My other question was about the media. Well, it’s not the right place to describe the role of the media but we should never forget: media is power. It does matter how do they report the happenings because they have their viewpoint and they project this on TV, so they affect people’s minds. If I put the question about first associations in connection with terrorism, the average would answer Israel.
Why do people associate the Arabian world with terrorism? We could say that a big part of people think that terrorism means Palestinians, they forget about others (e.g. IRA or ETA). In my opinion it’s easy to find the answer: we basically hear news only from Israel. Why? Because on one hand it’s „interesting”, on the other hand it’s important in the USA’s world politics, and the USA affects our everyday life.
Naturally the biggest amount of tragic terror attacks happen in Israel, but other parts of the world should be important as well and we should take the happenings there serious as well. To tell the truth I have an impression that not all the news reach us. This is also connected with politics. Media is power, the USA is the biggest power of the world therefore they have interest to be silent about a few news and to exaggerate others. As a reason our verdicts against all terror happenings can’t be right because they are based on media news. We only see the gloomy surface and we don’t know what lies in the background. We mustn’t believe everything that we see or hear. And that’s the case with different terror groups. Naturally prejudice lives in us but sometimes we should start searching under the surface. Therefore I’d like to focus on the big triple: Israel – USA – Arabian world.
As a first step I’d like to investigate the anti-Israeli feelings from the Arabian side, I’d like to find the roots of it. Then I’d like to connect the USA with these problems.
To search for the reasons of the hostility between Jews and Arabians we should go back centuries in history. Well, the history of the Holy Land is taught nowhere, we might only read about it, or the simplest way to get some „information” is to open the holy Bible. With the help of the book we can figure out some information, especially that the situation was not much better than today. As I could figure out, Jewish tribes were there earlier but never lived in peace. They were insulted by non Jewish tribes, the Egyptian Empire, then by Romans. But they stayed and worked as it was their homeland.
I could say that the basic contrast was about field (as it is today: which part is Israeli and which is Palestinian)? Besides these fights there was / is a culture (religious) gap. The two religions have their common root, and Arabians took a few things from the Jewish religion (e.g. the figure of Moses is also very important in their religion), both are very fanatic. But in my opinion to be zealot doesn’t mean that you have to be crazy and murder half of the world.
Both culture are quite severe and closed, they don’t really accept others, they don’t really allow aliens to see under the surface. But on one hand Arabians are aggressive towards aliens, and Jews on the other hand only close the door in front of you. This naturally doesn’t give an answer for our question.
Culture might be very important in the explanation because they are as different as possible. Jews are proud, hard working, assiduous and demanding, whereas Arabians are quite lazy. Jews are rich, while Arabians only want to be, or are but because of oil. Only think of the Exodus, when after the World War II. They built up a rich country from nothing. They were humiliated, they had nothing only a dream and now you see Israel. Israel, which was thought to be a Jewish country but it is not. Israel is not the Jews’ but the Israelis’.
Israel, which became an oasis and should be peaceful. It’s quite understandable that others are envious. They are jealous of the richness that exists in Israel, and Arabians are not alone with their envy. Anti-Semitism is known all over the world. Let’s just take Hungary which sent the biggest number of Jews to Lagers in the shortest period of time; where Jews were outlawed two decades ago and there are a lot who doesn’t believe the happenings of Auschwitz, and there are some who still say that Jews are not humans. And the reason? Money. They are said to be rich, they are the so-called plutocratic rank of the society, as nowadays’ ultra-right wing says (or think if they not say). Partly it’s true that Jews are rich in a big percent but they didn’t gain their money on the lottery! They worked for it. They left their homeland centuries ago and built up trade all over the world. There is no other nation that gave so much scientist, artists (mainly musicians), so the intellectual class. Yes, they can be pride of it and it’s not fair to be envious because they did all this among oppression, humiliation and outlaw. And it’s naturally isn’t true that all Jews are that rich. And the most important about this whole idea: never generalize, because generalization is based on prejudices!!!
After all, to find the answer to the question seems to be impossible, as we don’t know both cultures very well, nor can we abstract from our prejudice towards both sides.
