User talk:Randy2063

Archive 1 - thru January 2008

Archive 2 - thru January 2009

reply

Thanks for your interesting reply. So, if the little old lady claims she thought she was donating to a legitimate charity, and an investigator says: "Save me the time and trouble of getting a court order, tell your bank to open your bank records so we can start to trace your donation." -- and she says, "beat it flat-foot, come back with that court order..." she is a terrorist sympathizer, not an ACLU fan?

But, if they asked her to show the brochure where she learned about suspect charity, and she said she didn't keep the brochure, or she couldn't find it -- I think it would be a mistake to regard this as a sign she was in league with the bad guys. People do routinely throw out brochures. People do forget innocent incidental encounters.

Have you read the report of why Nick Berg was apprehended in Iraq? I read he was using his laptop in a wifi enabled coffee shop, and charitably agreed to let a stranger borrow it for a few minutes to check his e-mail. I read the stranger was Zacharia Moussaiu.

People can differ on how much liberty they are willing to sacrifice for security.

But I think there is a whole other issue. The more I read about these topics, the more I doubt whether the unwillingness to extend any benefit of the doubt, has made the public any safer at all.

Take Guantanamo. Detaining those men there has cost something like a billion dollars. And it has tied down 6 or 7 thousand GIs. It is hard to imagine why it requires 10 guards and interrogators for every captive. But Guantanamo has tripled in staff since the camp opened -- and that is 6 or 7 thousand GIs. The USA is desperatively short of GIs. Would the safety of American citizens be improved if most of the guards and interrogators were transferred to regular military duties? Probably.

And even if they weren't, I just don't believe the DoD claims that Guantanamo has been a source of valuable intelligence. The USA lacked analysts with the proper training back in 2002. They lacked the necessary understanding of Muslim culture. Thay lacked interrogators, and those they had included quite a few incompetents. And it doesn't seem like the situation has markedly improved, since then.

One of the first transcripts I read back in 2005, was of a young guy, who claimed he had gone to Afghanistan as an Islamic teacher -- yet he didn't speak any Afghan languages. The officers on his Tribunal clearly dismissed his claim. And do did I. He did say that he had memorized the entire Koran, word perfect.

I didn't know enough about Islam at the time to understand that the kid's claim was credible. In Islamic cultures boys are encouraged to memorize the entire Koran, by rote. They are encouraged to memorize it in Arabic, even if they can't understand a word of Arabic. I do find this kind of shocking. Richard Feynman devotes a chapter of his autobiography to the abuse of Science he found when he spent a sabbatical year in Brazil. He told a parable about a scholar in ancient Greek, traveling to a country where he found everyone studied Greek, even little children -- and initially being very enthused by this study -- only to feel incredibly let down when he realized that it was all rote learning -- and these students of ancient greek didn't understand anything.

I read the recently published 2007 documents from the rich Saudi/Pakistani guy who was repatriated back in August. Some analysts had concluded, shortly after his capture, that he might have had some jihadist sympathies, but that he was basically just a braggart, who shot off his mouth to some real jihadists, and who, in turn, had taken advantage of the youth and inexperience of their interrogators, and had told them this blow-hard they had just met was

It turns out he had been a child prodigy -- had memorized the entire Koran at twelve years old -- had participated in Koran recital contests, where he had won $5 million. So, it is completely credible that a prodigy could be thought to be capable of teaching kids who didn't speak his language. Since all the kids he was teaching were expected to do was rote memorization, it didn't matter whether they spoke Arabic at all.

There was a meme floating around about ten fifteen years ago -- that there was a vast underground network of adults practicing the ritual satanic abuse of children. Investigators inexperienced with questioning children efforts to question the children who fell into their hands was disastrous. They were completely unaware of how easy it was for children wanting to please adults, and how easy it was to drop clues for what the investigators were looking for. The interrogation of the suspects in Guantanamo shows all the same errors as the questioning of those children -- except that they didn't use extreme methods on the children.

