawi, which was already created by you and redirected to the incorrect name Al Hajj .... The new spelling is used by the DoD, so I thought it the best one. Oh, no. Now I noticed the NYT has Haji, while earlier version had Hajj. Help! Mnnlaxer (talk) 16:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

short response

No one should be made to feel bad for making a good faith name change that they thought was a simple non-controversial transliteration correction, even if there have been discussions urging caution and standards in renaming the articles, if they weren't aware of those discussions.

When, if and how to rename the Guantanamo articles is something Iqinn and I didn't agree on. I remember trying to get them to engage in a general discussion in a central place over the common issues to ocnsider in renaming these articles, and being very frustrated that Iqinn wasn't interested. Iqinn remained interested in renaming the articles, and renamed a large fraction of them -- name changes I didn't agree with.

I'd welcome resuscitating the discussions I tried to initiate back them. Let me look for links to the earlier disucssions. Geo Swan (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

long response

Arabic names, and pashtun names, are very tricky. There is no standard mechanism for transliterating from the Ababic alphabet into European languages. Back in 2005, 2006, 2007, I did routinely move these articles from one name, to another, when it seemed to me that the new name is more reliable.

As an example of how tricky those names are, prior to the publication of the first official list of Guantanamo names I came across references to a captive named Ahcene Zemiri. When the first official list was published it was easy to reconcile the previously published names with the official names. But there were several dozen individuals whose names I couldn't reconcile with the official list. One of those was Ahcene Zemiri. It was over a year later that I realized that Ahcene, a transliteration used by francophones, sounded like Hassan, a transliteration used by anglophones. There was a Hassan Zumiri. It was tricky.

In late 2009 or 2010 User:Iqinn started to rename a lot of the articles. Iqinn would claim the name he chose was supported by "all the reliable sources" or reasonable equivalent. I think you can imagine, from your own experience with him, how he reacted when I found other reliable sources that used alternate transliterations.

He then claimed that the New York Times had employed experts in the transliteration of Arabic and Pashtun names when they chose which name they would use for their articles.

I suggested to him, on numerous occasions, that the issue was complicated, and those of us involved in editing the articles, should have a central discussion about renaming, and we should agree, ahead of time, how we would handle certain tricky issues, so that when and if we renamed articles, we all did so consistently.

Some of the captives testified, in their OARDEC hearings, that the camp authorities never got their names right, and that their name was something completely different than as officially recorded. Others told reporters that their names were completely different than the USA's official version of their name, after they were released.

I suggested to Iqinn that we address this common shared issue consistently, through that central discussion. Again, he refused to acknowledge there would be any value in a discussion. He was alarming inconsistent in his discussions as to whether the captive's own assertion of what their name was should take precedence over the DoD's version of his name.

In this the New York Times Guantanamo Docket was no help, as, in some cases they used the captives' version, and in others they used the DoD's version.

The Detainee Assessment Briefs published by wikileaks in April confirmed that the DoD had multiple alternate transliterations for most captives. The record shows they routinely dropped one transliteration for another, seemingly for no reason -- or because they were playing a shell game, and wanted to hide the captives from the lawyers hired by their family to help them.

As I noted above, as the DoD published more lists, more memos, for many captives they seemed to arbitrarily pick from among different translitations. I added a section to document the official use of alternate names.

Iqinn objected to these sections, as "dehumanizing". Sherurcij and I tried to engage Iqinn in a discussion as to who to rephrase that section to address his initial concerns. Initially it looked like he was going to agree that the sections were acceptable, following the rewrites. But, just when it looked like he had agreed he announced he would not agree. And, he ended up removing all those sections.

I repeatedly pointed out that for famous individuals who are known by a pen name, or nomme de guerre, like Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens, Lewis Carrol/Charles Dodgson, Joesph Stalin/Joref Djugashavili, we have to provide references to document that the individuals common name differed from their birth name -- even though most educated people know those common names are not the birthname. I repeatedly told Iqinn that, in my opinion, the same need existed to reference how the individual was known by multiple names. I don't remember Iqinn ever offering a meaningful reply.

I'd like to restore coverage of the documentation of the multiple names. First I would like to get input from other contributors on how to do that best. If I lay out the details will you agree to consider offering some feedback? Geo Swan (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. Mnnlaxer (talk) 22:16, 1 November 2011 (UTC)