Besides this Israeli – Palestinian conflict we mustn’t forget about Americans as they are in alliance with Israel. This might be a reason as well for the difference between Americans and Palestinians, especially Iraq. Confronted by American plans for Iraq, people in the Middle East are facing more than just the prospect of war. They now must consider the possibility that the American government, backed by its military, may exert daily administrative control over a swath of Arab soil for a long period. The idea summons up angry emotions in a region where sensitivities about the colonial past run deep. When asked about American plans for Iraq, people here evoke the Sykes-Picot agreement, a secret pact in 1916 between France and Britain to carve up Arab lands and Turkey from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. It led to British and French control of what is now Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, and the death of early Arab nationalist dreams; Britain had already occupied Egypt in 1882. Why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to do with what they call the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, the US established permanent military bases in Saudi Arabia which from their point of view is comparable to a Russian invasion of Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia is more important. That’s the home of the holiest sites of Islam (and oil, which is money, which is power). And that is when their activities turned against the United States. If you recall, in 1993 they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way, but not the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were to blow up the UN building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the FBI building. I think there were others on the list. Well, they sort of got part way, but not all the way. One person who is jailed for that, finally, among the people who were jailed, was an Egyptian cleric who had been brought into the United States over the objections of the Immigration Service, thanks to the intervention of the CIA which wanted to help out their friend. A couple years later he was blowing up the World Trade Center. And this has been going on all over. I’m not going to run through the list but it’s, if you want to understand it, it’s consistent. It’s a consistent picture. It’s described in words. It’s revealed in practice for 20 years. There is no reason not to take it seriously. That’s the first category, the likely perpetrators.
In examining the conflict, we have to consider money and politics above all. Naturally, there is culture gap in this case as well, especially there are religious reasons in the dislike for Americans, as Arabs condemn everything that is against Allah. My question is: from whose sight is any kind of acts against Allah? It’s easy to read anything into religion… But in my opinion the base of all these troubles is money which comes from oil. A lot of Arabian countries have a lot of oil, so they are rich; Americans have a lot of oil, mainly in reserve. Americans are rich and have a lot of power, but they want to have more. For that, one possible tool (weapon) is oil, the so-called golden fluid. Americans seem to be interested in world politics, in world happenings, but they only get involved in those problems that they have any connections with (like Israel) or in which they have an interest (e.g. Saudi Arabia – oil).
My theory, that terrorism is a new wave of war can be proved with my last statement, as wars in old times were for gaining new filed, and money. Nowadays money has the same importance but a possible tool for gaining money is to possess oil. Therefore some countries have an interest in different fields of the world that contain oil, and to gain power these countries need strength to rule the other countries. Well, the US seems to head towards keeping its eye on countries full of oil.
To talk about the Middle-East case we have to reveal the USA – Israel linkage. As I wrote, these two countries are in alliance. Why? Well, it’s hard to explain from such a tiny country as Hungary, so I can only talk about my views. I would call Israel the small copy of the US. The US gives a lot of money for Israel, for its development, but above all for its army. Anything new invented goes on a test in Israel as they are in a war every day of the year. The US gives money for Israel and in return they give the opportunity for new weapons to be tried. On the other hand Israel is always on the USA’s side in world politics.
So, as we see these two countries face together against the Arabian world. The whole stuff had been started after the World War II. In Europe something terrible had happened with Hitler and his anti-Jewish laws, which spread soon from Germany to Middle-East Europe. Millions of people were disappointed in the country which they thought to be their homeland, so a big part of the survived lucky ones decided to return to the land from where their ancestors came centuries before, to the Holy Land. This wave of travelling back was called the Exodus. Those days nowadays’ Israel was under British supervision, and they didn’t watch the people sailing there happily. But Jews had struggled until they could start to build up a new country, called Israel. And later Israel was accepted as an independent country, the country of the Jews. In my opinion this step was a terrible mistake. Just think of the request of Palestinians! They also want to have their own state, therefore they are always asking for parts from Israel, which they think to be their land. Isn’t there any truth in their requests? Unfortunately there is. Wouldn’t that be easier to make two new countries: a Palestinians and an Israeli?
