Terrorism - the Greatest Threat

Terrorism - The Greatest Threat

I believe that the greatest threat in the world is terrorism. Terrorism is a senseless way to get a point across. Terrorists (anyone who engages in terror) can act to change or take over their government, because of hatred toward a particular religion, race, nationality, or country, or for any other belief or obsession that this person might have. Terrorism comes in all shapes and sizes, from certain forms of Christian fundamentalists who are "terrorists with their mouths," to the September eleventh attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. by Islamic extremists who hate the United States and Christians.

Terrorism is said to have begun around the mid nineteenth-century, although terrorist acts have been used since the beginning of history. Russia, Ireland, England, and France had known terrorism problems, and it did not stop there. In Syria and Iran in the eleventh century, a group known as Hashshashin formed a radical group and murdered popular enemies. In 1868, a known group who called themselves the Ku Klux Klan and who believed in white supremacy terrorized all African-Americans in the United States. Obviously, terrorism has been a long growing problem almost everywhere in the world, and nothing has stopped it yet.

The term "terrorist" is used politically to criticize the violence that the so-called terrorists use. Since the term terrorist is negative, it makes the acts of terrorism sound extreme, immoral, and unjustified. Terrorists prefer to call themselves by other terms like guerrilla, liberator, freedom fighter, and separatist, whichever name sounds best for their particular situation. Of course, the terrorists try to suggest that enticing and brainwashing more people into believing what they believe is not as bad as it appears to be.

A few common known terrorist organizations are the al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the

National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria.

Each of these groups has at least a thousand members, if not more, and the amount of actual organizations innumerable. Stopping terrorist organizations is not easy, especially considering how many organizations there are, and how many members and supporters they have.

One example of a terrorist act is the 1972 Munich massacre. During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, Israeli athletes were taken hostage by a terrorist organization who called themselves Black September. Black September was a Palestinian militant group which was founded on September 16, 1970. Black September ended up killing eleven

Israeli athletes and one German policeman. Black September demanded that the two hundred and

thirty-four Palestinians and non-Arabs be released and given a safe passage to Egypt, along with

the two German prisoners, Baader and Meinhof, who were the founders of the German Red

Army Faction (a very active militant group.) In the end, every one of the terrorists was captured

and/or killed, proving the entire ordeal pointless.

More recently, on April 16, 2007, a twenty-three year old man named Seung-Hui Cho killed thirty-three people, including himself, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (more commonly known as Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia. This act, known as the Virginia Tech massacre, is considered the worst civilian shooting ever in the United States. The terrorist sent a letter and a video to NBC news in New York stating the reason why he did killed twenty-seven students and five faculty members. In the letter, Cho condemned "rich kids" and "deceitful charlatans." This form of terrorism is the lowest and most immoral in my opinion.

Of course, there are responses to terrorism, commonly known as counter-terrorism. Military intervention, nonmilitary intervention, target hardening, and criminal procedures are included in these responses.