The Terrorist's Son: Chapter Summary

Modern terrorism, as deduced from this literature, is acts to violence strategically used by secular groups spanning international borders with the aim of achieving a desired outcome. Further, it can be seen as organized activity whose genesis can be traced back to the 1880’s. From then to now there are identifiable traits and patterns observed from different (terrorist) groups which have allowed for the conceptualization of the term modern terrorism. This concept therefore, can be best explained in the context of being a wave or having a life cycle. That means it is a cycle of activity demarked by phases from inception and expands along the way then eventually it declines. The world, thus far, has experienced four waves of modern

The book “How Terrorism End; Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns”, written in 2011 at the height of Al-Qaeda, the most well-known international terrorist group of our time. The author of this work, Audrey Cronin, at the time of print, served as a professor of strategy at the United States National War College in Washington D.C., and a senior associate at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Program. Both positions allowed her to impact strategic policy making in the execution of the Global War on Terror by allowing her access to senior military and civilian policymakers. Her previous area of her prior work has been mainly focused on international terrorism with an emphasis on al-Qaeda. She has authored

The experiences that you face not only shape you for the time being but for the rest of your life. In chapter 8 “April 1996, Memphis, Tennessee” in the book The Terrorist’s Son by Zak Ebrahim with Jeff Giles, published in 2014 by TED books, Ebrahim talks a lot about his choice of not following the path that was expected of him. He chose to be a better person than what his father was. He uses his experiences, location, and details to show the audience an inside view of his world.

In May of 1983, some students in the journalism class at hazel wood high school in Missouri, made the final edition of the school newspaper. They then gave the newspaper to the adviser, Howard Emerson, who wa a newbie. He gave the principal the final review of the paper before it was published. When the principal, Reynolds, reviewed the paper, there were 2 articles that he didn’t like. The first article was about teen pregnancy, including some comments from students that were pregnant at the school. Names weren’t given, but Reynolds thought there was too much information on the topic and he was concerned about the privacy of the students. So he took that article out. The second article was about divorce, and this one included a lot of personal stuff. Reynolds was not happy about what the students said about their families. One student said a lot of revealing things about their dad, and the dad hadn’t been given a chance to explain himself. He also didn’t want 9th graders to be reading about sex and birth control, which were in both articles. Reynolds took out the second article also, and published the rest of the paper.

Yesterday April 19th,1995 Ex-Army soldier and security guard Timothy McVeigh parked his truck lined with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building downtown Oklahoma City.

Caleb Carr is stressing that terrorism is never the answer throughout this chapter and I presume, the rest of the book. This is clearly shown in him saying "for just as meeting the tactics of terror in kind will only perpetuate the cycle of terrorist violence.." As for whether or not the affect of Roman warfare can be applied to today's governments in training people that are not of their own, it can be. Carr begins to explain this when he says "There is an irony concerning most of those rebel leaders that also holds enormous implications for our present experience..." (p. 37).

Dealing with a tragedy that will last your whole life is not easy to handle. Some people may think life isn’t the answer. Living your life as an abused child will affect you, even later on throughout your life. Growing up as an abused child, bullies tend to bully you more. Throughout life being abused and bullied can make life extremely hard for a young person. An example of a child living in a harsh life like this is Zak Ebrahim, who lived his life growing up with a terrorist for a father. Within the book the author of The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice explains how a life of abuse can affect some people later in life. In chapters two and nine Ebrahim emphasizes the detail to help the writer understand the book.

Trying to live a normal life in Zak Ebrahim’s situation would be difficult to say the least. This selection from the book demonstrates the hardships he had to go through. Everywhere he went, he was antagonized due to his father’s crimes. The harassment and isolation at school was a dismal situation for him, no doubt, but what made it worse was that Zak didn’t understand why. From random people on the streets to his classmates, he was being targeted because of the atrocities that his father had committed. This especially important because some people may’ve been scarred because of this, as events like this can produce negative psychological events, but Zak made his way through it. It contributes to the message of the book: Anyone can change

Misconceptions are the base of any generalization, ignorant impressions and externalized opinions. In the essay “To Any Would Be Terrorist”, Shihab Nye expresses her preoccupation and “rational anger” towards the repercussions of the 9/11 attack, assuming that the authors of those events will read and be touched by the facts and arguments she explains throughout the text. Nye writes: “I beg you, as your distant Arab cousin, as your American neighbor, listen to me. Our hearts are broken, as yours may also feel broken in some ways we can’t understand, unless you tell us in words” (173). Lamentably, Nye fails to recognize the context in which the terrorists committed the attack, since she can only try to understand the “Arab tragedy” experience

When most people think of a terrorist, there is usually an uneasy feeling that follows it. Something that most of the population fears is a terrorist attack on their soil. Zak Ebrahim presents that being the child of a terrorist is a whole different feeling, considering the hatred not only that is trying to be taught to the child, but also the feeling that everyone hates (…). Ebrahim places emotion throughout the book connecting the reader to what he is feeling in different ways; this is seen especially in chapter two as well as chapter ten of The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice as Ebrahim describes the hatred that people not only inflicted upon him but also the journey that he takes from hatred to peace. (link thesis to other two paragraphs)

Summarize - Ishmael is told that he is going to live with his uncle’s family officially in two weeks. He was scared about how he’d act, since he’s been alone for so long. He says farewell to his friends in the center, and learns that Mambu is going back to the army because he won’t be taken in by his family. He says farewell to Esther, too. He realizes that he never told her how thankful he was for her support. He goes to his Uncle’s house, and loves it there. He shares a room with Allie, his older boy cousin. The family gathers together at night and listenes to stories, and they all laugh. Ishmael thinks about how nice but unusual it is for him to be around people who are so joyful and welcoming. He went to a pub with Allie one night, and meets a girl who he dates for a couple weeks. She breaks up with him because he won’t open up, and that’s what happens with the other girls of Freetown as well. One day, Leslie tells Ishmael that he has the opportunity to go to New York City and talk to the UN about boy soldiers and what has been

Living in America, we are given the freedom to practice the faith of our choice, but at the same time it does not give us the right to violate our laws or to organize, finance or develop a group whose motives are to attack and destroy the country they claim to be a citizen of, while practicing that faith or religion. We are now in the midst of a movement where homegrown American jihad will be the destruction of the United States.

Walter Laqueur’s book, “The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction”, is empowering readers with the entire spectrum of terrorism. The reasons behind terrorism are not easy to understand, but Laqueur goes into great detail to try and bring the reader to an understanding of what the terrorist is thinking in order to justify the means to the end.

We define terrorism as using force to influence or change a political decision. Given that there may be an array of situations the U.S. government and the American people are faced with on a daily basis, most would probably agree in saying that terrorism is the most imperative issue we are not only becoming victims to, but are interminably asked to deal with as well as finding a solution for.

Terrorism is used around the world to create fear and influence the public on political views (Siegel, 489). There are four views of terrorism including the psychological view, socialization view, ideological view, and the alienation view. A religious terrorist would most likely fit under the ideological view. In this view the terrorist feels the need to change a wrong opinion and believes that, because they are sacrificing themselves for something they believe so strongly in, it justifies the damage and harm done to innocent people (Siegel, 490). They use terror to create fear in anyone who opposes them and attract followers to their religion. In short, terrorism is widely used for political