Naturally, decades later we can be very clever (it’s quite easy to say what would have been the perfect solution decades ago, but now, when everything is confused, everything is bungled, we are in a big trouble. How to agree with both sides?). If we want to be fair to both sides, our thinking would take this way. We could say that Palestinian are right, because they also live there (and according to he Bible they lived), they also want to have their own country. But now, when Israel exists, Jews are right in saying that they don’t give any miles from their country because they built it. So, to be fair, everyone should accept that Israel is not the Jews’, nor the Palestinians’, but the Israelis’…
In the next part of my paper I’d like to mention some examples from the last few years’ terrorist attacks, and some examples from steps against terrorists. As a first step I would like to mention a few points from the history of terrorism in different parts of the world.
Terrorism in Europe. Terrorism spread beyond the Middle East in the 1960s, particularly in nations such as West Germany and Italy, where transition from authoritarian rule to democracy after World War II had been rapid and traumatic. Inspired by Marxist and Maoist teachings, and supported by leftist sympathizers among the affluent middle classes, the terrorists aimed to bring about the collapse of the government by provoking its violent, self-destructive reaction. During the 1970’s, the West German Red Army Faction, better known as the Baader-Meinhoff Gang, robbed banks, kidnapped and assassinated business and political leaders, and raided U.S. military installations. Members of this West German gang also cooperated with Palestinian terrorists, notably in the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the hijacking of an El Al plane in 1976. The El Al incident concluded when Israeli commandos raided the plane after it landed in Entebbe, Uganda. By the late 1970’s, most activists of the Red Army Faction had been either imprisoned or killed. In Italy, the Red Brigades launched a brutal wave of assaults on politicians, police, journalists, and business executives. The attacks culminated with the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro. The Red Brigades subsequently disintegrated as police arrested and imprisoned members and supporters of the gang. However, in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the Sicilian Mafia conducted a series of terrorist attacks in reaction to the Italian government's prosecution of leading Mafia figures. The historic Uffizi Gallery in Florence was among the targets of a series of terrorist bombings in 1993 alleged to be the work of the Mafia.
The ETA terrorist group. In July 1997 a new wave of violence began when a Basque separatist group known as the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Basque for Basque Homeland and Liberty) killed a young town councilor who was a member of Spain’s ruling political party. Millions of people throughout Spain marched in protest against the ETA’s violent tactics. In early December, 23 leaders of Herri Batasuna, the political party affiliated with the ETA, were sentenced to seven years in prison for collaborating with the terrorists by showing ETA members in a campaign video. Human rights organizations criticized the trial for its questionable charges. The sentences prompted more ETA assassinations, which continued in 1998. Most of the killings targeted politicians who were members of Spain’s ruling party, which has refused to negotiate with the ETA.
French terrorists. On October 1996 a dynamite bomb exploded in the City Hall building of Bordeaux soon after Prime Minister Juppé, who is also the mayor of Bordeaux, had left the building. No one was injured in the attack. The bombing was attributed to a wing of the Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC), an outlawed group fighting for independence for the French-ruled island. The group has reportedly carried out terrorist activities for the past two decades. Most of these attacks have been confined to Corsica.
Italian terrorists. Red Brigades, left-wing terrorist organization, active in Italy during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. The organization attempted to weaken the Italian democracy in order to establish its own political and economic system. The Red Brigades first attracted attention in the early 1970’s, a time of great political turbulence, with bombings in major Italian cities such as Rome, Milan, and Genoa. The organization also engaged in selective shootings, especially of law enforcement officers, and kidnappings. The alleged founder of the Red Brigades, Renato Curcio, was captured in September 1974, but escaped during a commando raid on his prison in February 1975; he was rearrested later. The most notorious of the Red Brigades' acts was the kidnapping and murder of the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. In late 1981 members of the group kidnapped a United States general stationed in Verona, but he was freed by the Italian police in January 1982. Numerous arrests of the brigades' members followed, severely draining the organization's strength.
The IRA. Irish Republican Army (IRA), name adopted by a number of armed groups who have been dedicated to ending British rule in Ireland and have claimed allegiance to an independent Irish republic. The term is most commonly applied to the contemporary Provisional Irish Republican Army, (PIRA, also known as "Provos" or "Provisionals") formed in 1972. Since that date the IRA has waged a terrorist campaign against the British state to force the British to withdraw their military forces from Northern Ireland and to establish a united Irish republic.
