Blog Post #2

What is Terrorism? There are numerous ways to define terrorism. According to Jonathan White terrorism is a pejorative term where it is a term that is loaded with negative and derogatory meanings. Where these negative ideas are brought into our homes through television screens, the newspapers and magazines, and sometimes we experience it in a direct manner. People never worry about the definition of terrorism until they experience terror through violence. For example when a passenger plane gets bombed it might be called acts of terrorism, but when military forces kill families in a foreign country, it is said to be a tragic mistake. Jonathan White believes because of this there is dual standards and contradictions that lead to confusion about what terrorism is.

There has been heated debates on the definition of terrorism. Social scientists, policy makers, lawyers, and security specialists are unable to come to an agreement on the definition of terrorism. H.H.A. Cooper has stated that there is "a problem in the problem definition." This idea that everyone can agree that terrorism has become a huge problem, but there is no definite agreement of what terrorism really is. The term is so difficult to define that in fact, the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI), U.S. State Department, and the Department of Defense all define terrorism differently. Some political scientist have said that terrorism is a social construct defined by, "people within changing social and political realities." This idea that one person's terrorist may be another person or governments "freedom fighter".

The official FBI definition separates terrorism by two spectrums of domestic and international. Domestic terrorism is a violation of criminal laws of the U.S. and/or states by influencing government policy by mass destruction. International terrorism involves the same things as domestic terrorism except that it is outside of U.S. borders. The FBI definition focuses on criminal behavior, because they play an integral part of the Criminal Justice System. The FBI is one federal agency where their definition is based around the idea of the criminal behavior.

Terrorism has to be defined according to Jonathan White in the social context aspect. We can trace modern terrorism all the way back to the French Revolution in the 1780's. During the time of the French Revolution it was the French government against the people and throughout the 1800's terrorism was acts of revolutionaries. By the early 1900's terrorism was violent acts carried out by labor organizations, anarchists, nationalistic groups revolting against foreign powers and political organizations.From the late 1900's to early 80's terrorism was violent acts by left wing groups and nationalists. In the 21st century terrorism is consisted of large groups independent from states, that are violent and religiously motivated.

The reality that we have to realize is that there is no common, accepted definition of terrorism. The issues that we have seen in this post is that there are many different aspects that you can define terrorism. In way we all have to agree with Jonathan White when he describes terrorism as perojative because it makes it politically charges our reponses. The many ways that terrorism is defined has either life or death consequences. Terrorism can be defined within social and political contexts, and for this reason there will never one singular definition of terrorism.






Websites:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/modern.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19728-2004Jul27.html

Blog Post #1

On the morning of September 11, 2001 the world watched as two passenger jet airlines crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. That same morning a third airline jet crashed into the Pentagon, located right outside Washington DC. A fourth airliner crashed into the rural neighborhood of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The hijackers of these airline jets were labeled as being “terrorists.” The actions of the hijackers have led to the question: who are terrorists?

The 9/11 attacks had a tremendous effect on not just the American people, but also on the world globally. According to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States there was a total of 2,995 deaths including the 19 hijackers and 2,976 victims. The casualties were distributed as follows: 246 on the four airline jets (of which none survived), 2,605 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. All of the deaths in the attacks were civilians except for 55 military personnel that were killed at the Pentagon. More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center. At least 200 people jumped to their deaths trying to escape the burning World Trade Center. A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they attempted to rescue people and fight fires.

Within hours of the attacks the Federal Investigation Bureau (FBI) was able to use their resources to determine the names and personal information about the 19 hijackers. The FBI interrogated suspects of the USS Cole bombing, and were able to link the 19 hijackers to al Qaeda a terrorist organization in the Middle East. The FBI launched an extensive investigation into the attacks that they labeled as Operation PENTTBOM. Operation PENTBOMM was one of the largest and most complex investigation in the history of the FBI that consisted of 7,000 special agents.

A common definition of terrorism is the systematic use or threatened use of violence to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. The speech that President George W. Bush delivered after the 9/11 attacks labeled the hijackers as a group of men who terrorized the American people; therefore they should be called terrorists. The President started by stating, “the evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda." The al Qaeda organization is responsible for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and also for the bombing of the USS Cole.

As a result of the 9/11 attacks the United States Congress and President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and created the Department of Homeland Security and the USA Patriot Act. The Patriot Act would be used to detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes by way of such tools as phone tapping. Many civil liberties groups have criticized the Patriot Act because it allows law enforcement to invade people’s privacies arguing it is a violation of Constitutional rights. President Bush also implemented a secret National Security Agency operation “to eavesdrop on telephone and email communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant. Countries across the globe supported the United States and even joined their fight that would later be called "Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom." As this fight would continue through the years it would also be known as the “War on Terrorism”. What we all have to wonder is whether the 9/11 attacks were acts of terrorism or just criminal acts of a(n) organization trying show their power.






Websites:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/SC7143.doc.htm
http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/091401hj.htm
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape/
http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ll/