The Role Of Terrorism In The United States

States has ever seen: The Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 and the 9/11 attacks. The

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

So far, terrorism has been a key obstacle to many foreign nations, as they are struggling to prevent terrorist attacks. From the year of 1997 up to the year of 2003, international terrorist attacks have gone from less than 500 to almost 3000. Overall, global terrorism has grown by almost 1200% from 1997 to 2003. (Johnston 1). This massive increase in terrorism reflects on other nations' lack of control of the safety of their nation. These statistics also show that something needs to be done to protect the

When you hear the words terrorism, what does you mind go to? Most people would say some sort of extremist group because that is what the media puts into our heads but in reality most domestic terrorist attacks are committed by what is known as a ‘Lone Wolf” attacker. These are people who prepare and commit violent acts alone. These cases are much harder to detect because of a multitude of things. For instance laws have been established to protect civil liberties but in the process have prevented investigators from tracking people engaged with hateful speech, unless there is a suspected crime that person may be involved in. It is easier to track and detect international terrorism because often there are many people involved in the attack and often those attacks are committed by different terrorist groups, and the U.S government is constantly tracking and getting new information on those different terrorist groups. Many counterterrorism efforts have been shaped in response to foreign terrorism

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism on the basis of three characteristics. In order for an act to be considered terrorism, it needs to be (1) a violent act, or acts dangerous to human life that violates laws; (2) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or

The idea of terrorism is to incite terror of a government by intimidation or coercion. For example, the Weathermen, they used bombs to blow up symbols of the United States to instill terror into the government, to get Americans out of Vietnam War. However, the jihadist of al Qaeda crashed two planes into the World Trade Center to provoke fear into the US by showing weakness in our private transportation system and changing the lives of Americans. Nevertheless, the terror act of 9/11 has people preparing for more international terrorist attacks, but in the last 16 years the only terrorist attacks in the US have been domestic terrorism. This fear of international terrorism was a hot topic during the 2016 Presidential Election, where one party wanted to ban a religious group of people from entering the US. “Yet, domestic terror attacks are by far more many than international ones: in our data set, only about 14% of the almost 82,000 terror incidents were international terror events” (Liebert, Kokakos, & Schulze, 2011, p. 1). This shows that citizens do not know the different between international terrorism and domestic terrorism, because if they did, there would more focus on domestic terrorism even though terrorism is so rare compared to other crimes (Newman & Clark, 2008). I am going to discuss the difference between international terrorism and domestic terrorism.

Terrorism in the twenty-first century has some similarities and differences from terrorism in the twentieth century. Terrorism is, in its broadest sense, the use or threatened use of violence in order to achieve a political, religious, or ideological aim. Also useful to remember that because the two entities involved, the terrorists and the terrorized, are on the opposite end of the political, religious or ideological continuum, the same act is viewed by them differently. There is much sense in the phrase one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

Terrorism is a critical issue that the world faces today. The stressful part is not knowing when an attack will happen and the location. Terrorism not only effects the people but the government as well because its purpose is a political reason. According to Federal Bureau Investigation   (2016), “Terrorism is the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." The United States has had many attacks and attempted attacks against the government and citizens.

For example, terrorists attacks were made in Paris, France in 2015. On Friday November 13, 2015 at 3:20 p.m, guns went off, bombs exploded, and many people killed and wounded. Gunmen and suicide bombers all had hit a concert hall, a major stadium, and restaurants and bars almost all at the same time. It had left 130 people dead, and hundreds wounded, with more than 100 in critical condition. The President of France described this attack as an “act of war” against the Islamic State. Three teams were believed to be behind these attacks. Instantly after the attacks, French police carried out hundreds of raids across the country in search of the suspects. This tragedy hurt, and touched every single heart in the world. The U.S. sent troops over for support, and to help Paris out. Carried throughout all social media, were messages and prayers going towards Paris (Paris Attacks;BBC News, 2015).

