Politics and Terrorism
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Political violence is the leading cause of wars today. Personal agendas have led to many of the political objectives that cause violence today this has caused many problems throughout the world and will continue to do so until a solution to this issue is found. Political objectives have been advanced involuntarily dependent upon the kind of government a nation exercises. For instance, in a democratic nation political groups must worry about convincing the majority in order to advance ethically. Those who try to influence the majority through acts of violence are considered today as “terror” organizations. Though perhaps if it were not because of the recent 9/11 terror attacks that maybe such warrants would not be seen as terror attacks, but instead the result of partisan advancement. Acts of terrorism have been around throughout the evolution of mankind. Terror attacks have even been traced back as far as the religious roots of an ancient middle east (Ross, Will Terrorism End?, 2006). However as man evolved, so did terrorism. Todays extremism involves some of the main characteristics of ancient terrorism, but much more developed. Political advancement is no longer the root cause of terrorism acts. Instead influxes of “holy” wars have been appended the prior definition of terrorism. Mistakably modern terrorism has been confused for Political violence with political objectives, but research will establish that the nature of terrorism is fundamentally different from other forms of political violence.
Terrorism has many forms, and many definitions. “Elements from the American definitional model define terrorism as a premeditated and unlawful act in which groups or agents of some principal engage in a threatened or actual use of force or violence against humans or property targets. These groups or agents engage in this behavior intending the purposeful intimidation of governments or people to affect policy of behaviors with an underlying political objective,” (Martin, 2009). The decision to engage in terrorism can occur for many reasons: logical choice, political strategy, ennui with the elite, and lack of opportunity for political participation. Air India flight 182 was a flight operating on from Montreal-India. On 23 June 1985, the airplane operating on the route was blown up in midair by a bomb in Irish airspace in the single deadliest terrorist attack involving an aircraft to that date. Two men were known to have left two pieces of luggage for check in, but never boarded the flight. The incident represents the largest mass murder in modern Canadian history. 329 civilians died on the flight, over 270 Canadians. The bombing was the joint project of at least two Sikh terrorist groups with extensive membership in Canada, USA, England and India. Their anger had been sparked by an attack on the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine in Amritsar in June 1984. Sikh militants were seen preaching that “Indian planes will fall from the sky” and urging his followers to “kill 50,000 Hindus.” (Sikh extremism enters mainstream Canadian politics, 2007).
On February 26th 1993, Al Qaeda members Ramzi Yousef, and accomplice Mohammad Salameh drove a rented van, loaded with explosives into the basement parking lot of the World Trade Center in New York City. The van exploded, killing 6 innocent civilians and injuring 1042. Prior to the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 Yousef had mailed letters to various New York outlets, in which the letters made three demands. The demands in order were: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a demand for a pledge by the United States to end interference “with any of the Middle East countries interior affairs.” He also had stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met. In his letters Yousef admitted that the World Trade Center bombing was an act of terrorism, but that this was justified because “the terrorism that Israel practices (which America supports) must be faced with a similar one.” (Coll, 2004)
On April 19th 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. The former gulf war veteran had parked a rental truck containing a powerful homemade bomb in front of the building. When the bomb exploded the entire structural foundation of the building had been severely damaged causing the deaths of over 168 civilians and injuring much more. Originally many had believed that McVeigh was part of an Aryan Nation assembly and that the possibility of him doing this alone was impossible (Hamm, 1997). McVeighs motive for the attack was apparently upset with the federal governments raids on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and of the Federal Bureau of Investigation assault on Randy Weavers house in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Timothy McVeigh felt attached to Randy Weaver because he was a leading Aryan separatist. The decision to engage in terrorism can be the outcome of logical choice, political strategy, personal ennui, and lack of opportunity for political participation. Displayed are very different Terror attacks with different motives, but clearly acts of terrorism.
Terrorism has certainly changed today compared to prior acts of terrorism. This starts as pattern of terrorism develops, where state terrorism leads to domestic terrorism, which in turn leads to international terrorism (Ross, Political Terrorism: An interdisciplinary Approach, 2006).
On September 11th a sequence of planned suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on were casted. On that Tuesday morning 19 al-Qaeda terrorists had hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers then crashed two of the airliners into the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. The third airline jet was then crashed into the pentagon, while the fourth had crashed over grassland in Pennsylvania. This act was caused by the waged holy war by Al-Qaeda. Traditionally a holy war is a war caused by religious differences, but can also include political differences. It usually involves one state with an established religion against another state with a different religion or a different sect within the same religion. Holy wars usually dont begin right away. There often is long turmoil between the two countries. The term for this is called “Morphing”. Morphing is an interesting situation and can lead into what is known today as “Holy Wars”. The common belief in terror groups (add 9/11 to above examples) is that they are just retaliating to the state terror casted upon them before. Osama Bin Laden was even quoted stating after the 9/11 terror attacks that “If inciting people to do that [9/11]