Talk:Black operation

Delete

This article should be deleted. What little "content" it has, at best, falls under the Covert Operations article. Presumably a black operation is nothing more than a covert operation that the executing organization or government can completely deny. Any covert operation may potentially fit this premise. If such a thing exists, it needs to be addressed in the covert operation article. Aside from the above, this article has been around since November 2004; no one has managed to find any credible citations and the creating user does not appear to have had any credibility on this subject. Will a user with permissions please mark this article for deletion?

"In fiction": first stab at an edit

I've done some reworking of the "In fiction" section of this page, with an eye toward making it a little more coherent. I've tried not to remove much existing content, though a couple of sentences (one on cyberpunk in particular) got the chop.

Ultimately, I think the first paragraph in that section needs to be expanded a little bit to give a better perspective--and the list of examples needs to be cut waaaaay down. (I haven't yet edited said list very much for grammar etc.--not sure how much of it should even exist.)

That list, as a series of short unconnected paragraphs, used to more or less be the "In fiction" section; even as it now stands, though, I doubt that many of the things on it are illustrative/noteworthy enough. I don't want to start eliminating them myself right now--in part because I don't feel confident re my lexicographical abilities on this subject, in part because I don't want to annoy the folks who added 'em in the first place, in part because I don't actually have time, and in part because I've already done some replumbing that other interested parties should have time to react to. Iralith 22:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Isn't this article supposed to be called 'Black ops'?

Just asking. It seems to make more sense to me. JackSparrow Ninja 17:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a plural. Doesn't really matter.Veritas Panther 06:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

because it is not politcaly corrict so the term black operation was used to set aside any further qustioning from both media and the pupblic. black ops is a term used to shorten a sentence or keep the discusion further from the subject.

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Defining "Black Ops"

The definition of the term "Black Ops" should include an option that says "a project which, due to national security interests, is kept secret to prevent a premature leak of information to the nation's enemies; for example, the building and testing of a prototype aircraft or weapon system which would be useless if the enemy learned how to prevent it's usefullness before it was deployed." This is the legitimate definition which, if absent, leaves only a definition bearing a tone of claiming that ALL Black Ops are illegal or illegitimate, which is not neccessarily the case. While we might agree that ALL weapons are immoral when used immorally, some weapons or operations might be purely defensive if used only in a defensive capacity, regardless of the actual history of defense systems being used offensively.

Non-fiction black ops

The above list seems like a decent list of real-world black ops. Why are there only fictional examples in the article? Smooth Nick 02:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

What article? Igor Berger (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Black ops do not ask do not tell policy

set aside many other projest in wich case not all of the informaition can be made or prestnted to the media or puplic in wich case action is taken to sicure safty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aresofwar (talk • contribs) 07:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Duplicate Article

Black Ops is an identical article, with one exception. One of the tags on this article isn't on that one. The tag is...

Has this been discussed for one of them to be deleted or merged? I can't find anything on it. Leobold1 (talk) 03:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC) I fully support merging. Don't know how though...--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC) You horse jockeys couldn't get it right even if you tried. Go back to eating mayo from the jar at mom's house. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.108.167 (talk) 20:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Criminal Nature

I don't think the criminal nature of black ops is being emphasized enough here. The degree of Machiavellian cunning and amorality involved is tyrannical and black ops are against the laws of war and all civil laws. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.238.166.200 (talk) 13:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

not all are illlgeal, but simply highly secerate war-time missions. some are even simply recon missions. of course, the peace time missions where there are assasination and such are very illegal. 24.228.24.97 (talk) 01:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Is there ANY truth behind this?

The only way I know anything about supposed "black ops" operations is from the movies. Since this article cites no sources, is there any evidence at all, that this isn't just a fictional term?

I'm sure people will insist there are all sorts of secret machinations that happen in the shadows. However, this is an encyclopedia... and such secret machinations need to be publically sourced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petemyers (talk • contribs) 19:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

How do black operators recruit people? I mean, you probably don't just go somewhere to apply for black ops :P . Also, let's say black ops take place, organized by a government agency, why would it be illegal, because we don't know it takes place or would not approve it? Of course there is a truth behind this, assassinations take place all over the world without anyone knowing who did it or why. And when we're told that the one responsible for it is some random person, we have no reason to doubt it, but no reason to believe it either. I'm realy curious how people are recruited for black ops... some supercomputer checking everybodies internet history :P? Sorry for my english incase I misspelled something or so, I'm not from America.86.86.36.63 (talk) 22:57, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

- Special Forces members and Mercenaries.

