Egregious Errors in Wikipedia’s Afghanistan Entry

I was looking at the Wikipedia article entitled War in Afghanistan (2001-present), reading about the start of the war and such. But then I noticed this sentence in the section of the article talking about Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks:

However bin Laden’s FBI profile does not name him as the author of the attacks [19] and there is some debate as to whether or not it is actually bin Laden in the video.[20]

Does anybody really doubt at this point that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks? It’s true that bin Laden’s FBI Most Wanted profile doesn’t name him as the author of the attacks, and this little oddity has been the source of many a conspiracy theory. But in 2006, the Washington Post published “Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?.” In that article, the author talks to the FBI about the missing charges, and gets this answer:

Exhaustive government and independent investigations have concluded otherwise, of course, and bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders have proudly taken responsibility for the hijackings. FBI officials say the wanted poster merely reflects the government’s long-standing practice of relying on actual criminal charges in the notices.

“There’s no mystery here,” said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. “They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don’t need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it.”
…
The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice,” the FBI says in a note accompanying the terrorist list on its Web site. “Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.”

Oddly, the Wikipedia omits any mention of this debunking, only including the completely manufactured conspiratorial version. Suffice to say that no competent, authoritative source questions OBL’s involvement, but Wikipedia sees fit to include this little gem in their entry.

The second half of the quote is even funnier. Since I quoted it a while ago, I’ll reprint it here, “…there is some debate as to whether or not it is actually bin Laden in the video.” The reference they use for that claim is a BBC article, “Could the Bin Laden Video be a Fake?” But if you read the BBC article, this is the source of the claim:

But while Washington’s allies have been quick to judge the tape as evidence of Bin Laden’s guilt, many in the Arab world doubt its authenticity.

That’s it. They have put a caveat on one of the most heinous crimes in US history, based on the vague statement that “many in the Arab world” doubt its authenticity.

Enemy Combatants. Then a pair of sentences leapt out at me:

Also, the U.S. Administration did not officially declare war, and labeled Taliban troops and supporters terrorists rather than soldiers, denying them the protections of the Geneva Convention and due process of law. This position has been successfully challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court[30] and questioned even by military lawyers responsible for prosecuting affected prisoners.[31]

Reference 30 is a BBC article describing the case of Huzaifa Parhat, an Uighur who petitioned to have his case reviewed:

The ruling, by a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was in response to a petition under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

This allows detainees a limited review of their status as “enemy combatants”.

“The court directed the government to release or transfer Parhat, or to expeditiously hold a new tribunal,” a notice from the court said.

The military’s decision that he was an enemy combatant was “invalid”, the court ruled.

That’s good news for Mr. Parhat, but does it really amount to challenging the US position on the designation of detainees, or was it just that this particular fellow was able to convince the court of his innocence? Of course it was the latter – this case did not set a precedent or overturn the US definition of “enemy combatant,” as the Wikipedia entry implies.

And how about the claim that their status has “been questioned by military lawyers?” Well, that supporting reference (#31) is actually an article written in the Huffington Post – clearly not a neutral source. The article itself isn’t too bad (though frankly and proudly biased), but has absolutely nothing to do with questioning the legal status of detainees at Guantanamo. The article is about a disagreement between the chief prosecutor (Col. Morris Davis) and two of his superiors concerning what he perceived as inappropriate interference with the legal process.
Perhaps there is an article somewhere that supports Wikipedia’s point, but this one isn’t it.

Summary. So this very important Wikipedia entry has at least two sentences that are completely unjustified as written. The supporting cites don’t actually support their statements, and in the case of Osama bin Laden’s role in the 9/11 attack, they have chosen to represent speculation by conspiracists as respectable alternatives to the official story.

I admire Wikipedia’s devotion to making information freely available to everyone, but they could really, really, use more responsible editing.