A Battle Without Borders : Terrorism

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AS and A Level History

RESEARCH PAPER

A Battle Without Borders

        The Encarta Online Encyclopedia defines terrorism as being the “actual or threatened use of violence for political goals, directed not only against the victims themselves but also against larger, related groups, of a scope often transcending national boundaries” (Encarta). All around the world and in history, terrorism has occurred. No one has been able to stop it. As a result, the “war against terrorism,” is a war without end.

        The concept of “terrorism” has been a political argument since the late eighteenth century but has been especially important and well known since the 1970s (Halliday). It was originally used to represent the use of terror by the French revolutionary government against its opponents (Halliday). Terrorism is also the way in which it was used. An example, of this is the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolutions (Halliday).  This usage of the term, to cover terror by governments, has now become less common, the modern usage of this term covers acts of terror by those opposed to governments or races (Halliday).

        Since terrorism has been present throughout history, the acts of terrors can be divided up into three phases. The first one, since Ancient Rome and Greece. This is the “pre-history” of terrorism, with the tyrannicides which were the ones who killed the tyrants or the despots (Lexico), the Zealots of Palestine, a Zealot is a member of a Jewish movement of the first century A.D. that fought against Roman rule in Palestine as unable to get along with strict monotheism (Lexico).or the Hashashin of medieval Islam (Halliday).  The Hashashin meaning the “assassins of the souls,” in Arabic (Sidesshow). Many of these cases were often regarded as extremely morally lawful (Halliday).

        The second phase was the use of violence by political groups in the nineteenth century, especially by rebels and some nationalists (Halliday). The assassinations of Czar Alexander II in 1881 and of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 were perhaps the most famous cases (Encarta). There was extensive support of bombing by anarchists in Europe and the United States. A number of nationalist groups, practiced assassination, bombing, and various forms of violent quiver and destruction of properties (Halliday).

        The third and last phase of terrorism in history is since the end of World War II. In a range of nationalist conflicts in the least developed countries such as Israel, officials and citizens of the denominating state were attacked as part of what in the end were successful campaigns for national independence (Halliday). In other cases nationalist movements that did not succeed also used this terrorism, for example, Palestine (Halliday). Most revolutionary groups claimed relationship with the political “Left” parties, but in the 1970’s and 1980’s there were also major campaigns of terror by “Right” parties’ groups, that especially developed in France and Italy (Halliday). During the 1980’s there was the rise of religiously inspired terrorism in a number of Muslim countries (Halliday).

        On September 11, 2001, the United States and the world, suffered the most devastating terrorist attack its history has ever seen. Osama bin Laden, who ordered these terrorist attacks, is the leader of the Al-Qaeda group. He is the worlds number one terrorist. In synchronized attacks, hijackers commanded four airplanes and succeeded in using three of them to attack U.S. targets. The hijackers crashed two of the jets into the Twin 110-story Towers of New York City's World Trade Center, causing both of the massive skyscrapers to collapse (Hoffman). The third hijacked jet crashed into the , the headquarters of US military operations, inflicting serious damage (Hoffman). The fourth jet crashed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Over 6,000 people died in the terrorist attack, including all that were aboard the four airlplanes (Hoffman).

         The war against terrorism is a movement to terminate terrorism in the world. Terrorism had not been a very big concern to the U.S. before the September 11th attacks (White House).

        The war on terrorism didn't begin on September 11th at the CIA, where they have been working against terrorism for a long time (Harlow). The Counterterrorism Center was set up in the mid-1980s (Harlow). The attacks against the U.S., one of the most important countries in the world, triggered the “war against terrorism” (Harlow). It is a war against terrorism, and in wars, sadly, some battles are lost. Everyone must see that the war against terror is one of these battles. They are the battles the U.S has been fighting for because this war is going nowhere. Bin Laden is a very intelligent man and over a long period of time, he’s not going to get caught. People have to realize and accept the truth. Terrorism is a very difficult target, much more difficult than the conventional wars that most have been used to, and one that requires a great deal of resources and assets. Some of these resources include the money that many countries don’t have or have lost throughout the years.

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        This war against terrorism has not worked at all. Instead, it is causing not only political, but also economical and social effects as well. Some of the political effects include many other countries and governments which have different opinions and points of view on the sides of the terrorist attacks. For example, many people in the United Nations can’t say that Israel’s Prime Minister is a terrorist, but still many others say Yaser Arafat is. In this case, the United Nations can’t “pick a side.” This may cause political problems within the nation and internationally because many countries fight over ...

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A Battle Without Borders : Terrorism
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