Domestic Terrorism in United States

Domestic Terrorism in United States

Introduction:

As with many other aspects, the definition of domestic terrorism in united states have also changed many a times over the period of times and in fact instances of such terrorism have been occurring before even a term and definition for same was coined. As per the memo made available by FBI’s Terrorist Research and Analytical Centre in 1994, domestic terrorism has been defined as “the unlawful use of force or violence, committed by group(s) of two or more individual’s, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”. This definition has been made broader and clearer by US PATRIOT Act which defines domestic terrorism as one satisfying following criteria’s:

Acts which cause danger to human life and violates criminal laws of states

The acts have been intentionally carried out either to intimidate civil population, to influence government policies or to effect government functioning by acts such as destruction, assassination and kidnapping.

The acts take place primarily with countries jurisdiction.

Now that we have looked enough as the definition of and have understood what constitutes a domestic terrorism, we are in position to move ahead and look into specific acts of terrorism that have taken place in united states and the consequences and facts related to same (Smith, 1994). We for sake of relevance would keep our discussion to acts taken place post 1950.

Major Events:

We next some of the major terrorists event that took place since 1950. The first that comes to any Americans mind is that of George Metesky popularly known as Mad Bomber during the period of 1940-56 in which he placed over 30 bombs over the city of New York for showing his protests against high electricity charges. It was in 1958 that white racist carried out bombing of the Hebrew Benevolent Congretion Temple in Atlanta.

The more popular one’s being assassination of president JFK on Nov 22, 1963. It was followed with assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. This was again followed up by bombing in 1969 on United States Department of Commerce. Similar high profile terrorist acts in the same year were many such as bombing of the federal building by radical leftist Jane Alpert, bombing of the Armed forces Induction Centre again by the same person and bombing of the Manhattan Criminal court and again by same personnel’s.

Similar incidents surrounds every decade like in 70 the popular incidents were that of bombing of Jewish defence League, the case of Alphabet Bomber etc. Similarly in 80’s it was bombing of the statue of Liberty, the killing of Alex Odeh, an Arab-American, firebombing of the Riverdale Press etc. were the major incidents. Moving on to the more recent times it was the Centennial Olympic Park movement, Oklahama City Bombing, firebombing of the Temple Beth EI, Assassination of Dr. George Tiller etc were the major incidents of the recent times.

Now when one looks at these above stated major incidents of domestic violence that took place, one gets to see that each of them has been carried out with an individual point of view and was not necessarily an mass problem or a true problem. Example the murder of Dr. Geogre Tiller was done by killer who was an avid anti supporter of Abortion laws. Hence one gets to see that this murder was not justified since abortion laws were enacted for the good of masses and nothing that was forced or obliged in such cases and hence the killer point of view was his own and was not a genuine one.

Similarly the other associated found out reasons behind such attacks were initially more concentrated on the Black and White struggle that was going for long in America. This was the predominant reason during the 60’s. The other major reasons that was ruling the time was the issue of regional conflicts and hatred that was prevalent during the 70’s and 80’s such the Mexico problem, the Cuba problem, the Porto Rico problem etc. these issues and their natives having citizenship is Us were the ones responsible for it and in such cases one can see that the reason was justified and was true ones but of course never the actions taken by that. Similarly other domestic and political issues were and are still dominant reasons and force that lead to such type of acts by daring individuals for their own or their section of people’s sake. Such domestic and political reason could be anything ranging from high inflation, poor working environment to ban on smoking to legalized abortion to improper healthcare benefits etc. one can clearly see that even though in some cases the reasons could be justified, the same could not said about the approach to highlight and address that.

Military Aspect:

As is evident from the research conducted and paper written by Steven Mark Presley, these acts of domestic violence has been increasing in 90’s especially among the armed personnel’s. His paper seeks to analyse the same i.e. rise of terrorism by and among the armed personnel of militia and the associated concerns. He goes on to state that in recent times the domestic terrorism have been either indirectly or directly carried out and supported by present and ex-military persons (Presley, 1996). This is a cause of significant concern and alarm since this speaks of the extent o which such groups have presence in military services.

