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Terrorism is serious issue which holds different meaning to different people depending on their political beliefs and religious associations. What makes it really contentious in nature is the fact that not everyone sees terrorists as brutal assassins- for some they are national or religious heroes and freedom fighters. While to reach a definition of terrorism is not easy, some attempts have been made to define the term. Title 22 of the United States Code defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents" (quoted in U.S. Department of State 1999). Terrorism Act 2000 of Britain views terrorism as "the use or threat . . . designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public and . . . made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause" (United Kingdom 2000). According to Walzer, terrorism is "the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, in order to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders" (2002, 5). Stohl on the other hand maintains that terrorism is "the purposeful act or threat of the act of violence...
It includes violent acts intended to influence a wider audience, to send a message" (Stohl 1988, 3-5). These are some of the popular definitions of terrorism which help us understand that terrorism is a pre-meditated act of violence that is used as vehicle to drive an important message home.
Terrorists are not ordinary criminals for in most cases, they have a group or organization supporting them. Apart from this, while criminals would act alone normally for no specific cause, terrorists would always have some message accompanying their violent activities. It would be senseless to believe that terrorists are mentally deranged. There is no accredited research indicating that terrorism is caused by mental disturbance. Professor McCauley in his explanation of terrorist's mindset argues that research indicates that "psychopathology and personality disorder no more likely among terrorists than among non-terrorists from the same background." While it is disturbing to learn this, it is true that terrorism becomes a major problem because there…
References
1. Long, David E. The Anatomy of Terrorism. New York: The Free Press, 1990.
2. Rapoport, David C. Inside Terrorist Organizations. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001
3. Stohl, Michael, and George Lopez. 1988. Terrible Beyond Endurance? The Foreign Policy of State Terrorism. Westport: Greenwood Press.
4. United Kingdom. Parliament. 2000. The Terrorism Act 2000.
7. Clark R. McCauley, The Psychology of Terrorism (Accessed 17th July 2005) http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/mccauley.htm
Fire is inherently associated with fear, although a major aspect of the action is the financial cost to the manufacturers and dealers and gaining attention. The aspect of political content may be more subjective. While it may be argued that the vehicles are legal, environmentalists may take a more ethical stance, arguing that was something is legal it is not necessarily mean that it is right. While legislation may
Terrorism The term "terrorism" is profoundly political, as can be seen by the numerous definitions of terrorism and the lack of a globally-agreed description. The myriad definitions show nations struggling to define "terrorism" in self-serving ways. Efforts to clarify and unify those definitions vary from legalistic to nearly bombastic. After listing many definitions from different nations and from within the United States, itself, this paper examines a legalistic attempt to lay
At times terrorist succeed and at times they fail. Some times they have larger and long-term goal and some times they have short-term aims. For example, a group hijacking a plane wanted some immediate results like release of the prisoners or financial gain but blowing a plane into a building would definitely mean that terrorists wanted something big out of it. Sometimes terrorists want to just cause panic and
Terrorism refers to threats, violence, bombings, etc. Terrorism is known to have a long history, but even today, the reason behind this terror by the super powers and the government remains explicit. The acts of terror are very common these days and could be found in current political and social environment. A part of terror is still confused when it is applied in the actual present world (Robb, 2007). Where the
Terrorism Intelligence, counterterrorism and protection, and subjects for investigation appear to be relevant, interesting and worthy of detailed examination. The research traditions allowed in mainstream educational systems provide different avenues of approach to examine these ideas. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ideas of terrorism through the lenses of the five research conditions: narrative, grounded theory, phenomenology, case study and ethnography. Additionally, I will propose three different topics
Thousands of individuals employed within the Russian nuclear complex - many of whom have knowledge and access to nuclear materials - receive salaries that are barely at subsistence level, raising the possibility that they might be susceptible to offers from anyone in the market to buy nuclear components" (Deutch, 1997). 5. Economic Consequences It is generally a habit of the terrorist groups to target international powers in order to make their