Civil War: How Effective Is Terrorism?

For our purposes, we will use the Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f(d), to define terrorism. It defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents” (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013). Examples of terrorism persist on a near daily basis around the world. Unstable countries, such as Afghanistan and Syria, deal with terrorist attacks on a constant basis. The common thread of these attacks is deliberate targeting of civilian populations in order to achieve political objectives. The best known and largest example are

In the article “Is Terrorism Distinctively Wrong?”, Lionel K. McPherson criticizes the dominant view that terrorism is absolutely and unconditionally wrong. He argues terrorism is not distinctively wrong compared to conventional war. However, I claim that terrorism is necessarily wrong.

The dilemma facing state leaders for the past decades has been whether to respond to terrorism through a criminal justice approach or a more involved military approach. The criminal justice approach treats terrorism as a law-and-order problem in which the main burden is placed on the judiciary and police. In contrast, the military approach treats terrorism as a perilous threat to the national security of the state, which can only be countered with military force and wartime procedures. The argument of this paper is that military procedures are not warranted in dealing with terrorism because the terror threat is not lethal or influential enough to threaten our democracy, and even if it was, military action has proven itself to be so fraught with problems and costly risks in past interventions that continued use of such a tactic would not only harm our national security, but also could precipitate the fall of the American Empire. Instead, law-enforcement has proven itself to be an efficient counter-terrorism tool that results in the capturing of terrorists, acquisition of intelligence, and spurring of cooperation with allied countries.

Throughout history, our world has constantly been bruised and battered by civil turmoil. Today, the civil war in Syria decimates the country; the Israeli and Palestinian conflict rages on; tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan's ongoing civil war. It is not always easy to isolate what exactly ignites the flames of war, but, whenever possible, finding a workable, calm and satisfying solution to a potential uprising is preferable.

“Terrorism's particularly heinous but highly attractive means to achieve political objectives or even radically restructure political foundations is manifest within societies in all reaches of the world. While the practical application of terrorist methodologies comes across as a relatively straightforward craft, the conceptual and ideological understanding, and subsequent evaluation of its socio-political influence, implementation, and psychological impacts present difficult questions, and in some cases conceivably insurmountable obstacles” (Romaniuk 2014, para

Terrorism is an act of violence, usually done in the public sphere, which is used to incite fear in a population in order to coerce change in public opinion or a government’s position on an issue. In many parts of the world, groups wage war with their countries, either to separate from the government or to overthrow it entirely. Sometimes these people are treated unfairly by their government, and their struggles are justified. Other times, these groups use violence against both military and civilian targets, terrorizing innocent bystanders to get what they want—these groups are terrorists. Often, though, it is difficult to tell the difference.

The word “terrorism” was first used during the French Revolution when British statesman Edmond Burke used the term to describe the actions of the Jacobin-dominated French government. Under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre, thousands of people that were said to be enemies of the state were put on trial and then executed by use of the guillotine (O 'Connor, 2006). However, since the inception of the word, it has taken on a new meaning. One can now hear the word “terrorism” and be overcome by anger or even fear. Terrorism now seems to have turned to attacks against a government rather

The statement you cited that one slave can kill six white men; I don't think that David Walker wanted to kill all white people for their lack of morality, in my opinion, it was a necessary movement for him to spread his rethoric of the same saying of 'give me liberty or give me death' type of speech. Therefore, the revolts that he inspired across the souther colonies were necessary to create the opportunity to change the social order for better or worse. However, I do not think that the white southerners were willingly give up their slave for compensation because it was their source of revenue for their plantation, a required labor force. So, the Civil War was inevitable whether there was a multiple revolts or a gradual abolishment of the

Throughout the world, most countries attempt to diminish terrorism through radical wars that create more trauma for civilians than terrorism.The wars that endeavor in reducing terrorism results in hazardous living condition for the disturbed inhabitants of the country. The wars against terrorism result in the reduction of civil rights for the civilians. By defining the effects of wars against terrorism, the loss of civil rights, by refuting those that claim that wars against terrorism do not result in the loss of civil rights, by presenting evidence of country’s statistics; documented research; and interviews of former citizens after a brutal war against terrorism, one will be persuaded that once countries engage in wars that fight against terrorism, there will be lack of civil rights.

Factors like social grievances, economic woes and other similarities, give rise to violent extremist groups. Areas with lawlessness and desperation cause people to argue and bring terror (Does Terrorism,178). Extremist groups are often welcomed in such places because they may offer more of basic securities than the state itself. On the other hand, terrorism could be a weapon of the strong, not for the weak. Stronger states are able to disguise it as a legitimate violence

Currently, civil war is far more common and frequent than international war. Most outbreaks of armed conflicts occur within the boundaries of sovereign states and provoke the one or more groups against current government to challenge the government’s sovereignty. Both civil war and rebellions are similar in terms of motive and opportunity. (Understanding Civil War, 2005. p, 3) According to Collier, the economic conditions are also linked to profitability of rebellion or civil conflict. Public perceptions may recognize rebellion as protest, which is motivated by extreme grievance and fighting against injustice. He indicates, to an economist, rebellion is a form of a criminal organization that has developed the discourse of grievance in order to function. (Leashing The Dogs of War, 2007, p.198) Moreover, Collier carefully weighed the motive of a rebel organization. Often the greed reward of joining a rebellion are greater than not joining, and there is often grievance that urge people to rebel over issues of identity such as ethnicity, religion rather than over economics. It has been accepted, at least war cannot be fought just on hopes or hatred, greed has some influence in the development of conflict. Rebel groups may even have organized the fights in attempting to take main powers by becoming

Drawing on Stanton’s argument, beyond the PKK and FMLN, to what extent can we say the use of terrorism by rebel groups leads to the successful outcome of a civil war for a rebel group. She clearly illustrated that the data showed a high likelihood of a rebel group to use terrorism when faced with a democratic regime. But we do not know the civil outcome of these high percentage of cases apart from the PKK and FMLN. In other words, are rebel groups able to get concessions in all the cases where they used terrorism? As we discussed in earlier classes, am thinking about the (in)effectiveness of the use of terrorism as a war strategy.

The article “Explaining the Severity of Civil Wars” by Bethany Lacina looks at why some civil wars are more deadly as compared to others by investigating a new data set that shows the number of combat deaths in civil wars from 1946 to 2002. The article looks at the statistics behind the deaths in the conflicts such as the era, the type of conflict ant the region that the conflict takes place in. The article also uses the strength of the state, the type of regime and cultural characteristics in a test to see if they are predictors for the number of combat deaths in a conflict.

Since 1980, terrorism has become a growing threat in Latin America. In the 1980’s, Latin America experienced more terrorist attacks (17,293) than all other regions combined (13,643), and nearly four times as many as the next most active region—Western Europe (4,729) (Jensen pg 1). Most terrorism in Latin America comes from within with groups like the Shining Path in Peru, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) (Jensen pg 1). Violence decreased dramatically in the mid-1990s, after a number of governments waged successful anti-terrorism attacks at these insurgency groups. (Jensen pg 1). Although terrorism is a less prominent problem now, there are still threats,

The recitation challenged me to think about things I had never thought of before. What is the difference between terrorism and rebellion? Can one person be a terrorist without the support of a group? Is terrorism defined by motive or result?