The theories these investigators spun about the stories they drew from these children grew less and less credible. They did no sanity checking. They had no quality control. They overlooked glaring inconsistencies. They overlooked the implied math dilemmas in their theories. Those investigators didn't make children any safer. And the Guantanamo investigations remind me of the satanic ritual abuse investigations. One of the things the two investigations have in common, is that ritual satanic child abuse, if it were real, would be incredibly shocking, and the 9-11 attacks were incredibly shocking too.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 08:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

In reply to the comparison between the CSR Tribunals and AR-190-8 tribunals... I decided not to put this on the article's talk page...

On this we differ. Both proceeding have three officers, and follow very similar rules of procedure -- but there is a crucial difference in their mandate. AR-190-8 tribunals would use the Geneva Convention definition of "combatant". The CSR tribunals used a much looser definition. Using the GC rules a demobilized veteran is a civilian. But dozens of the Guantanamo captives had justifications offered for their continued detention that relied on military service, or military training, years or decades prior 9-11. Some of the captive seem to have sincerely thought they were not combatants, because they didn't fight Americans, or never fired their rifles. But I think they were wrong, that under the GC definition of combatant, a single shift of guard duty, on the front line, or of a military installation, during war-time, would make one a combatant. Some captives had alleged participation in hostilities in Chechnya or Bosnia offered as a justification for considering them enemy combatants. Some captives had their military service during the 1991 Gulf War offered as a justification for classifying them as "enemy combatants" -- even though they served on the US side. Now it is quite possible for an ordinary Saudi foot soldier to serve in the army in 1991, and become radicalized afterwards and join al Qaeda. But that prior military service, during another conflict, would not make them a combatant using the GC rules. So, they way I see it, the overall similarity in their rules of procedure is less important than the different definition of combatant they use. In 2007 Allred and Brownback dismissed the charges against Hamdan and Khadr, because the MCA authorized trying "illegal enemy combatants" and their CSR tribunals had only determined that they were "enemy combatants". The Court of Military Commission Review ruled that the Presiding Officer had the authority to determine whether the suspects were "illegal combatants". So, the actual suspects who face charges didn't get a competent tribunal determining whether they could be charged at all. Geo Swan (talk) 17:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you wanted me to elaborate. I'm not against outspoken little old ladies.

A court order to compel testimony from that hypothetical little old lady would be fine in U.S. criminal law, but, although judges do lock people up without trial to compel testimony, this isn't criminal law, and she's not in the U.S. The CSRT is all that's legally required.

If she had truly made an innocent mistake then, sure, it's important for the interrogators to figure that out, and I'd hope they do as best as possible. But that doesn't exempt her from the moral responsibility to assist them. This is especially true when there were a lot of people (including many innocent Afghans and Iraqis) being killed in the war everyday.

I don't like that GTMO costs so much money, but that's really a separate issue. Supermax prisons have high construction costs, too, and they require a lot of guards. The per-detainee costs would come down if they numbered in the thousands.

I'm sure they did get information out of the detainees. I think it was you who gave me a source about the FBI's success through rapport-building.

One of the links between GTMO and Abu Ghraib came when the DoD decided they weren't getting enough intel in Iraq, and so they sent people over from GTMO. This implies some level of satisfaction with the results in GTMO.

I imagine that the Tipton ex-detainee who broke down on TV had probably folded pretty fast in GTMO, and the other two would have followed. (Keep in mind that we don't have CSRT reports giving us any part of the DoD's side of that story.) Their information should have been easy to check. The three must have known a lot of like-minded people the UK, and where they met. That's more important than asking about enemy troop movements in Afghanistan.

If the rich Saudi/Pakistani guy was a braggart with jihadist sympathies, then his fate was pretty much asked for. Yes, it could have been a waste of time for the U.S. But that he has wealth suggests connections that would be valuable to know about. He could have been donating to jihadist causes over the last few years, and so it may be just as well that he was locked up.

Your comparison to kids' stories of ritual satanic abuse is a good one but you should consider that can work both ways. Whereas you apply it to interrogators, it can just as readily be compared to the press and the anti-GTMO "human rights" movement. Almost everything detainees said against the U.S. was taken at face value.

There are five problems with using the Geneva Convention definition of combatant.

