Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism/Guantanamo

Problem #1: A number of articles on Guantanamo detainees get proposed for deletion every month, some go "Keep", some go "Delete" and there's little consistency...

Problem #2: Somebody claims that the text of a paragraph dealing with ARBs is not neutral and updates it...however, it will remain in its old state on 800 other articles...we need a centralised discussion on what these paragraphs should look like.

Solution: A task-force to decide on the ideal 'template' for an article on a Guantanamo detainee, which information to include, which information to not include...and then slowly implementing the changes consistently across the articles.

---

/List of Templates

Names

• I'm personally in favour of using first names, common sense on any middle names (Abdul Rahman Rafiq should not be shortened to Abdul Rafiq, but Abdul Muhammad Rafiq could be shortened to Abdul Rafiq) and surnames from an Arabic-language perspective for the article title, while using the full name for the introduction. I also support consistent use of al-X surnames rather than "al X" "Al X" "Al-X" or anything else. We do not title Percival Lowell's article "Percival Lawrence Lowell", let's not treat Guantanamo detainees differently. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 09:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Opening paragraphs

• Right now opening paragraphs state "X is a citizen of Country who is held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internee Security Number is Z. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate he was born in Year, in City, Country." - I think this really doesn't do enough to establish any notability for the detainee, we should focus on bringing the allegations against the detainee right up into the introduction, X is notable because he is "alleged to have served as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden, and fought in the 2001 skirmishes around Tora Bora before being captured by bounty hunters" or something. Anything other opinions? Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 09:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

This page is about the Terrorism task force. For the Manual of Style guideline, see MOS:TERRORIST.

Home

Discussion

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The Terrorism task force is a task force that was founded in January 2006 by Sherurcij hoping to address the lack of information about individuals and events commonly associated with terrorism. Its parent project is Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography.

While we have to date limited ourselves to acts of violence against civilians by Violent non-state actors ("VNSAs") for political gain, users are encouraged to add their own new focus. It is impossible to fully separate "terrorism" from "counterterrorism".

This page contains suggestions about articles which should be created or need additional work. It is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of several Wikipedians, and you are always welcome to join, or ask questions.

Articles related to this task force's scope should be tagged by adding {{WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography|terrorism=yes}} to their talk page.

Goals

Our goals are to create, expand, and maintain articles relating to the subject of terrorism.

Workgroups

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography/Terrorism task force/Assessment - the assessment unit.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Terrorism - deletion discussions

Assessment

Terrorism articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	Total
FA	1	8	6	6		21
A				1		1
GA	2	4	9	36		51
B	18	67	110	305		500
C	24	92	240	1,035		1,391
Start	7	57	222	2,363		2,649
Stub	1	3	37	803		844
List	3	46	36	274		359
Category					3,620	3,620
Disambig					122	122
File					13	13
Project					3	3
Template					179	179
NA					537	537
Other					23	23
Assessed	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
Total	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 25,476			Ω = 4.67

Recognized content

No results were found.

Resources

• Template:Terrorism category definition, for use on category pages
• Template:User WikiProject Terrorism, for use on the user pages of project participants

• It needs to be shorter, it's a brief primer on introducing the concept of a CSRT to the reader, then can click the link to discover the history behind it.
• Since it doesn't mention the detainee's name at this point, this part could be templated if we can sneak past the template Nazis
• Image caption needs to be chopped down for length
• I'm mutable on the issue of the first reference to the "Bush administration", but feel the second one is definitely replaceable.Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 08:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

• I use [[George W. Bush|Bush]] [[United States President|Presidency]] in new material I add. And change instances of Bush administration to Bush Presidency.

• Templating, or something like it, would be extremely useful. It would allow changing the text in one place, and having it change everywhere. But, the original uses I made of templates were, I learned last fall, counter to policy. I learned this when Template:TalibanBounty was nominated for deletion.
  • The policy is, if I understand it, that templates have to have some tune-able aspect. The simple transclusion of text, into article space, is not allowed. I didn't know that. A lot of people don't know this.
  • I can see some arguments for prohibiting the simple transclusion of text. I think most wikipedians don't know how to use transclusion. So it makes the transcluded part of the article basically inaccessible to them. It is not transparent.
  • Maybe some mechanism that is like a template could be authorized for the simple tranclusion of text into article space?