But what is Sinn Fein? Sinn Fein (Irish Gaelic, "ourselves alone"), Irish nationalist political party, appearing in various forms throughout modern Irish history, whose goal has been the ending of Great Britain’s control over any part of Ireland and the creation of a unified Irish state. The party has not been a major political force for some time, but remains important due to its ties with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a militant terrorist organization. Sinn Fein is often characterized as the political mouthpiece of the IRA. The political ideas and objectives of Sinn Fein were first outlined by Irish journalist Arthur Griffith in 1905. The first Sinn Fein party (1905-1917) was a pacifist, politically insignificant party that relied primarily on the journalism of Griffith to gain support for its nationalist ideas. Foremost among these were his advocacy of a protected Irish economy, which would enable native Irish industry to flourish, and a dual monarchy, in which the British monarch would be crowned in Dublin as the king or queen of the Kingdom of Ireland. Ireland would have its own parliament in Dublin, autonomous of the British, while the two kingdoms would remain united under the British-Irish monarch.
Now, we should look around somewhere else, apart from Europe and before we investigate the two countries that play the biggest role in terrorism and the war against terrorism. Canadian terrorists. In the 1970 provincial elections, the Liberal Party, led by Robert Bourassa, an antiseparatist, won a majority of parliamentary seats, but the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ), founded in the late 1960’s, polled 24 percent of the vote. Separatist extremists, including the Front de Libération du Québec (Quebec Liberation Front, or FLQ), began to use more extreme methods, including planting bombs in Montréal. In 1970 members of FLQ kidnapped and killed Québec’s minister of labor.
And now let’s see the “nest” of terrorism: the Middle East. The reason? No one knows, probably sociologists or anthropologists could give the right answer for the question: why are Arabians so aggressive? (And naturally we mustn’t forget that there are not only Arabian terrorists in the Middle East). In their struggle to bring an end to British rule over Palestine and to reclaim it for the Jewish people, radical Jewish groups such as the Stern Gang and the Irgun resorted to terrorist acts in the late 1940’s. The most notorious of these attacks was the bombing of British government offices at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, which killed more than 100 people. Acts of terrorism by Israel's Arab adversaries accelerated in the 1960’s, especially following the Six-Day War in 1967, which led to the Israeli occupation of territory populated by Palestinians. A succession of terrorist groups such as Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, loosely organized under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), conducted commando and terrorist operations both within Israel and in other countries. In 1972 a Palestinian splinter group called Black September took hostage and then killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Although the PLO renounced terrorism in 1988, radical Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad have continued to wage a campaign of terror against Israel and its allies. In 1996 a series of suicide bomb attacks in Israel by supporters of Hamas killed more than 60 Israelis and imperiled the fragile peace between Israel and the PLO. Hostility to the support of the United States for Israel led to numerous acts of terrorism against American citizens by Palestinian radicals or their sympathizers. In 1983 attacks by Shiite Moslem suicide bombers on the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, and on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut killed nearly 300 people, most of whom were Americans. In 1988 a bomb destroyed Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board, including 189 United States citizens. In 1991 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency charged two Libyan terrorists with the crime. In 1996 a truck bomb exploded outside an apartment building housing U.S. military personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen.
Finally let’s see the country which announced war against terrorism. One of the most spectacular terrorist episodes in U.S. history was the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993 by Islamic radicals. This incident aroused anxiety about the threat posed by foreign residents from nations hostile to the United States. Six people died in the blast, which caused an estimated $600 million in property and other economic damage. Trials that followed convicted six people of carrying out the attack. In addition to concerns about foreign-sponsored terrorism, the United States has an ample history of domestic terrorism. Early in the 20th century, labor leaders such as William Dudley (Big Bill) Haywood openly espoused a philosophy of revolutionary violence and a commitment to the destruction of government power. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, during the latter stages of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, left-wing groups such as the Weather Underground bombed buildings on university campuses throughout the country and at corporation headquarters and government buildings in New York City. Between 1978 and 1995, an anarchist and terrorist known as the Unabomber planted or mailed homemade bombs that killed 3 people and wounded 23 others in 16 separate incidents throughout the United States. The Unabomber, who claimed an allegiance with radical environmentalists and others opposed to the effects of industrialization and technology, targeted university professors, corporate executives, and computer merchants. In April 1996 federal agents arrested Theodore Kaczynski, a suspect they thought to be the Unabomber. Kaczynski, a Harvard-educated former math professor who became a recluse, pled guilty to 13 federal charges in 1998 in exchange for agreement that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty during sentencing. The court sentenced Kaczynski to four life terms plus 30 years and ordered him to pay $15 million in restitution. In April 1995 a truck bomb exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people and injuring more than 500, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in United States history. Federal agents arrested two men who face trial for the crime, Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols. Both McVeigh and Nichols identify with the "patriot movement," a loose alliance of extremist groups advocating resistance to national laws and political institutions. In June 1997 McVeigh was found guilty of murder in connection with the bombing and sentenced to death. Later in the year Nichols was convicted of the less severe charges of manslaughter and conspiracy, and he was sentenced to life in prison in June 1998. In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed antiterrorism legislation to strengthen the power of the federal government to anticipate and respond to both international and domestic terrorism. The law bars fundraising by foreign terrorist groups and provides for the death penalty in cases of international terrorism and for killing any federal employee because of the employee's association with the federal government. The law also allows for the deportation of alien terrorists without the need to disclose classified evidence against them, and it authorizes expenditures of up to $1 billion on state and local antiterrorism efforts. Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association opposed portions of the legislation that they claimed would provide the federal government with too much power, including an enhanced ability to wiretap and in other ways encroach upon the rights of citizens.