1. We don't need to. If the Supreme Court says Common Article 3 applies then there's no requirement to go beyond that. If you think the GCs are important then articles 2 and 3 cannot be ignored. As I read it, Allred and Brownback were making a procedural ruling based on the CSRT's failure to define them properly. A competent tribunal could have made the same error.
2. I don't know that GCIII could make that big a difference. Even if, as you say, some of them would never fit GCIII's definition of combatant, they could still be detained under GCIV.
3. Our enemies haven't made any attempt to conduct themselves in a way that would merit the full GCIII.
4. This isn't an easy gesture with no downside. Recognizing enemies as legitimate soldiers even though they hide behind children gives them additional respect without asking anything in return. It would reward their atrocities.
5. This ball shouldn't be in America's court. It's in that of the war's critics. Common Article 3 does encourage special agreements. Surely, you must have noticed all the contacts between radical Muslims and "peace" activists. There are more than ample lines of communication for them to ask their friends to respect the laws of war in exchange for making these special agreements.

And if they're not willing to meet Common Article 3, why should we bother with the rest? The war started 7 1/2 years ago. They should have done something by now. Remarkably, the war in Iraq is effectively over, and yet, they had never seriously asked their friends to stop fighting.

Look at it this way: Activists on the far left use some misguided veterans (like IVAW) to protest U.S. policy. Why aren't they be asking radical Muslims to protest against terrorists? A lot of extremists attend these events (including open supporters of Al-Sadr -- there's a long relationship), but they only protest against the U.S. Even if they don't want peace, at the very least it should be asked that they renounce torture. The so-called "peace" activists don't even ask for that. There's really no excuse for "peace" protesters to support the worst torturers on earth. Eventually, you'll have to realize that they simply don't care about human rights.

It is in this same way that Moazzam Begg's plea for those kidnapped CPT activists is very revealing. That was a group of left-wing anti-American extremists. If they were all genuinely interested in peace, he and they should have been making similar calls for the Islamists to come to some sort of terms with their obligations in war. Instead, Begg was released in 2005, rallies Muslims against the U.S., and seven months later the London bombings occur. I'm not saying that was a tangible link, but I do believe he became an active part of the general jihadist momentum and chose to do nothing to stop it. And more important, no one asked him otherwise.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Seton Hall on Guantanamo recidivists

I know you have problems with how to address the concerns of the Seton Hall team, still, I figure there is a way to cover this document in a neutral way.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 08:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it.

I do agree that they're valuable.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Human rights in the United States

An article that you have been involved in editing, Human rights in the United States, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human rights in the United States (2nd nomination). Thank you. Rockstone35 (talk) 02:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I really want your opinion

You're a moderate voice, and I value your opinion regarding terrorism issues. I have had a serious problem with how CSRTs are described, and I think they fork into a POV dissertation.

I have made a change in a couple of them, with the intention of describing what a CSRT actually is, imparting information, but not a POV. I just want your opinion as to what you think. I based this description on a congressional report linked as a source. [1]

Thank you.Yachtsman1 (talk) 23:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks okay to me. There's probably a newer version of that reference, which would be good to find before you do too many of these.

Be sure that you familiarize yourself with the templates in use for this sort of thing. You can find them here. You may be stepping over the CSRT one. My guess is that you should make the changes there, and then make this one use that template.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 05:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, I wouldn't be so quick to throw away the line about "Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation." While I think it's expressed in a POV manner, we need to remember where the critics stood. I don't ever want to let them forget that, for a while at least, they claimed to care about the GCs.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 06:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Good thoughts. I made the change, and it caught one of the templates. There were subsequent changes made after that. I just think we should explain exactly what a CSRT actually "is", and I think that's being overlooked right now. I also agree that the critics have shifted positions now that numerous organizations have found GTMO is compliant with Art. 3. It is now more about the fact they are being held at all at GTMO. My thoughts are what's the alternative? If you put the worst into super-max in Colorado, they would be hanging themselves in true solitary left right and center. If you put the rest into general population, the other prisoners would kill them without a single qualm. If they threw feces at the guards as they do without real consequence at GTMO, they would be beaten to the point of death. I don't think the most vocal critics have thought this out carefully, and they should. Federal pens are no joke, and things are definitely not greener on the other side.--Yachtsman1 (talk) 21:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you want to provide input?