• I've written, in the past, that the Tribunals were convened from July 2004 to March 2005. The rules on their operation were finalized in late July. Apparently the captives all had some kind of notice read to them in July 2004. But, recently, I read some stuff that suggests that Al Ajmi, the suicide bomber, was the first captive to have a CSRT convened, on August 2 2004. From my more recent reading it seems like the last CSRT that convened, when the captive could be present was in mid January 2005. There were some CSRTs convened after that -- but I believe they were all "do-overs". FWIW it looks like there may have been some do-overs for captives whose initial CSRT confirmed their enemy combatant status. Geo Swan (talk) 11:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

• Regarding "although 241 out of the 558 captives chose not to attend the hearings."...
  • I think a more than 317 attended their Tribunals;
  • I think the DoD has violated its court order and withheld a few, like Abdel Hamid al-Ghazzawi's. Note: Candace Gorman filed a habeas petition on his behalf, but his habeas package is not one they released.
  • The DoD seems to have withheld, at least, several dozen habeas petitions.
  • What about this replacement:

These Tribunals provided the captives' their first opportunity to officially learn some of the justifications for their detention. Captives were allowed to chose whether to participate in their tribunals. Close to two thirds of the captives did participate in their Tribunals.

• • Or this replacement:

These Tribunals provided the captives' their first opportunity to officially learn some of the justifications for their detention. Close to two thirds of the captives did participate in their Tribunals.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 13:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting permission to use templates for this from the relevant Wikiniches - I also tweaked the wording a bit per your suggestion to use "approximately two-thirds" since you're right, there's "no indication" for some detainees whether or not they participated, and our numbers might not be exact. Could we get a citation nonetheless to add to the template? Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 22:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll look for a non-DoD reference. In the meantime there is the DoD list, entitled: "Index to Transcripts of Detainee Testimony and Documents Submitted by Detainees at Combatant Status Review Tribunals Held at Guantanamo Between July 2004 and March 2005" -- which lists 360 captives. It is one of the lists the DoD published in September 2007. It took me about two dozen hours to interpolate it two years ago. My interpolation had some gaps. But their list contains a couple of errors too. Geo Swan (talk) 00:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

• OARDEC (September 4, 2007). "Index to Transcripts of Detainee Testimony and Documents Submitted by Detainees at Combatant Status Review Tribunals Held at Guantanamo Between July 2004 and March 2005" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Retrieved 2007-09-29.

Excellent, added it as a citation - it's perfectly valid. We'll want "third-party media" links somewhere in each Guantanamo detainee article if we can, but it doesn't need to be specifically in this section. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 03:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

This page is about the Terrorism task force. For the Manual of Style guideline, see MOS:TERRORIST.

Home

Discussion

Assessment

Participants

Deletions

Stubs

To-do list

The Terrorism task force is a task force that was founded in January 2006 by Sherurcij hoping to address the lack of information about individuals and events commonly associated with terrorism. Its parent project is Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography.

While we have to date limited ourselves to acts of violence against civilians by Violent non-state actors ("VNSAs") for political gain, users are encouraged to add their own new focus. It is impossible to fully separate "terrorism" from "counterterrorism".

This page contains suggestions about articles which should be created or need additional work. It is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of several Wikipedians, and you are always welcome to join, or ask questions.

Articles related to this task force's scope should be tagged by adding {{WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography|terrorism=yes}} to their talk page.

Goals

Our goals are to create, expand, and maintain articles relating to the subject of terrorism.

Workgroups

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography/Terrorism task force/Assessment - the assessment unit.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Terrorism - deletion discussions

Assessment

Terrorism articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	Total
FA	1	8	6	6		21
A				1		1
GA	2	4	9	36		51
B	18	67	110	305		500
C	24	92	240	1,035		1,391
Start	7	57	222	2,363		2,649
Stub	1	3	37	803		844
List	3	46	36	274		359
Category					3,620	3,620
Disambig					122	122
File					13	13
Project					3	3
Template					179	179
NA					537	537
Other					23	23
Assessed	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
Total	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 25,476			Ω = 4.67

Recognized content

No results were found.

Resources

• Template:Terrorism category definition, for use on category pages
• Template:User WikiProject Terrorism, for use on the user pages of project participants

What to do with Afghan training camps?

The wikipedia currently has articles on about two dozen Afghan training camps. I now think some of these article should be amalgamated.

