"Destroying the Cole." After glorifying the attack, the film shifts to a panoramic view of the Arabic world, scenes of travail from many countries in the Middle East. It concludes with a segment demonizing the West and Muslims who seek political compromise with the United States, Europe.. and Israel. Closing with an appeal from the late Abdullah Azzam, one of Osama bin Ladin's spiritual mentors, the film calls on Muslims to transcend the illusion of nationalism and join a never-ending holy war. The recruiting video uses the attack as a religious call to transnational terrorism. The argument here is that terrorism has gone through three transitory phases since 1945. The first phase was dominated by nationalism, and the second emphasized ethnic …show more content…
Terrorists do not act from psychological inadequacies but from political circumstances. Brian Jenkins (1998) offers a practical solution to the problem: terrorists are not typical criminals. They commit crimes for political purposes. When captured by security forces, they are not usually prosecuted as terrorists but charged with the crimes they commit. Terrorists strike targets for political purposes in a given situation, using crime as an incidental tactic. When terrorists cross national boundaries, they become international terrorists. Furthermore, terrorists are not exceptionally creative; they use a limited array of weapons and tactics. Jeffery Ian Ross (1999) differs from earlier research suggesting that both political and social factors can lead to a criminology of terrorism. Terrorism involves violence but criminal behavior is a result of political and social circumstances; that is, terrorism involves variables that can be measured on a criminological scale. The measurable by-product can be examined through psychological factors that vacillate with political circumstances. Ross's conclusions lead to two practical considerations. …show more content…
Transnational terrorism points toward an ideological globalism ignoring a world divided by national frontiers. by acknowledging the nature of transnational terrorism, policymakers may come to realize that the structure of terrorism has changed. At least two major international terrorist groups embrace a transcendent ideology-al Qaeda and Hezbollah-and both groups are motivated by religion. In addition, several smaller groups want to follow in their path. Second, at first glance, because many of these groups are Islamic, it would seem to suggest the beginning of religious conflicts beyond nationalistic
Criminal activity and terrorist activity have a relationship that is closely related, with only minor differences separating the two. Terrorist activity are criminal acts that are motivated by a higher cause beyond the basic causes of crime. Terrorist attack are highly planned out, and the same can be said about criminal activity. Serial killers often plan out their acts just as much as terrorist organizations, however the same cannot be said for certain crimes like random assaults. (Newman & Clarke, 2008) The relationship between crime and terrorism is brought closer when terrorist organizations use common crime to fund their attacks. For example, a terrorist organization may resort to stealing chemical agents to make their dirty bombs. The
The overwhelming majority of the world’s nations, including United States are signatories to at least one international agreement that condemns terrorism. The question comes to mind as why terrorism is growing and not coming to an end, and what are the intentions of the terrorist groups. There are many factors in the development of domestic terrorisms, however, there are several causes on the growing terrorism and there is a need to find the principal factors responsible for causing this growing threat. In addition, it is important to save the world and to save our next generation from being victims in the hands of terrorism. Many are the risk factors involved in the development of domestic terrorism. Additionally, it is important to remember that terrorism is a tactic practiced by people from a wide array of ethnic and religious backgrounds who follow various ideologies extending from anarchism to
The Report of the Task Force on Disorders and Terrorism, assembled by the National Advisory Committee, provides the following typology of terrorism: Political Terrorism - “violent criminal behavior designed
In his book Talking to the Enemy (2010), Scott Atran uses his experiences in the countries often perceived as the origin of most global terrorist actions against the United States combined with scientific proof from a wide variety of sources to argue for new methods of understanding and stopping terrorism as it exists today. Though many examples and analyses of terrorist acts are examined in the book along with many different explanations for the social and psychological mechanisms that may cause them, one of the central ideas is the power of social bonds to drive people to commit actions that they never would have considered alone. This paper will analyze Atran's argument as
King and Taylor (2011) stated that radicalization does not contain any singular specificity to ethnicity, nationality, political, religious or any association with an ideological group (p.63). There is not a one-fit-all explanation which makes terrorism mitigation efforts a significant challenge for law enforcement officials and further complicates the protection of National Security. Terrorism expert, Bruce Hoffman, stated: “The profile is broken, (and) it’s women as well as men, its lifelong Muslims as well as converts, its college students as well as jailbirds” (Sullivan, 2010, para. 29).