The latest fight, on attorneys. I edited this story to eliminate the prior cases (all four of them) litigated by the subject as irrelevant. Of course, it was changed back. Your thoughts would be appreciated. [2]--Yachtsman1 (talk) 20:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI

About a dozen individuals from Category:Guantanamo Bay attorneys have been nominated for deletion in the last day or so. The most recent is Jeffrey J. Davis, which you worked on.

I started many of them. I think I must have had a case of tunnel vision, and not seen clearly that many of them wouldn't get much support if they were nominated.

I am going through those similar articles on Guantanamo attorney I started, which no-one else worked on, and am moving them to my user space -- where I can work on them without time pressure, and see if I can beef them up.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 07:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to give this some thought. I hate deleting things.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 22:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

hangon

wen you place a hangon tag on an article, please remember to not remove the speedy tag. Just add it as well. DGG (talk) 21:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

owning up

Let me share something with you. Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul -- I thought his testimony sounded reasonably credible. According to this story in The Times it seems very likely I was wrong. You and I read the same transcripts. You were more skeptical about the credibility of the captives' denials. Let me own up -- developments around this guy suggests I should be more skeptical.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 05:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's not wrong for you or I to be fooled once in a while.

This one is such a big mistake that I wish even more that we had access to whatever was in the classified portion of the CSRTs. I don't know if I'd feel better or worse to find out they had nothing more than what's already been made public.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 21:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

fyi

In case you are interested this document contains a more recent list of CCR lawyers... pages 39-42. Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 06:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Randy2063 (talk) 21:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought you might be interested...

Clive Stafford Smith -- not one of your favourites, if I recall.

I think I saw you discuss a claim CSS made, that documents were being withheld from Obama. FWIW here is an account with some details.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 03:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that makes my day even though I doubt it'll come to jail time. But if it does, maybe Binyam Mohamed can send Stafford Smith a cake with a file in it.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 03:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

More details.... http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1:2008mc00442/131990/1741/0.pdf Geo Swan (talk) 03:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I haven't bought a video game in about ten years. But maybe I will buy the one set in Guantanamo that brought Moazzam Begg on board.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 18:03, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The company is here. But they messed up in a PR sense by not having a page on the site to go along with their press coverage.

I wonder if it'll be legal in Germany. You might hold off buying it until they release version 2.0. It could have gallows. :)

-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Some of the coverage I found states that the games doesn't show any US or UK soldiers being killed. It is set in 2010, when the camp has been sold to private industry, the guards are mercenaries, and the remaining captives are being subjected to medical experimentation. The character's goal is to rescue one of his children, recently brought to the camp. I guess it is not as far-fetched as Doom.

I found a preview teaser on the game maker's web-site. It doesn't really show anything.

I'll probably find my old Pentium 4 1.6 isn't powerful enough to run the program.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 23:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

That explains a lot. I was confused about how much fun a game could be if it involves sitting around tied up and reading Harry Potter novels.

The experimentation reminds me of a scene in Valley of the Wolves Iraq (never seen it) that suggests organs are harvested for Americans and Israelis.

Well, if the detainee uses the kid as a human shield then that would be a touch of realism.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 21:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

3RR Warning on Enhanced interrogation techniques

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. Dlabtot (talk) 17:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Institute for Southern Studies

You're missing it. I realize they are partisan, but they are also not a human rights organization. They are sefl-described as a "research" group.[3] Amnesty Int. or Human Rights Watch are "reliable" on the subject of human rights, but ISS is not. Look through the comments detailing how non-human rights organizations are not "appropriate" as sources because they are per se "unreliable" by the author you are now debating on this subject.Yachtsman1 (talk) 05:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right, Yachtsman, although technically they're really ideological rather than partisan. Either way, I don't know if V really thinks they care about human rights. It's a difference he's not likely to concede recognizing, anyway.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Your thoughts would be appreciated

Randy: [4]. I have started this talk thread in order to address something that has been nagging at me for some time. Namely, the fact that every one of these detainee articles (and most of the others) uses primary sources, and not secondary sources as required, which undeniably violates wp:rs. It reaks of original research, and in my opinion is a fatal flaw that infects the entire terrorism-related project. Your thoughts, which I have always respected in this area, would be deeply appreciated. Thank you again.--Yachtsman1 (talk) 05:23, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you want to comment?

