Terrorism Essay, Research Paper
Terrorism is becoming more and more of a threat to Americans both at home and abroad.
International terrorism happens when terrorism occurs out of our country. An example of an
International terrorist is Osama bin Laden.
Laden is the worlds most dangerous terrorist. Laden shows genocidal tendency by killing
Americans through-out the world from the bombings of the World Trade Center to the embassy
bombings in Africa. The African blasts killed more than 250 people. The FBI has been tracking
him for more that four years and they still couldn’t stop him from striking Americans overseas
and can’t stop him now with the current foreign policy that has been adopted.
He feels that all Christians and Jews worldwide need to be exterminated because of the
evil that they represent. He thinks that the Jihad is necessary to combat the Christians and Jews
who are considered the heretics of the world; therefore, it is justified to use terrorism to
exterminate them because of their degraded moral standards and also to raise the Muslim world
over the Christian world. To accomplish his goals of killing all Christians and Jews, he founded
the International Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders. This organization , published
a “fatwa” (religious ruling) proclaiming the “Jihad against the heretics who conquer Muslim
lands,” which bin Laden considers a duty of all Muslims (Schweiter 1). Bin Laden was trained and
equipped by the CIA during the Afghan War of 1979-89, so he is very capable of carrying out his
goals. He also has the money to continue funding these operations that have proven to be deadly
to Americans throughout the world.
The special station that was created over two years ago by the government’s counter
terrorist centers has not been successful in disrupting bin Laden’s operations. Even though the FBI
and the CIA have increase funding. Especially in the FBI’s funds from $118 million to $286
million today and has its number of employees devoted to this area doubled over the same period
of time, the Washington Post says that the CIA , despite this increase in funding resulting in more
attention being paid to bin Laden that it “was not able to foresee the bombings of two US
embassies,” four months ago “in East Africa, allegedly by bin Laden operatives ” (Loeb 2,1).
The cruise-missile strikes that were launched against bin Laden will prove ineffective in
stopping his terrorist operation. Though the American counter strikes may have admonished bin
Laden, his vast financial resources and network will remain intact (Loeb 4). The thing that bin
Laden still has is his vast wealth regardless of what damage was inflicted on his operation by the
cruise-missile strikes. Bin Laden?s resources are hidden in several countries in what many call
front companies, and this is going to make it difficult to track down bin Laden’s assets some
government officials worry (”Costly” 6)(kelley 2). Cannistraro said, “while we’ve aggressively
targeted his financial flows of money, which is the lifeblood of the organization a lot of it is still
out of reach. We’re not going to be able to put him out of business” (Kelley 2).
After such strikes against bin Laden, it is important to understand what consequences have
occurred and could occur because of the American strikes. The first factor of a terrorist attack is
the terrorist’s motivation to carry out their attacks, and the second being their capability to carry
out their attacks. The director of The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Boaz
Ganor, asserts that often such retaliation against a terrorist group will “by its very nature,”
increase the terrorist’s motivation “to take revenge for the damage to their capabilities and to their
‘image.’” However, “such strikes won’t increase their ability to carry out more attacks; and at best,
will greatly damage their capabilities to do so.” But bin Laden’s organization and bin Laden
himself, along with his followers
terrorist attacks. Ganor insists, “now their motivation to carry out such attacks will be greater
than ever, as they will feel they must avenge themselves and restore their image,” so if the
American strikes accomplished anything it put even more people at harm’s way (Ganor 1). An
immediate consequence from the strikes was the release of two bombing suspects by Pakistani
officials who were prepared to turn the suspects over to the United States before the strikes took
place. Newsweek asserts that the attacks on bin Laden may “have cost investigators a major
breakthrough in tying the African attacks to bin Laden.” The reason that Pakistan decided to
release the suspects instead of turning them over to the United States was because several
Pakistani intelligence officers were among those killed in the cruise-missile attack (”Costly” 6).
That just shows how one person can have a impact on a society or country. There are
other kinds of terrorist acts. Urban Terrorism its when terrorism occurs in a city. Another kind
of terrorism is Local terrorism and thats when terrorism strikes near were one lives. For instance
, the Oklahoma City bombing would be an example of Urban Terrorism.
There are many different causes for these acts of terrorism. One of these causes is when a
group of people disagree with each other. They make it clear that they do not like each other by
taking it to drastic measures. For example, sending a mail bomb , or by making a car bomb.
Another reason for terrorism is when there is a political group or a anti group. They
terrorize because they do not think the government knows that they are there or because they do
not think the government is talking them seriously. This is one of the main reasons that terrorism
occurs.
Another cause of terrorism happens with governments. If one country attacks another
country they both go for the main leaders. This can lead to snipers, car bombs, and air strikes.
There are many people or groups you can blame these acts on. The government should
take responsibility for this. The reason for this is because they should protect everyone in our
country to the same degree. They can also prevent terrorism in many ways.
The government can keep terrorism out of their country by doing many things. First of all
they should know who the threat is (groups, other governments , anti groups). If they know the
threat they can keep them under surveillance to see if they are doing anything suspicious. They
can also prevent it by reasoning with the terrorist group. Also , it can be prevented if they give
every terrorist group the same attention as all the major ones. If they do that none of the acts of
terrorism will be to get attention.
There are two other ways they can prevent terrorism. One way is to not do anything that
might cause another person or group to terrorize another. The last way is to make all information
about making bombs and other terrorism things harder to find. For example, I am in ninth grade
and I can get information on making napalm.(Below)
How to make Napalm by the Jolly Roger
- Pour some gas into an old bowl, or some kind of container.
- Get some Styrofoam and put it in the gas, until the gas won’t eat anymore. You should have a
sticky syrup.
- Put it on the end of something (don’t touch it!!). The unused stuff lasts a long time!
-Exodus-
You may not know that napalm is very powerful and destructive. Now if that doesn?t scare or
concern you , nothing will.
Americans everywhere are being butchered. Every time an American is slaughtered by a
terrorist, another piece of America dies with them. This must not be allowed to continue to
happen; therefore, we must stop further attacks on Americans. To do this, Daniel Johnson insists
that we must not merely strike back at these terrorist organizations that dare slaughter Americans,
but we must destroy them (Johnson 21).