~ most would be within military or para-military forces, so no groups gonna be posting on craigslist "need commandos for black ops mission" 24.228.24.97 (talk) 01:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Some Answers

Recruitment can be through normal army channels then individuals are specially picked for the units involved who frequently go under a cover name that implies a different role. Building a new weapon or plane is not a black op. Black ops are things like assassination of difficult journalists or false flag bombings aimed at promoting particular political causes. At a less serious level, as we know the CIA has appropriated funds for black ops on Iran. It is possible that the recent election problems were black ops. Previously I think 1952 the return of the Sha of Iran was a black op to promote US control of Iranian oil. This is of course also an objective today. Yes we can know about black ops through sources other than movies because quite a lot is now in the public domain even though those involved are not dead. However it must be clear to most people that those that carry out black ops would not consider the death of a few extra individuals to maintain secrecy, a job they would not do. I used to think that only communists and dictators did this kind of stuff but now its clear that many states do. Perhaps the only gauge as to the success of a state is the degree to which it does not lie to its people. Sadly people prefer sensational idiotic conspiracy theories to real black ops information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.83.202 (talk) 13:11, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete

Please can sombody who knows how delete this tab —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.87.16 (talk) 21:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Examples

How is it that this article doesn't have any examples? Surely there are plenty of then-secret black ops from the Cold War that have subsequently emerged? Without examples this isn't a very good article at all.

ManicParroT (talk) 06:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think there are enough examples under Examples in recent American history--B. Srinivasa Sasidhar 07:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bssasidhar (talk • contribs)

The examples were added some time after the above comment was made. --MelanieN (talk) 23:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Why I objected to the "proposed deletion" of this article

I removed the prod tag for several reasons. First, the rationale given was "non-notable," and that doesn't make a lot of sense. The concept is clearly notable. A more valid argument for deletion would be that this is mostly a definition and Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. Another would be that it lacks references.

Second, this article has existed for nearly five years and has been edited by many different editors, most of whom clearly found it to be worthy of inclusion. Any article with that rich a history should not be prodded; it requires discussion and consensus and a chance at rescue. Suggestions on the talk page such as adding examples (with references of course), discussions of the morality or legality of black ops (again based on references), etc. could make this a valuable article. If that doesn't happen, and if consensus at AfD goes against it, it should be redirected to Special operations rather than deleted, so that the editing history will be preserved. --MelanieN (talk) 18:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

And one other point: the page view record shows 2000-3000 page views per day. Such an article should be improved, not prodded. --MelanieN (talk) 18:57, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

There, I went ahead and added some examples and references. Other editors please add more. I believe the article is worth keeping. --MelanieN (talk) 19:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

There has been a real rash of vandalism to this article lately by IP accounts. I have requested semi-protection for it. --MelanieN (talk) 13:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

It sure has been a lot quieter at this article since the semi-protection went in! We used to be reverting about one vandalism per day. Nice not to have to do that. --MelanieN (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

This is page was clearly a victim of vandalism once again, I reverted the changes but I'm pretty sure it will come under attack again, unfortunately. 14:29, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting the most recent vandalism. It's been happening about once a day. I asked an administrator to take another look at this page. --MelanieN (talk) 15:49, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Additions

But just listing American Black Operations that article seems biased. Virtually every government in the world has done some sort of "black op", so it should be expanded and not just be an american black op page.

I completely agree. I originally created that section as "Examples in real life," but all the examples I could easily come up with were from recent America, so someone changed the title of the section. You are welcome to add more examples (with proper citation) and change the section title back. I also wanted a section "examples in fiction" and you are welcome to add stuff under that category as well. --MelanieN (talk) 14:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing

The sources for this article are extremely weak, news publications and blog articles. The latter don't comply with Verifiability policy and the former don't really meet the needs of that policy with respect to robustness.

I'm inclined to cull out everything that's dependent on the blogs and rephrase some of the rest to reflect the weakness of the sources.

Comments?

ALR (talk) 10:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The news sources are fine. The part on Conspiracy theories however, I'm not sure about. The rense.com[9], sbeckow.wordpress.com[10], and ufo-blogger.com[11] "sources" aren't trying to verify fact; they are establishing existence of occasional use of the term 'black op' to explain a lack of evidence in regards to Conspiracy theories. Which is probably true. So I'm inclined to leave it. It would be beneficial to have better/additional sources; but I don't think it's at a point where the content should be deleted. -- Aeonx (talk) 12:51, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I would disagree about the media sources, they have no credibility, no demonstrable access to domain expertise. I would also pretty strongly disagree that use of blogs is justifiable, they're explicitly identified as unacceptable in the policy and as a result all they can be used for is to support a statement that the author of that page identifies something as a black op, there is no assurance of the authors credibility, and given the nature of the websites we can have a pretty clear idea that actually they don't have a clue what they're on about.

Starting from the top, the biggest issue is that there is no definition of the article, that's sourced. Without that there is no basis for an article. If we can't clearly identify the topic, and anchor it in a reliable source then we should be considering whether this is a reasonable article in its own right or whether it would more naturally be a topic within another article that is more robust.

ALR (talk) 03:42, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Verification requirements

I highlighted the need for a sourced definition for this six weeks ago, quick as a flash nothing has happened. I've now added a number of requests for verification. I'd prefer that comes from a credible, reliable source and not some hysterical opinion piece from a newspaper. Given the number of degree courses in security studies there has to be some academic treatment of the issue and that would meet the requirements of wikipedia policies.

I've also removed the point about black budgets, it's probably more appropriate to the Black Projects article as a that's what the two sources applied to. Using it as a coathanger to include unrelated sources isn't a particularly productive approach to improving the article.

ALR (talk) 11:58, 3 January 2011 (UTC)