[[5]]

This is on Camp X-Ray, and Geoswan and I are arguing over whether a DOD employee should identify himself when he makes a comment on the subject. As a matter of principle, I really do not like this proposal for the reasons I state (i.e., motive-assignment, censorship, etc.). Any take by you on the subject would be very much appreciated.--Yachtsman1 (talk) 18:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

wow

haven't seen an editor with such a clearly troubling POV in a while. 76.105.223.232 (talk) 12:58, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

You need to get around more. -- Randy2063 (talk) 18:58, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

fyi

This story is hard to believe.

If you come across irresponsible coverage of it, coverage that implies it is confirmed, not a mere rumor, and you would like support for keeping coverage of it responsible, drop me a line.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 23:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! This Washington Post story suggests it would be embarrassing (albeit perhaps only to an ally) but not illegal. I'll be looking around for it tomorrow.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 02:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

lol

Do you read science fiction? One of the best writers is a guy named Gene Wolfe. And one of his most interesting books is "The fifth head of cerebus". This book is three barely connected novellas -- each one completly different in style. One of the novellas is centred around the tapes and transcripts of a captive subjected to a long series of interrogations.

The interrogation subject claims to be an anthropologist, from Earth. The authorities know only that he arrived from a neighboring planet, one with strained relations with the government of the current planet. Slavery is widely practiced on the planet where he is being interrogated.

And slavery is one of the topics the skeptical interrogator debates with him. His interrogator offers a defense of slavery. He claims that slavery is a humane institution, because the slave owner has an investment, he has an incentive to provide on-going health care for individuals who might starve, or suffer a long lingering death from an untreated disease or injury, without the care of their masters. The interrogation subject responds that the government of the nations of Earth provide health care to all citizens.

To which the interrogator responds, "So you know who the masters are." Wolfe is surprising that way.

I figure that if slavery was legal, its spin-doctors would try to insist the press referred to the slaves as something like "beneficiaries of lifetime job security". Geo Swan (talk) 01:54, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I do read science fiction although I'm way behind on my reading. I'll keep my eye out for Wolfe.

That reminds me that someone had once written that slave owners would hire a poor immigrant when a job was too dangerous to risk a valuable slave. I can't think of a farm job that would fit the description but it sounds like something they'd do.

There's always a bright side.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 02:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how much of this I will plough through...

I don't know how much of this I will plough through. It is close to 400 pages long. It is a manual on force-feeding -- something we have discussed, so I thought I would give you a heads-up...

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/GITMO_MedicalSOPs.pdf

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 23:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks but I've seen it before. It might even have been you that first showed me the link!

It could be really useful if we had an article on GTMO's medical facilities, but I'd rather someone else handle that. Like you said, there's a lot there.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 01:18, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Something remarkable

I started articles on Michael Gelles and Daniel King (cryptanalyst) today.

Gelles was one of senior NCIS officials who raised concerns when they heard about the techniques used during Mohammed Al Qahtani's interrogation.

It turns out that Gelles faced criticism for playing a role, in 1999, in the interrogation and (false?) confession of King, a navy code-breaker. King was subjected to 29 days of sleep deprivation, in 1999, that finally lead to a confession.

Personally, I see some parallels between King's interrogations and the interrogations of some of the GWOT captives.

• King was seen as a possible spy -- that is also a national security threat.
• King was held and interrogated without benefit of legal advice, and prior to having any charges laid against him.
• King, like Mohammed al Qahtani, and an unknown number of other GWOT captives, was subjected to weeks of sleep deprivation.
• King, like some of the GWOT captives, now says his false confession followed suicidal ideation, triggered by the pressure of his interrogations.

Randy, I'd like to ask for your help again. None of those parallels I think exist between King's interrogation and those of the GWOT captives belongs in article space. If you have time, would you mind taking a look, and letting me know if you think I let my personal interpretations leak into these articles? Of course I'd welcome a heads-up on any other inadvertent lapses from NPOV you think you notice.