There has been growing number in the radical right-wing and radically motivated group members and groups in United States and this is solely on account of growing dissatisfaction wit government policies and practices (Kelly, 1995). There are several reasons for the trend of increased number of persons from military being recruited by these extremists groups. The real reasons being stated as:

Such persons make available “legitimacy” and “bravado” for recruitment and training of additional treatment.

They are well trained and equipped to use weapons and can train other recruits as well.

They are used as the inside point for contacts for needs to ordinance and mutations thefts

The difficulty that one comes across in dealing with such issues is the fact that in most of these cases it is the individual’s freedoms of through and expressions are identified as the reasons behind their existence. Also the definition of involvement with extremist groups needs a clear definition as to what is active involvement and what is inactive involvement and basis that only suitable restrictive an punishing actions could be decided upon. At present there is no clear definition to this effect.

Effects:

Now if we look at all that happened as a domestic violence there are numerous aspects to it. Looking from human tolls of injured and death form economic and from changes that it has brought in. Since the definition of domestic violence is itself a part of controversy stating the toll of human life’s is difficult task but form the incidents that we have stated here we can clearly see that the human death toll was not on very higher side and if looked deeply since 1950 this form of terrorism have not had more than 50 human life but yes of course they have good number of injuries to their account which could be not be less than 10,000.

From the economic point of view though it is not possible to quote or quantify the exact effect without proper analysis and deeper reporting but definitely it has great effect on economic life especially in the period of 50’s to late 80’s time. The economic effects can be seen in the loss of employment opportunity that blacks had during the tussling times (Bohn, 2004). The same was seen when it came to migration of black or whites to dominated areas of either of the two. Due to abortion issue the prospective mothers were very reluctant to go for same and hence were low revenue for abortion specialist. The specialist had also low revenue due to their fear of such attacks and reluctant to serve people. These were some of the effects on economic activities that such domestic violence had. This is apart from the effect that such incidents had on economy as a whole with aspects such as job opportunities, investments from foreign economy, growth of human index etc.

Resulting Changes:

We finally will look at the changes that such incidents brought tin into the systems especially for the reasons which were genuine enough. For the abortion issues, even through people had issues and reservation with this law but on a broader perspective it was justified and hence was kept intact, instead more efforts were made to educate citizens and such people and to make them understand to restrict them from using such extremely steps. These efforts were instrumental enough in achieving the required educational and elimination of incidents relate dot such aspects.

Similarly the blacks and whites conflict took its time and cost but it was much needed to get it resolved and finally the same was achieved and successfully implemented and achieved and at present the frictions been drastically reduced and chances of such incidents have almost got eliminated. For the issues which we genuine but not a conflicting one such as improper electricity rates, bad healthcare facilities etc. were looked into, understood and remedy step were taken and implemented immediately since the need was for same. This has led to drastic reduction in such dissatisfaction levels and hence associated incidents.

Social and Economic Effects:

For the military personnel’s issues steps were taken and to max extent success have been achieved but since this case is new, stating the same with 100% confidence is impossible at present. The only possible way by which this trend could be checked is by formulations of guidelines and policies which when carefully enacted which will clearly sate and restrict participation of military personnel’s in groups which as per government is deemed potentially dangerous. Even much care needs to be taken while defining freedoms and rights of military personnel. Apart from that nothing is better than education and open discussions will be instrumental in prevention and elimination of such problems. Guidelines and policies must be carefully and succinctly enacted which clarify the degree to which military personnel can participate in groups that are deemed potentially dangerous, however great care must be taken to protect the freedoms and rights of military personnel. Additionally, education and frank, open discussions will be required to prevent and eliminate such problems in the future.

Bibliography

Bohn, M. K. (2004). The Achilli Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the politics and Prejudice of Terrorism . Brassey’s Inc.

Kelly, K. (1995). Hundreds of Militants in USA. USA Today .

Presley, L. S. (1996). Rise of Domestic Terrorism and its Relation to United States Armed Forces. www.fas.org.

Smith, B. L. (1994). Terrorism in America: pipe bombs and pipe dreams. SUNY Press.