Terrorism

– The Cause Essay, Research Paper

TERRORISM

Terrorism is the use of violence or the threat of violence to create a climate of fear in a given population. Terrorist violence targets ethnic or religious groups, governments, political parties, corporations and media enterprises. The three main types of terrorism are: political, religious and governments.

Political terrorism is recently the most often type of terrorism used. Political terrorism tends to involve violence against civilians or other noncombatants. In North America, we have seen many cases of political terrorism such as: Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center bombing and many more. Terrorists use acts of taking hostages, car and truck bombing and assassinations for political terrorism. Individuals or small groups disagreeing with certain polical parties or political leaders causes political terrorism. If terrorists expect to terrorize the general public their actions must reach beyond the military and into the civilian population itself. They must give the given population the sense of fear that anyone can become a victim of terrorism at any time. This is the only way they can gain enough power to obtain their political goals.

Terrorist acts committed against religious groups dates back to the 1st century when the Zealots, a Jewish religious group, fought against Roman occupation of now what is Israel. During the 12th century in Iran, the Assassins, a group of Ismails conducted terrorist acts against religious leaders of Sunni Islam. Through the 18th century, terrorists generally committed acts against religious groups. In Ireland, organizations called the IRA (Irish Republican Army) have been fighting with the Loyalist Protestants just because they re different religions. Another well know religious terrorist group is the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO was set up in 1964 by an Arab League decision in response to growing signs of Palestinian unrest. The Palestinians desired to reclaim the lands occupied by Israel, which they felt belonged to them, as said in the Bible. Initially, the PLO had a broad base of support and represented the desires of the majority of the Palestinian people. Terrorism targeted against religions is the foundation of prejudgment.

Terrorism targeted against the government is mainly accomplished by large terrorist organizations. They use innocent people as prime targets by kidnapping or taking hostages. This act is the most common act used by terrorist to get the governments awareness. In fact, the more innocent the better. The purpose of many terrorist acts is to cause fear in the “common man”. By attacking innocent bystanders, the terrorist hopes to strike fear in all those who can identify with the victims. Therefore, the terrorist will invariably attack common carriers such as aircraft, buses, ships, etc. Or will attack a shopping center, market, bus depot, airport, restaurant, or other commonplace public gathering place. Terrorists may target an important public figure or a family member to get to the government. A politician and his family may also be terrorists targets depending upon their connection with the government. Terrorists, of course, are at war with the world, and this is how they “justify” their murder of innocents. Thus Terrorists convince themselves that no one is “an innocent”. Reality is, of course, that Terrorists are never innocents and their targets are nearly always innocents.

In conclusion I will restate my thesis statement. The three main types of terrorism are: political, religious and government. Until the world governments realize how important it is to secure areas in which terrorists may strike and to take a strong stand on terrorism and terrorists, emphasizing that anyone that is convicted of terrorist activities will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and there will be no negotiation. Only then will there be a chance of putting an end to the deadly grip of fear that terrorism holds on us.