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 20:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's too ironic and interesting not to say it. I don't know that any of this could be left out. I'll look at it in two days when I have more time, and I'm more awake. (I'll be really busy tomorrow.)

I once heard that James Earl Ray had been subjected to something like this to get him to confess. I don't know that it was outright sleep deprivation, but it was later claimed that they kept the lights on bright in his cell until he finally did confess. I don't have a source for that, though, and it could easily have been embellished by the conspiracy buffs who insisted he was innocent.

Anyway, this may have been the same thing. I don't know exactly where they draw the line between simply leaving the lights on, leaving them on bright, and more annoying methods of sleep deprivation.

I've often thought we could use a general article on rough interrogation that isn't simply about this war, and isn't necessarily thought to be torture. Then we can link everything like this there, as well as the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques, and the London Cage. Sometimes I think the article on third degree (interrogation) could be used for this, but we'd have to make clear that it's not always called that.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 05:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

White phosphorous in Gaza

Do you have time to add a brief summary of this issue to the Marc Garlasco page?Historicist (talk) 23:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm very busy this week but I just put him on my watchlist.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 04:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

EIT

Hi Randy2063

The use of the word "euphemism" in its literal sense is appropriate. There is no consensus to the contrary on the talk page, and there is no suggestion in the article (as opposed to edit summaries) that it is a euphemism for "torture", just a euphemism for the actual techniques permitted under the rubric.

^Bongo_matic 03:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You've got it the other way around. A "euphemism" is like a nickname. People do give nicknames to official terms but the official terms themselves are not nicknames. If someone said the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual was a euphemism we'd rightly call him crazy.

Besides that, WP is supposed to reference reliable sources, particularly for something as off-the-wall as this. There's no evidence that the CIA invented EIT as a nickname. The only people who call it a euphemism are hostile outsiders making editorial comments for which they have absolutely no knowledge of what was going on. That is, unless you want to say they can read minds.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 02:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm . . . you and I seem to read dictionary definitions quite differently. Nothing in any definitions I've seen mentions the intention of the speaker / coiner of term. I think my reading is more in line with mainstream and consensus, but different horses and all. But thanks for assuming good faith by calling me "hostile". ^Bongo_matic 02:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't calling you hostile. I was talking about those writers who had been used as a reference for the claim that this is a euphemism. None of them have knowledge of the facts.

Of course the speaker's intent is essential. There is no way of getting around that. The definition of euphemism includes motive and that means intent.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 02:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Iraq war articles

I wanted to explain to you the two edits I made to the two Iraq war articles that you reverted. I guess you thought that I was a new editor, that's not true, it's simply that my cable network changes my ip adress every week or so, I have been on Wikipedia for four years. Now about those two edits, the Siege of Sadr city article - I simply reverted user 94.254.30.158's unexplained edit where he simply changed the number of dead us soldiers in the siege from 300 to 40, icasualties.org clearly states that almost 1,400 US soldiers were killed in Baghdad during the war, Sadr city makes up about a fifth of Baghdad so that was a simple calculation which was previously agreed to by editors, in any case it is more belivebel than 40 right? :) As for the Bombings article - I didn't delete anything as you said, I kept everything that was in that table for the year 2003, I just made it as a list and not as a table because all of the other years 2004-2009 are like lists and not tables, so I did it for consistency, also you should watch it, when you reverted my edit you deleted one new bombing I added in 2009. :) Have we cleared the misunderstanding? :) If you are wondering what's with the bunch of smiles it's just that I have had a few good days and am a very happy person currently, xixixixi. xD Hope to hear from you.89.216.232.223 (talk) 19:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that. You had also removed 2004 Iraq KBR convoy ambush from Iraq War insurgent attacks, and I didn't see the purpose to that either.

