HISTORY OF TERRORISM

History of Terrorism

Abstract

The essence of terrorism is that terrorist activities are the subject of people who do not have a direct impact on the objectives to be achieved terrorist organizations. Thus, acts of terrorism must be characterized by a significant psychological effect and the potentially large effect of social and media in order to be effective. Moreover, the people are now fighting against the terrorism keeping in-contrast the race and appearance in mind. However, one must keep this notion in mind that the people without understanding and distinguishing between these two concepts, religion and terrorism, Islam and fundamentalism cannot understand the events taking place in the world. The paper includes all the historical information of terrorism in America. The introduction part covers the highlights of terrorism and its activities; discussion part includes its origins, causes of being terrorist, tools used for terrorism, and theme of terrorism. In the end, the conclusion part covers major highlights of terrorist act in American history and its impact on society.

History of Terrorism

Introduction

Terrorism involves illegal acts of violence or intimidation by persons seeking to coerce or influence the conduct or policy of a government or civilian population. These acts often take the form of kidnapping, beating, or murder and are applied either individually, as in the case of hostage taking and assassination, or collectively through the hijacking of aircraft, or indiscriminate bombing. For most of the 20th century, the physical territory of the United States has been largely untouched by acts of international terrorism and only rarely touched by incidents of domestic terror, and its defense strategy has reflected this relative peace. The devastation wrought by the attacks on the twin World Trade Center towers of New York, and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, forced the United States to dramatically rethink its homeland defense (Reeve, 2009, 78-119).

Most of the acts of terror inflicted on American soil during the early to mid-1970s came from domestic radicals, such as the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, and the Symbionese Liberation Army. These groups undertook criminal actions that included burglary, bank robbery, assassination of police officers, and bombings. Though members of these groups viewed themselves as radicals organized against the government, federal authorities generally treated them as they would criminal organizations. As a result, throughout most of the 1970s, the United States policy for homeland defense involved enacting new laws such as the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Organized Crime Control Act (OCCA) of 1970, although these measures were aimed more against criminals than radical terrorists (Hoffman, 1998).

Discussion

Historical Roots

Terrorism in America based on issues, conflicts and populations that occurred with state's borders. In the history of America, terrorism is motivated by extremists who disbelieved in the ideal democracy system and were no0t loyal to their nation. In other words, domestic violence started when people claim over who is legal American and on what ground. The suspects expressed their violence in different forms in past ...