If Huntington is correct, as long as there are radical Islamic groups hating Americans, the U.S. can snuff out a few here and there but they will never stop organizing, never stop blowing themselves up in jihads. Huntington believed that it was and always will be a clash of Muslim vs. Western culture, and Muslim vs. Judaism.
Barnett notes in his blog (2004) that yes, 3,000 people were killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but "we lost over 200 times that many to heart disease" and "over 150 times that amount to cancer." He is not minimizing the horror of terrorism, but he believes "police" (covert operatives) not "soldiers" are the answer to combating terrorism. Bush failed in his presidency and failed the American people because he seemed only able to "express our anger, not our hopes," Barnett asserted. Barnett is correct when he says Americans are missing the "positive" attitude that is necessary to keep our country on the right track. As for the implications for U.S. policy vis-a-vis terrorism, there will be no end to the fight against terrorists.
FIVE: 19th Century anarchists and socialist movements. Workers who had been exploited launched the socialist movements in Europe in the 19th Century. Some worked 12-hour shifts seven days a week in "the most inhumane conditions" (Brians, 2006) and others were peasants working in slave-like conditions on land owned by cruel landowners. The middle class was unhappy too, and industrial moguls exploited workers and polluted cities. Conditions were ripe for rebellion and revolution. Leading anarchists included Ravachol (Francois Koeningstein), who was a bomb-thrower and believed killing high-ranking people would change government for the better (Abidor, 2007). Another anarchist in the 19th Century was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who wrote that "property is theft" (Brains) and objected to the use of property to achieve wealth due to the hard labor of peasants and common laborers. These two anarchists were early versions of terrorism as we...
Should America "go after" fomenters of violence against the U.S. who are exiled? This is a very tricky issue. The CIA has assassinated many so-called enemies of democracy in the past, interfering with sovereign states by doing so. These aggressive acts by the U.S. can backfire, although it is widely believed that Bill Clinton should have sent attack planes into Afghanistan to take out bin Laden's training camps after our embassies in Africa were attacked. Instead Clinton sent long-range Cruise missiles into Afghanistan that missed targets.
Works Cited
Abidor, Mitch. Ravachol. Retrieved Feb. 10, 2010, from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/ravachol/biography.htm. 2005.
A Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. Terrorist Organizational Models.
Retrieved Feb. 10, 2010 from www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/guidterr/ch03.pdf.
Barnett, Thomas P.M. Terrorism in Perspective: It Really is a Nuisance if We Continue
To be Successful. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2010, from http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/001008.html. 2004.
Brians, Paul. Introduction to 19th Century Socialism. The University of Washington.
Retrieved Feb. 11, 2010 from http://www.wsu.edu/~Brians/hum_303/socialism.html. 2006.
FBI Policy and Guidelines. Terrorism 2002-2005. Retrieved Feb. 11, 2010, from http://www.fbi.gov/publications/terror/terrorism2002_2005.pdf.
Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Touchstone, 1999.
Marshall, Paul. "The Islamist's other weapon." Commentary. 119.4: 60-64. 2005.
WordNet Search. Terrorism. Princeton University. Retrieved Feb. 11, 2010, from http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=terrorism.
Zalman, Amy. Definition of Terrorism under U.S. Law. About.com. Retrieved Feb. 11, 2010,
From http://terrorism.about.com/od/whatisterris1/ss/defineterrorism_5.htm.