I started most of these articles. At the time I started them I was going through the transcripts of the captives' Tribunal sessions, and creating articles about each camp, as I came across them. At the time I started them I honestly thought sufficient sources for all of them would come to light. Sources have emerged for some of them.

I found a source that quoted Indian intelligence officials who estimated that there had been over one hundred training camps in Afghanistan, and in the FATA -- ie camps run by outside groups that the Taliban allowed to operate, or were run by groups rebelling against the Taliban, or run by tribal militias in the FATA.

Privately, not for article space -- I suspect that many of the camps the OARDEC documents list as separate camps, were duplicates -- camps which were known by several different names. There are various indications that the Urban Warfare camp, the Kandahar airfield camp, and Tarnak Farms are all the same camp. Those indications don't rise to the level of WP:RS, so no speculation belongs in article space. I am noting this here because I am going to keep my eyes peeled for WP:RS. If anyone else comes across WP:RS that can confirm which camps had multiple names I'd appreciate a heads-up.

I think the camps for which the only sources are OARDEC allegation memos, and those allegation memos merely say a few captives attended the camp, but don't provide any other details, should be amalgamated. Geo Swan (talk) 18:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The West Point Study has two lists of camps. The most important list includes 11 camps.

• Joseph Felter, Jarret Brachman (2007-07-25). "CTC Report: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries". Combating Terrorism Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-08-30.

• Update -- Since I drafted this proposal another contributor has nominated most of the articles on training camps for deletion, one by one. I do not think the individual nominations were collegial, or otherwise consistent with wikipolicy. Some closed as redirects, others closed as deletes. I am considering initiating a DRV for all of them, so that their histories can be restored, to facilitate merging with a broader article. Geo Swan (talk) 11:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

After the last closure of Al Fand training camp I placed a {{mergeto}} Afghan training camp on it. I drafted the following, to place there. But I decided to try to transclude the material both here and there.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism/Guantanamo/What to do with Afghan training camps?/Merge less well referenced articles to Afghan training camp... or to a new article...

Merge less well referenced articles to Afghan training camp... or to a new article...

The Felter study listed 38 camps by name. The Felter study does not list all the camps named in OARDEC allegation memos. It doesn't even list all the camps named in the CSRT allegation memos, just the first 516 memos to be published. So far 572 CSRT allegation memos have been published. In addition the allegation memos published from the annual Administrative Review Board hearings were more detailed. Over one thousand ARB memos have been published, some of which list previously unnamed camps.

An alternate target for the merge could be named something like: Training facilities allegedly attended by Guantanamo captives.

• Not all the camps were in Afghanistan. Some seemed to be in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The FATA are Pashtun territory, so it is not that much of a stretch to list them in the article on Afghan training camps. But other camps were near disputed Kashmir, near the Indian border. Still other camps were alleged to be Chechnya, Bosnia, the Phillipines and Indonesia.
• Not all of the camps were fly-by-night jihadist camps. A few of the captives had, listed as allegations that justified their continued detention, attendance at training camps back in their home countries, in their youths, when they were undergoing compulsory military service. One guy had listed what sounded not like a military training camp, but a mundane summer camp, for kids, that included a rifle range.
• Some camps seem to have been official Taliban camps, not camps run by al Qaeda, or the Hezbi Islami Gulbuddin, or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. And I wonder whether there are grounds to treat the official Taliban camps differently. Geo Swan (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• Joseph Felter, Jarret Brachman (2007-07-25). "CTC Report: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries". Combating Terrorism Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-08-30.

It has always been my position that the OARDEC allegation memos are themselves secondary sources, because the authors of those memos were charged with the responsibility to go through the reports from half a dozen or more other agencies.

• It was their responsibility to detect duplicative material, and strip them out.
• It was their responsibility to detect contradictions, and reconcile them, or assess which version was the most credible, or, at least, make clear there were contradictions.
• it was their responsibility to assess whether material in the reports they reviewed was no longer credible, and had been superceded by newer information.

I believe that by all reasonable definitions of the distinction between a primary source, and a secondary source, the responsibilities on the authors of the OARDEC memos clearly make them secondary sources. So camps that are named in an OARDEC memo, but aren't named in a press report, or a scholarly article, like the Felter articles, are, nevertheless, named in an WP:RS.