So, after “looking around” in the world, and the short history of terrorism, I would say that no one can stay untouched. We never know when will we be threatened. And we see that everything is connected, every tiny happening has its own link to some past happenings. If we focus on these tiny connections, we will probably be able to find the roots of the big bum (9/11).
The big bum is 9/11, or nine-eleven. What does this number mean? No, it’s not the dial number of the American emergency call. It’s a date, it’s a date of a tragic day, when Americans had first felt that they are not untouched any longer. They are not alone there in the US, but their enemies live among them and it seemed that nothing could be done. But what happened?
That day I got an unclear short message from my Mother. She wrote that I should go home fast because something had happened in the US. I couldn’t understand a word of the message, and she didn’t answer as she worked. I didn’t know from where had she received the bad news. I rushed home – because that day I could luckily go home early afternoon – and switched on TV, CNN International. First, I just saw the twin towers in flames. I was very excited, so I called one of our friends, who had already been retired, and she told me what had happened. I was shocked. Then I saw the replayed cuts, the planes. I had a feeling that I should do something, but I didn’t know what. When my parents arrived home later, we tried to call some friends living close to New York City, and some friends living in Boston. The phone signed busy. We couldn’t reach anybody, nor those living in San Francisco. We gave up and switched on the computer and wrote e-mails for our American friends, relatives. The next day we received answers that everyone was OK. They was really shocked, they felt something indescribable. Anger, fear, responsibility or simply space in their souls? Probably all these together.
The events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity probably the most devastating instant human toll of any crime in history, outside of war. The thing that happened on September 11 is a historic event, one which will change history. I think it’s true. It was a historic event and the question we should be asking is exactly why? Why was it a Historic Event? Because national territory attacked. Let’s turn to the slightly more abstract question, forgetting for the moment that we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder 3 or 4 million people, not Taliban of course, their victims. Let’s go back…turn to the question of the historic event that took place on September 11th . As I said, I think that’s correct. It was a historic event. Not unfortunately because of its scale, unpleasant to think about, but in terms of the scale it’s not that unusual. I did say it’s the worst…probably the worst instant human toll of any crime. And that may be true. But there are terrorist crimes with effects a bit more drawn out that are more extreme, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it’s a historic event because there was a change. The change was the direction in which the guns were pointed. That’s new. Radically new. So, take US history. The last time that the national territory of the United States was under attack, or for that matter, even threatened was when the British burned down Washington in 1814. There have been many…it was common to bring up Pearl Harbor but that’s not a good analogy. The Japanese, whatever you think about it, the Japanese bombed military bases in 2 US colonies not the national territory; colonies which had been taken from their inhabitants in not a very pretty way. This is the national territory that’s been attacked on a large scale, you can find a few fringe examples but this is unique. During these close to 200 years, the United States expelled or mostly exterminated the indigenous population, that’s many millions of people, conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all over the region, Caribbean and Central America, sometimes beyond, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines, killing several 100,000 Filipinos in the process. Since the Second World War, it has extended its reach around the world in ways I don’t have to describe. But it was always killing someone else, the fighting was somewhere else, it was others who were getting slaughtered. Not there. Not the national territory.