Terrorism has been a constant threat in America for hundreds of years. Terrorism is defined as attacks against unprotected civilians by private groups. Way before the country became a superpower, Americans developed a sense of vulnerability because of all of the outside forces. One of the first acts of terrorism in our country was led by the Barbary Pirates, who attacked American merchant ships from some North African countries. This group, sponsored by a Muslim organization in Turkey, was fought by our Navy between 1801 and 1805. An example of a terrorist attack from inside the country was started by a man name John Brown who fought against slavery by going to Harper’s Ferry and raiding the supplies of the American army (Johnson). Even though

Terrorism in the United States, as well as other countries, has become a major fear in the public eye. When terrorism is committed somewhere by a group of people, or an individual, who live in another country, it is called foreign terrorism. There are reasons to why these people perform in ways of terror. The causes and effects of foreign terror can be alarming, dreadful, and frightful.

Terrorism and it's definition can vary from person to person and country to country. Many believe that in order for an event to be an act of terrorism, a certain amount of people must have been killed or the person who carried out the terrorist attack must be of a certain race or ethnicity or even from another country. The United States government defines terrorism as "Any activity that involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. (United States Code Congressional and Administrative News, 98th Congress, Second Session, 1984, Oct. 19, volume 2; par. 3077, 98 STAT. 2707 [West Publishing Co., 1984])" The United States government definition includes events that occur on United States soil, making it easy to infer that the only population affected by an attack on the United States would be those living within the United States. This is not true, largely due to global interdependence. Studying the events that happen after a terrorist attack on a nation can be a great opportunity to find out how the attack and

Over the years we have all witness act of this dangerous threat that affects millions of Americans today. Though politics and religion have stomped all over this word, before terrorism had only one definition to it. They unleashed this word, terrorism, whenever they want in order to spread fear and get the people’s trust. A month ago, Las Vegas had been struck with a massive acted where a man had shot down into a crowd of innocent people effecting more than five hundred people. This man had endangered the lives of thousands and caused a wave of massive fear and panic throughout the area, but this act is not classified as a terrorist attack. “The label is so powerfully pejorative and carries so much weight.” (Shane). The New York times writer describes terrorism. In this piece it explains the actions of the Las Vegas attack and how terrorism is affected by this, but with this also comes in its fall.

When a White man commits a terror act, why is that they are never called terrorist? Why does the word terrorist only implied to Muslims? What promotes the idea of terrorist? Is terrorism only implying to someone who commits an act of terror? Or Is it based on being a Muslim or brown, rather than an act? After 9/11, Muslims were attacked for their religion, up till now according to Lydia O’Connor . Muslims have faced discrimination and hate on the religion because others see Islam as a threat and a way to promote violence. This is also known as “Islamophobia”. Muslims are specifically targeted because of how the media such as Fox News implies them as “terrorists”. FOX News is a one of the largest channel in all cable and is a mainstream media in America, where millions of viewers as exposed to how they reverses the logic of the word terrorist and gives a new meaning that Muslims or brown are terrorist. The lack of accountability of Fox News holds and presents that Muslims or brown are terrorist. Nearly sixteen years later, Islamophobia has not improved, the word “terrorist” became a word where it’s based on perceptions and judgments on appearance. Fox News usage of the word shows that it is not someone who commits an act of terror, but is given an identity to Muslims and implied them as terrorist. The word “terrorist” is only used towards Muslims in Fox news. The term terrorism has become politicized that the word terrorist is seen as someone who is Muslim or brown. In

According to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), a terrorist attack is defined as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation,” (Global Terrorism Database, 2017). More specifically, the GTD includes acts of terrorism in its database if all three of these attributes are present: 1) the incident must be intentional and calculated on the part of a perpetrator, 2) it must involve some level of violence or threat of violence, including property violence, against people, and 3) the perpetrators of the incidents must be “sub-national actors,” or people that belong to a community of common culture or interests that are not administratively independent (GTD, 2017). However, the disconnect between the definition of a terrorist attack and how the media portrays terrorism is dangerously disharmonious.