¶ … domestic extremist groups responsible for terrorist killings since the 9/11 attacks leads to believe that terrorism should not necessarily be addressed through using stereotypes. The terrorist in the contemporary society has reached a level where he or she can pose as seemingly normal individuals, thus making it even more difficult for the authorities to understand their mindset. Counter-terrorism in the U.S. often fails to concentrate on the local aspect of the problem, with the authorities appearing to be more concerned in potential threats from the outside. The counter-terrorist campaign is thus very controversial when considering attitudes that the authorities are taking with the purpose of making it successful. In order to be able to efficiently fight terrorism, law enforcement agencies first need to gain a complex understanding of what triggers it and of the degree to which it can be fought through traditional channels. Extremist groups are typically easy to identify as a result of their tendency to promote their ideals openly. Either doing it via social networking platforms or by organizing movements meant to do so, these respective groups are somewhat transparent. This would mean that the authorities should be able to identify and stop potential terrorist before they go through with their plans. However, matters are more complicated as the authorities find it difficult to differentiate between the thousands of people who are unlikely to engage in a terrorist act in spite of their beliefs and small groups of individuals who are actually capable of performing terrorist acts.

There are a series of theories meant to discuss the best method to assess homegrown criminals and the risk they pose to society. A successful risk-assessment model purposed to identify potential terrorists would have to be very intricate in order to be successful. "Intervention programs require assessment tools that should, at minimum, be sufficiently finegrained to identify behaviors that raise concern and capture changes in behaviors suggestive of an individual's progression toward criminal action." (Klausen et. al. 68)

A great deal of American individuals who are passionate about Al Qaeda-related ideas are unlikely to exhibit behaviors or appearances characteristic to terrorists. Many of these respective people are well-educated and can find it especially easy to take on attitudes that influence the authorities to believe that they are perfectly normal. "It is widely perceived by experts that extremists go through a roughly predictable process of radicalization related to the ideology but no consensus exists on how long the process takes, or even what the steps are, or if all terrorist offenders go through a similar process." (Klausen 68) Generalization is one of the only things that the authorities are able to perform when having to assess potential terrorists: if a certain individual seems to be performing activities representative to a terrorist he or she needs to be monitored. In contrast, people who do not display any type of behaviors seen in terrorists are less likely to receive attention from the authorities and are thus free to engage in devising terrorist attacks (Klausen et. al. 68).

The reality is that people can have a wide range of reasons for wanting to perform a terrorist act. The fact that such a list would be particularly long further emphasizes the difficulty with which the authorities can identify a potential terrorist. One thus has to understand that it is more important to understand the process through which a person becomes a terrorist rather than the motives behind him or her choice. Through being able to comprehend this respective process, the authorities would be more likely to prevent a terrorist act from happening.

The complexity of terrorism means that in some cases not even the individuals engaging in a terrorist act have a complex understanding of the event. "We know that there's no clear terrorist profile, that becoming a terrorist takes time, and that there's a gradual process of socialization." (Horgan) One could go as far as to say that terrorism in general is absurd not only because of the immorality it entails, as it is also absurd because in many cases people are not really able to explain why they are taking on terrorist attitudes. Some individuals simply become terrorists because they see the act as an adventure and they simply want an escape from their every-day lives. This simplicity is one of the concepts making terrorism particularly dangerous, taking into account that law...

Some believe this to be a matter of luck, as an individual attempt to find others sharing his or her thinking and hopes that these respective individuals can provide them with the assistance needed to accumulate knowledge. It would be safe to say that a terrorist is the product of the environment that he or she lives in. In most cases the person has suffered either because of direct contact with people oppressed by the authorities or because they feel that an injustice has been made toward them. This individual eventually comes to see terrorism as being the only solution to his or her problems and then decides to engage in a terrorist act as a form of retaliation.
In an ideal world the authorities would be able to design a system that can be successful in identifying potential terrorists and would be able to prevent terrorist acts before they happen. Law enforcement agencies would require a tool using an algorithm that would be 100% effective in distinguishing between people who go through with terrorist acts and others. However, the reality is that such an algorithm would be impossible to design. People become terrorists for a wide range of reasons and the processes they take on with the purpose to do so are often different from one-another. In many cases terrorists are white-collar individuals who are educated and who would have previously been considered very unlikely to ever engage in a terrorist act. The only thing that the authorities can do regarding terrorism would be to invest more finances in trying to understand the concept. This would eventually assist law enforcement agents in being able to determine if a certain person is capable to engage in acts of terrorism. All things considered, the authorities have likely understood that terrorism in the present is no longer the limited concept it used to be and it now needs to be fought on a wide range of fronts.

Question 2.

As a general rule people become terrorist knowing that they are probable to engage in an outrageous act -- an event meant to raise public awareness concerning a certain idea. The 9/11 events were the result of a combination of factors, with the person in charge of the terrorist attacks, Osama Bin Laden, wanting these respective events to occur on American soil and in one of the most representative areas in the country precisely because he wanted to trigger shock in people's minds. It would be safe to say that the events were partly owed to him wanting to get revenge for American presence in the Middle East and partly to Al Qaeda as a whole intending to prove its power. To a certain degree it would seem like this was an ultimate marketing strategy from behalf of the terrorist organization. It received a great deal of coverage in the media and it made it possible for people across the world to learn more about the organization and its ideals.

Osama Ben Laden was apparently unhesitant about expressing his views before the 9/11 events actually took place. The terrorist leader considered that a great deal of Middle Eastern states had turned into puppet regimes answering to the U.S. and thus considered it would be logical to strike the enemy where it would hurt the most. Ben Laden declared war on the U.S. in 1996 and this was largely owed to him thinking that local support for Americans had seriously destabilized countries in the Middle East. "An al-Qaida statement from November 2002 accuses the United States of using their Islamic agent rulers to prevent the establishment of shari'a, to humiliate and imprison the real Muslims, to steal the Islamic community's wealth, and to surrender to the Jews." (Habeck 96)

Ben Laden considered that American intervention on foreign soil was no different from the colonist period where great powers were solely interested in exploiting other nations and removing cultural values from these respective regions with the purpose to manipulate the population easier. The state of Israel is, for Jihadis, one of the only Western colonies in the Arab world and this would thus need to be addressed in order to guarantee the safety of Arabs everywhere.

It would be safe to say that Ben Laden was a charming leader and that most of his success was owed to him being able to shape the thinking…