I tried to interview my American relatives or friends. They didn’t really wanted to answer my questions, as they are so deeply touched. But they helped me. I asked these questions: What did you feel that day? Do you think that America has its faults? What do you think the US should change in her behaviour? The interview had happened via Internet. I’m not going to copy here the whole text of the interviews, only a summary of them.
One of my subjects was a sixty-year-old women living in Boston, MA. She worked for a computer company those days, but now she is retired. She is quite a clever lady with a “Hungarian” husband (left Hungary in ’56), so the lady’s behaviour is quite different from the average American thinking. She said that she had felt fear those days. She hadn’t really understood what had happened, what to do. But she then thought that American citizens should stand up and unite (something that Hungarians can’t do). She said that it’s true that the US had been under attack, but those attacks had been committed against the whole world; and as it had happened there they had to start the struggle against terrorism. Now she thinks, that it’s hard to stop terrorism, and no one knows how, but something should be done. She said that things had changed since then in the US. People became more suspicious, more cautious, and more nationalist. Americans are even prouder of being Americans (it’s so funny to write this idea write down after reading the article about an experiment by the National Geographic Society that most American kids couldn’t find NY on the map). She said that naturally Americans were faulty as well. The American population is the most spoilt in the world. They always thought themselves to be the best, the strongest, the power of the world. Then they got it. She said that it was a good warning for them, but too dangerous. She said that it was not a warning only for them but for the whole world. She said that their National Security depends on success in the war onterrorism, which includes military, judicial, diplomatic, financial and humanitarian actions both at home and abroad.As a conclusion she said that this terror attack was against the whole world, not only the US.
My other subject was a Hungarian-born fifty-year-old man living in San Francisco, CA. He said that the fear they had felt was a bit slighter than others’ living closer to Boston or NYC. He agreed in a lot of things with my other friend. He said that he had felt very big fear because he had worried about his kids. He had first thought that they had been in danger. But this feeling had gone quite early, as all of them had been busy with their works and schools. His thoughts were a bit extreme as he said that America should have started its war. Their nation had been attacked, and revenge should have been taken. He had also mentioned that the US government was fault in ignoring the signs (just as in the case of Pearl Harbor).
Revenge. The US is quite excited since then. They had attacked the Talibans in Afghanistan, and they won. But I don’t really want to analyse that war. The world is excited about something else. Will there be bombing against Iraq, or will there be a peaceful solution? After 9/11 the Bush administration became stronger. Everyone knows that Bush is a quite militarist man, so –it’s dangerous to declare, but- the terror attack was a good reason to start war against Iraq (luckily it hasn’t been started yet). The need of a war? I have mentioned before (power, oil, money).
I feel that now I shouldn’t be so cynical. Terrorists are real threats for the whole world, we never know who are the target. Therefore I feel that we, average citizens shall also do something. We have to stay realistic, and unite. I’m assuming that our goal is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of such crimes whether they are against us or against someone else. ‘What is the war against terrorism?’ and a side question, ‘What’s terrorism?’. The war against terrorism has been described in high places as a struggle against a plague, a cancer which is spread by barbarians, by “depraved opponents of civilization itself.” The words I’m quoting, however, happen to be from 20 years ago. Those are…that’s President Reagan and his Secretary of State. The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that the war against international terrorism would be the core of American foreign policy…. And it was the core of American foreign policy. The Reagan administration responded to this plague spread by depraved opponents of civilization itself by creating an extraordinary international terrorist network, totally unprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities all over the world, primarily….well, partly nearby, but not only there.
As a conclusion of my essay I would say that the whole world is crazy and very aggressive. It’s true that there is no world war at the moment, but there is a kind of a war in the world. In my opinion terrorism is the new war. A war with new weapons, a war which can kill terribly many people during seconds, a war that is sneaking. A war that is about politics, but everyone might get involved even if you are nothing to do with that political idea. And its danger lies behind it. You think that you are not involved. Or are you?
“Our alliance must remain tough in the war against global terror; that even though we've had some initial successes, there's still danger for countries which embrace freedom, countries such as ours or Germany, France, Russia or Italy. And as an alliance, we must continue to fight against global terror. We've got to be tough."
President George W. Bush
Szabó Eszter
III/50B group
(Tue 4pm class)
2002-11-30