I suppose you've been told before that you really ought to get an account. It makes keeping track of these articles a lot easier.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 21:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I removed the 2004 Iraq KBR convoy ambush because it was not a bombing attack, the article we are talking about covers insurgent bombing attacks, the KBR ambush was more in the way of military engagements, battles, so it should be in the campaignbox for the Iraq war battles. That's why I removed it. And will do on your advice about the account. Cheers! ;)89.216.239.108 (talk) 23:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It's still an insurgent attack. The article ought to spell out that it's only bombing attacks if that's what it is. I'll let you deal with it, though.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 23:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

more details

Way back about four years ago the image on the Omar Khadr article was a picture from when he was about seven or eight years old. IIRC you and I agreed that it would be better to have no image than one from when he was seven.

I just came across this, a Toronto Star article with an image of Khadr as an adult. It probaby can't be used -- it probably doesn't qualify as "fair use". Anyhow I thought I would give you a heads-up.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 05:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

http://www.thestar.com/specialsections/omarkhadr/article/718489--legal-bill-to-battle-khadr-1-3-million-and-counting?bn=1

Interesting. I don't see where it says how they got it, other than that it's "An exclusive photo." That implies a copyright, but it doesn't really say it.

I looked at an unrelated article with a photo, and it's tagged with the name of the photographer, like this: "RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR." But this article doesn't do that. I think there's a chance (whatever that's worth) we could use it.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 15:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

QUIT COATRACKING the mosque

you know what you are doing. Quit. kgrr ^talk 19:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I know what I'm doing. Do you?

One short paragraph is not coatracking.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 20:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree w/Randy.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

EIT

Help needed at Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, the usual villain is unrolling weeks of collaborative effort adding blatant POV. Tyuia (talk) 11:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the obvious POV aspects, the heading is still wrong either way. I think the people who claim to oppose "torture" are too wound up in that to think about the rest of it. I'll look at it this evening, but I don't have much hope. It's too much of a POV magnet.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 17:49, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

War crimes committed by...

Could you explain your edits/reverts on the talk page please? You made some points in the comment that, accurate or not, should be expanded upon. Thanks, -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 19:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, it's in the talk section.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you see this?

Did you see this? A new book has been published, entitled: "The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a prison, outside the law". I wonder if there are any references to the wikipedia's coverage of them?

• http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/the_guantanamo_lawyers.php
• http://guantanamo.fromthesquare.org/

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

That was a complete surprise to me. I see that Google Books has a substantial excerpt here.

I don't particularly like the authors, but you already knew that. :) They both have WP pages it can go to.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

In the second link, one of the sad stories it tells is of Abdullah, who doesn't have the foggiest notion of why he's been locked up, but she doesn't tell us who Abdullah is. All we've got is his first name.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. Searching the NYTimes guantanamo docket for "tire store" turns up Bostan Karim. (For some reason the Bostan Karim link isn't working right now.) He was arrested at the border, with Abdullah Wazir, who was part owner of a tire and battery business.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 02:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's gotta be the guy. When I first read your message, I wasn't initially comfortable using it as a reference for Gitmo lawyers, but it really should be good enough.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 02:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello Randy2063! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. Please note that all biographies of living persons must be sourced. If you were to add reliable, secondary sources to this article, it would greatly help us with the current 752 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the article:

1. Abdul Razak al-Hashimi - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 15:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the heads-up. That would be bad news. Not as bad as what I heard a commentator say on the weekend however. He predicted the NYTimes might go bankrupt within the next year or two.

I use a webcitation service, http://www.webcitation.org/archive.php to make an image of pages I think are going to go 404. I use it for the Miami Herald. I have used it on some of the NYT's references I have used. A month or two ago the webcitation started to mirror, pages of javascript for the NYTimes pages I tried to archive, not the page itself. I tried archiving the printable version instead, and I am frankly not sure if it works or not.

Back the first time the NYTimes went dark, one could often find the same article on their subsidiary paper, the International Herald Tribune. So, during the dark period, I used the IHT's version, instead of the NYT's version. About six months ago the IHT took down its archive, with a note saying their old articles would come up on the NYT's. But this hasn't happened.

Of course there is no guarantee, the webcitation service will stick around either.