Therefore I think it would be appropriate to list all the alleged training facilities listed in the OARDEC memos, without regard to whether they were also listed in the Felter memo, or any other non-OARDEC source. If there is no WP:RS that describes them as an "al Qaeda camp", we should not describe the camp as an al Qaeda camp. Similarly we need to be careful not to list them as a "militant" camp, or a "military" camp, or a "terrorist" camp, if the WP:RS don't say that. However, I believe it is not original research to characterize these as camps allegedly attended by Guantanamo captives, because that is exactly what the WP:RS say. I do not believe it would be original research to say that alleged attendance at one of these camps was offered as a justification, in part, for continued detention in Guantanamo. Geo Swan (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

As I think I suggested considerably earlier, I agree that a merged article on them all would be best. I think a request for undeletion to permit the merge would probably be the best course. I like his new suggestion for Training facilities allegedly attended by Guantanamo captives. as a title--there were various suggestions in some of the AfDs that the inclusion of "Afghan" in the title was in some way undue weight or POV; I still do not see this, but it answers the objections. and is better than any title I was able to devise. I remain confident that over the course of the next 10 years or so there will be adequate academic and non academic sources in various languages for individual articles, but this does not appear to be the case yet. DGG ( talk ) 19:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

This page is about the Terrorism task force. For the Manual of Style guideline, see MOS:TERRORIST.

Home

Discussion

Assessment

Participants

Deletions

Stubs

To-do list

The Terrorism task force is a task force that was founded in January 2006 by Sherurcij hoping to address the lack of information about individuals and events commonly associated with terrorism. Its parent project is Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography.

While we have to date limited ourselves to acts of violence against civilians by Violent non-state actors ("VNSAs") for political gain, users are encouraged to add their own new focus. It is impossible to fully separate "terrorism" from "counterterrorism".

This page contains suggestions about articles which should be created or need additional work. It is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of several Wikipedians, and you are always welcome to join, or ask questions.

Articles related to this task force's scope should be tagged by adding {{WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography|terrorism=yes}} to their talk page.

Goals

Our goals are to create, expand, and maintain articles relating to the subject of terrorism.

Workgroups

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography/Terrorism task force/Assessment - the assessment unit.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Terrorism - deletion discussions

Assessment

Terrorism articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	Total
FA	1	8	6	6		21
A				1		1
GA	2	4	9	36		51
B	18	67	110	305		500
C	24	92	240	1,035		1,391
Start	7	57	222	2,363		2,649
Stub	1	3	37	803		844
List	3	46	36	274		359
Category					3,620	3,620
Disambig					122	122
File					13	13
Project					3	3
Template					179	179
NA					537	537
Other					23	23
Assessed	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
Total	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 25,476			Ω = 4.67

Recognized content

No results were found.

Resources

• Template:Terrorism category definition, for use on category pages
• Template:User WikiProject Terrorism, for use on the user pages of project participants

This page is about the Terrorism task force. For the Manual of Style guideline, see MOS:TERRORIST.

Home

Discussion

Assessment

Participants

Deletions

Stubs

To-do list

The Terrorism task force is a task force that was founded in January 2006 by Sherurcij hoping to address the lack of information about individuals and events commonly associated with terrorism. Its parent project is Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography.

While we have to date limited ourselves to acts of violence against civilians by Violent non-state actors ("VNSAs") for political gain, users are encouraged to add their own new focus. It is impossible to fully separate "terrorism" from "counterterrorism".

This page contains suggestions about articles which should be created or need additional work. It is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of several Wikipedians, and you are always welcome to join, or ask questions.

Articles related to this task force's scope should be tagged by adding {{WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography|terrorism=yes}} to their talk page.

Goals

Our goals are to create, expand, and maintain articles relating to the subject of terrorism.

Workgroups

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography/Terrorism task force/Assessment - the assessment unit.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Terrorism - deletion discussions

Assessment

Terrorism articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	Total
FA	1	8	6	6		21
A				1		1
GA	2	4	9	36		51
B	18	67	110	305		500
C	24	92	240	1,035		1,391
Start	7	57	222	2,363		2,649
Stub	1	3	37	803		844
List	3	46	36	274		359
Category					3,620	3,620
Disambig					122	122
File					13	13
Project					3	3
Template					179	179
NA					537	537
Other					23	23
Assessed	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
Total	56	277	660	4,823	4,497	10,313
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 25,476			Ω = 4.67

Recognized content

No results were found.

Resources

• Template:Terrorism category definition, for use on category pages
• Template:User WikiProject Terrorism, for use on the user pages of project participants