"The FBI defines three types of terrorists: (1) a leader with a strong commitment to their groups belief system; (2) an "activist operator" who often has a criminal background and implements their groups agenda; and (3) an idealist who finds a sense of purpose in his commitment to their group." (Kressel, 82) In the field of psychology, it is the psychologists duty to try to come up with theories or correlations, which help people group and identify terrorist or terroristic behavior, quickly and consistantly. There are many common assumptions about the common terrorist, but there are no true or definite catagories to place them in. A terrorist is formed by his environment either through ways of
The definition of terrorism has forever been a topic of debate. One thing agreed upon however, is that there are different types of terrorism. For instance, there is religious terrorism, and there is political terrorism. This paper will discuss the question: How do religious and political terrorism differ in terms of their roots, their motivations, and their methods – and it will also briefly discuss how their traits coincide.
When explaining why people often view terrorist as psychopaths, Silke pointed out that terrorists’ acts are often so rare and goes against the traditional norms of society that it suggests a psychological anomaly. However, the number of terrorist acts performed worldwide has increased over recent decades. According to the RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (RDWTI) between 1969 and 2009, there were 38,345 terrorist incidents around the world. 2,981of those total acts were aimed at the United States. With this in mind, if the number of terrorist acts is so large and we as a society have become more acclaimed with terrorist acts, why do we still continue to attribute and explain terrorists through primarily a psychological perspective?--Oyindamola Adedipe
In most cases investigative work must take place before such crimes can be determined to be an act of terrorism. In more modern ages it has become significantly easier to figure out what crimes are acts of terrorism. Through statistical analyses one can see that the number of crimes related to terrorism have slightly decreased by approximately 13% ((Department Of State, 2016). It is important to understand statistics related to terrorism to better understand the crime rate. For many people in the United States an act of terrorism may be a surprise compared to other areas of the world where terrorist attacks occur more frequently. The main factor that must be taken into consideration is the perspective that people in the area
Research proposes that crime theories can be a way of finding out what causes terrorism. A general strain theory of terrorism can be defined as terrorism being more extreme than common crimes because it typically includes an assignment of severe violence against innocent civilians who have done nothing to directly provoke being victimize (Agnew, 2016). In addition, terrorists usually have the support of a sub-national group. Despite the fact, most adult terrorist will act alone. Terrorism is committed solely or in part for political, social, or religious reasons (Agnew, 2016).
A criminal is considered as a felon whose violent acts are intended to meet selfish or personal motivations (Howard & Hoffman, 2012). In general, a criminal does not seek a psychological repercussion or influence on a public besides his/her felony. Importantly, the criminal is neither politically motivated nor pertain to a political organization which intention is to change a situation. For example, Oehme (2008) states that criminals are those involved in racketeering operations, smuggling, money extortion, bribery, and related pernicious activities with the objectives of satisfying existential needs or related. Crimes can be organized or not. Meanwhile a terrorist is also violent felon; he/she is different from a criminal. A terrorist commits
A “terrorism” expert Walter Loqueur also has calculated over 100 definations and achieves that the only general characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence “yet terrorism is hardly the only creativity involving violence and the threat of violence. So does war coercive diplomacy and bar room
In the current 21st century, Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO’s) have arisen in abundance throughout the world. These organizations do not only wreak havoc in their own region, but they proceed to terrorize the lives of civilians and political figures in foreign nations as well. An organization that the United States could consider a terroristic threat may not be considered a threat to another nation; this international dilemma generally correlates with the nation in questions definition of terrorism, based off of the social context and the social construct (the way people view reality) in that particular nations region at the time. A social context can be described as “the historical, political and criminological circumstances at a
Various theories exist that attempt to explain what drives terrorist behavior. While many of these studies cover a wide array of the proposed behavioral and psychological theories, this review focuses on five major themes that appear throughout the literature reviewed. These themes are: defining terrorism, the terrorist mindset, methods of identifying a potential terrorist, ways to detect terrorist activities prior to execution, and developing means to combat future acts of terrorism. Although the literature presents these main themes in a variety of perspectives, this paper will primarily focus on their applicability to the terrorist lifecycle.
Modern terrorism can be analyzed focusing on issues such motivation, territorialism and individualism. Assumingly, it is apparent that terrorists are more motivated than ever. Unlike before, most terrorism activities carried out worldwide in the recent past are largely motivated by religion rather than political or economic objectives. Jihad teachers use religion as base of their teaching, and impose ideas to their students or followers (Mamdani, 2002). Their key motivation is religion. Other motivation to terrorism also exists such as politics among others though religious motivated tend to be more severe of all of them. Some time ago, most terrorism activities focused only on places or regions were their goals and objectives were confined. This form of terrorism was mainly homegrown or domestic. After realization of their objectives terror activities were ceased or declined gradually. Modern terrorism has no borders; it can be carried out virtually anywhere. It is more sophisticated and systematized thus very severe. Its goals