Talk:Sami Mohy El Din Muhammed Al Hajj

	NOTICE, please do not remove from top of page.
	No "from wikipedia" disclaimer is necessary because I was the sole author of this version. George Swan 19:00, 3 May 2008 (CDT)
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Reconciling references and assertions; formatting

This citation appeared, as the second in a row, after the introduction. <ref name=CNews20080502> {{cite news | url=http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2008/05/02/5453806-ap.html | title=Freed cameraman: Gitmo getting worse | publisher=[[CNews]] | author=[[Mohamed Osman]] | date=May 2, 2008 | accessdate=2008-05-03 | quote= }}</ref>

There is, however, no citation for the report: "It was reported that his interrogators devoted their attention to trying to get him to confess to knowledge of a tie between Al Jazeera and Al Qaida." I moved this here, as "it was reported" rather demands a citation.

Again, successive citations: why three about the release? Latter two moved here:<ref name=AlJazeera20080502> {{cite news | url=http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/04F88FBD-BFA5-42D9-A9C4-D8E0979C79D6.htm | title=Sami al-Hajj hits out at US captors | publisher=[[Al Jazeera]] | date=May 2 2008 | accessdate=2008-05-02 | quote= }}</ref><ref name=AlJazeera20080502b> {{cite news | url=http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C59237D2-5E9B-430D-88D3-0596D969FD39.htm | title=Sami al-Hajj arrives in Sudan | publisher=[[Al Jazeera]] | date=May 2 2008 | accessdate=2008-05-03 | quote= }}</ref>

"Sami Al Hajj had to be removed from the airplane on a stretcher." What airplane? When? According to whom?

Table formatting for non-tabular information takes up a great deal of whitespace and is hard to read. There was the note, in edit comments, " I am embedding this quote in a table, not a {{quotation}} template, because one can't include {{sic}} templates in a {{quotation}} template. And one can't include octothorps. " I don't understand — we don't have a sic template. What's wrong with [sic]? Why is it necessary to include octothorpes?

I'm only guessing that this was an attempt to replicate the exact formatting of the primary document. There's no need to do that.Howard C. Berkowitz 04:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Removing references

Howard, you removed some references, that you thought were extraneous...
And you expressed concerns over a statement that you thought was unreferenced.

However, the Al Jazeera reference you removed, on the basis of redundancy, stated:

"Al-Hajj, who arrived at the airport in the capital Khartoum early on Friday from more than six years in captivity, was carried off the aircraft in a stretcher. He appeared too weak to talk and was immediately taken to hospital where his wife and son were on their way to meet him."

So, the reference you removed, because you perceived it be extraneous, supported a statement you perceived as unreferenced.

Could you please confirm that you have no objection to the re-insertion of this reference? George Swan 19:13, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I have absolutely no objection to re-inserting the reference if it's next to the text it supports. My problem was with three citations in a row on the first sentence, but then subsequent sentences/paragraphs with no citations. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:32, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Your questions about the plane Al Hajj flew on...

Can I ask why you wanted the citizendium article to specify what airplane he was carried off of? Are you in any doubt that it was an American plane?

If any of our references noted that the plane's serial numbers, and it turned out to be one of the "Ghost planes" that plane spotters noted, allowing the CIA's flights to be mapped, that would certainly be worth noting in our article. If any of our references noted that the plane was a US military plane, or, alternately, a chartered US civilian plane, that would probably be worth noting.

But none of the references I came across offer that information.

There were negotiations over whether Australian Mahmoud Habib could be allowed to fly home to Australia -- almost a 24 hour flight -- without wearing shackles. The USA would not fly Habib home, without shackles, on a US plane. And they would not allow Australian security officials to take custody of him, and escort him, unshackled, on a commercial airliner. The only condition under which they would agree that Habib would be allowed to leave Guantanamo, without shackles, was if the Australian government chartered a plane to take Habib directly from Guantanamo to Australia. Even the captives whose CSRT determined that they were not enemies were flown from Guantanamo in shackles. George Swan 19:13, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

What plane means "who controlled the plane". Its country of registry would be nice, to see if this was an international operation. "But none of the references I came across offer that information." In other words, you don't know, you are guessing it is American, and guesses don't belong in encyclopedia articles.

Do I have the slightest doubt it was an American plane? As "American" plane would be defined by the International Civil Aeronautics Organization, or, for that matter, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, yes. It might have been a chartered UAE or Sudanese plane; I have no idea.

You will find, George, that I will argue the most with lack of precision in terminology, variously international law or terms of art in military and intelligence. I don't mind accurate description of reprehensible conduct. I do mind taking a specific U.S. example and assuming that is the way it is done by all countries, or indeed all U.S. officials.

What is your point, on this talk page, of talking about the shackles? Let me assume, arguendo, that your concern is that is a human rights/abuse issue. If so, it doesn't belong in an article about a specific captive. It belongs in a more general article about the treatment of prisoners. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:32, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

"Guesses don't belong in an encyclopedia." Howard, I don't think anyone has suggested regular citizens' guesses belong in article space.

When my references didn't specify whether the plane was part of the ghost plane fleet, and didn't specify its nationality, or whether it was a civilian or military plane, I didn't include any guesses in article space. Specifically, I never placed a guess on the plane's provenance in article space.

While speculation doesn't belong in article space, when good faith contributors are trying to collaborate, I thought discussions of issues and opinions that aren't referenced are among what is appropriate. I thought good faith contributors should be working to agree on what else the article should include, what should be removed, and what kind of references that haven't yet been supplied, should be supplied. It seems to me that for this kind of good faith collaboration to take place contributors are going to make comments that may not be referenced.

Howard, no one has challenged your credentials, or experience. I have done a lot of reading about the captives. I offered you the information about the conditions under which the captives were flown home because I thought you may not have been aware of it, and I thought it might be significant. George Swan 22:01, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk pages are for improving articles. No, I don't discussions of issues and opinions that are neither not referenced, nor of general knowledge to people familiar with the field, are relevant, since, without additional information, they can never go into the article.

Personal opinion, not speaking as an editor: I don't think these individual prisoner articles should be in CZ at all, at least if they remain orphaned, and there are no articles explaining the policy and politics. I do not regard CZ as a place to "raise awareness" or "encourage the asking of questions", unless the discussion has a direct contribution to article(s). As far as the conditions under which the prisoners were flown, given the existence of wars that have killed hundreds of thousands of people, dispossessed millions, and wasted billions in treasure, no, I'm not particularly interested in how someone was flown home. At least they went home, as opposed to a lot of people, of a lot of citizenships, who can never go home alive. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:09, 20 February 2009 (UTC)