Anyhow, thanks again for the heads-up.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 18:07, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Your edits

Hi Randy2063. I was upset at the way you characterized my edits on the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques talk page. You said Your problem seems to be that you've latched onto military expressions that often made fun of by critics, and you've taken their jokes to be serious. I'd like to encourage you to express yourself in a way that does not find fault with other editors, but rather to criticize the edits themselves. I went through the archived talk pages so I could gain perspective on discussions that occurred before I came along. I was troubled by what I saw. I found that many editors seemed to have their minds made up beforehand and I saw little compromise or consensus building going on. I found some of your past edits and comments in particular to be rather hostile. I hope that those were isolated incidents and that we can remain civil and respectful. Sincerely, Gobonobo ^{T C} 00:08, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you've taken offense but you came in and called a lot of things "euphemisms" without checking whether anyone would take offense at that.

The EIT talk pages show that there are two different views on this. But if you look at NY Times editor's page, he explains that it's a heated topic.

I've been more than fair at EIT. There is actually a lot of compromise there. I certainly don't agree with everything in it. Some of it simply wrong in a technical sense. I've only been putting my foot down on the "euphemism" tag because it goes beyond mere bias in the EIT article.

As I said on your page, military jargon has a lot of origins that have nothing to do with euphemisms. Most of it is purely functional. The term "enhanced interrogation techniques" was probably named before they even knew which methods would be approved. That some of the critics refer to it as a euphemism is really only an expression of their cynicism. They have no expertise whatsoever to say it really is one.

In any case, I have to thank you for the Guardian article. Without it, I might not have noticed the NYT piece that clarifies their policy on the word "torture."

-- Randy2063 (talk) 03:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Please just consider what I said above. I will address article issues on the corresponding talk pages. Gobonobo ^{T C} 08:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiQuette alert notice

Hello, Randy2063. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. 64.183.151.210 (talk) 19:15, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

• discussion archived here

Director ...

Is in fact his title. So I believe the D should be capitalized.--Epeefleche (talk) 23:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I should have explained it more clearly.

I meant if it was used like this: "He wrote to Director Begg to say..."

-- Randy2063 (talk) 00:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I was right. It's explained at WP:STYLE#Titles of people.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 00:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Tx. I agree with the rule--its what I had in mind. But we read it differently. So, I read it as saying "Obama is a president. He is the US President. Begg is a director. He is the Director of Cageprisoners. Make sense?--Epeefleche (talk) 00:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

That's how I saw it, but your explanation makes sense.

You could go to their site and ask them. <g>

-- Randy2063 (talk) 01:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah ... It's for replies such as the one I had at the ready that I wish you had your "email me" function" working.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't even know WP had such a function. I'll think about it.

It's just as well, though. Begg's edited the article several times before. I got the feeling he doesn't like me, and I'd rather he not be able to track me down.

(I'm only half serious. Other than knowing how to delete, he wasn't knowledgeable enough to track anyone.)

-- Randy2063 (talk) 02:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

All you have to do is: 1) click "my preferences" on the top line (1/3 in from the right) of the page. 2) Then scroll down till you see "E-mail (optional)*", and fill in your email address. 3) Then scroll down to "Enable e-mail from other users". Click the box next to that, etc. It allows editors to emails you, but when they email you they do not see your email address. If you respond to that email, however, they do... So, if you have an off-wiki-humor joke, it provides an outlet.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:30, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

-- Randy2063 (talk) 18:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

fyi

As you might have some knowledge in this area and in case you are interested. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_March_28#Category:Bagram_Theater_Detention_Facility_detainees. IQinn (talk) 02:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, it's better than "captives." -- Randy2063 (talk) 03:20, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Questions on the morality of the actions of the US army

Hi Randy, I am curious to understand your perspective on the accidental killing of civilians by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. There seem to be a few individuals on Wikipedia (who I generally assume are young American Republican males, but I could be wrong) who tend to jump to the defence of the US army even in cases when they have killed civilians. I am interested to understand this perspective and wonder if you would not mind helping by answering a few questions. My first question: do you think the fact that one member of a group is holding an RPG is sufficient reason to open fire on the entire group, even if the weapon is not pointed at US troops, and if the group are not displaying any aggressive or evasive action, or even to have noticed the US troops? Gregcaletta (talk) 06:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)