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 from around the world seem to still be able to mass extensive

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).