How Terrorism Has Affected The United States

Stephanie Boone

Ryan Tarr University of Phoenix History 145 June 9, 2013

Terrorism is the act of intimidating persons using ways of violence as a way to look for attention but there has been a problem in defining, as there was a problem in differentiating terrorism with activities involved with violence and actions by the military.

The phenomenon has become a major concern for the American public and was elevated by the Reagan administration to the foremost foreign policy problem of the nation and the public considers terrorism to be a greater threat than driving on the freeway or even nuclear war. America also continues to be relatively free of the threat of domestic terrorism through the help of draconian anti-terrorist measures that many states endure, also the wholesale cancellation of airplane travel plans and even terrorist acts.

The fact that people are so gripped by terrorism may actually serve to reinforce it, as one of terrorism purposes is to rivet the public’s attention and we may unfortunately say that terrorism is actually working. Terror is a process involving three steps: one is seeking attention, second is getting the message across of what the terrorists want and finally, will the response be fight or flight (Lamoma, 2013).

There have been more than one hundred terror attacks in the United States where the first recorded was in 14th April 1865 at Washington DC where one person was killed and three injured where the deceased was President Abraham Lincoln who was by John Wilkes Booth.

The major terror attack was bringing down of the twin towers in 11th September 2001 by Islamists lead by Osama bin Laden using two commercial airplanes, which had been hijacked and later crashed into the Twin Tower. 2759 people lost their lives while 8700 persons were injured. The latest occurrence is the 12th May 2013 incident at New Orleans, Louisiana where two gunmen opened fire at a crowd during a Mother Day event and 19 persons were injured. These terror attacks have affected the USA in major ways like people have become more discriminative at persons who are from the Middle East, they are judged to be terrorists and they face harsh scrutiny at work places and even at airport security checks.

The American residents live in constant fear of imminent attacks; the economy has also been hit by terror. One of the best ways to guard oneself from terror is not to live in constant paranoia but to keep us clear (Dyson, 2012).

In 2002, Wednesday, December 4th there was a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli jetliner in Kenya. This has made military personnel do more studies of early missile warning systems in commercial airlines by detecting and removing the threat when the planes are most vulnerable and that is when they are about to land or take off.

On Thursday, October 10th, 2002 there was an attack of French tanker off coast of Yemen and the post attack investigation by the American military found remains of TNT and fiberglass in the wrecked tanker and this helped in tracking down of the responsible culprits.

There exists heavier activity in certain areas of the world as a result of many ethnic groups who don’t get along on their ways of doing things. Example is the Muslims and Jews in the Middle East with their holy grounds of worship to the same God with names, which aren’t shared. Religion activists from different camps get into disagreement on how they handle certain activities leading to conflicts.

The presence of oil also doesn’t help their situation as the western world also wants a share of the same and more extremism is experienced (Kegly and Wittkopf, 2008). Like in the case of IED explosions at the restaurant in Cotabato, Philippines, which resulted in three people critically injured; the regional police head German Doria said that they had suspects and they were al-Qaeda-linked militants without concrete evidence. Hence the presence of different ethnic groups, the Philistines and the Muslims, lead the attacks of one another.

Terrorist activity sites have one thing in common; there is scattered shrapnel from the explosion, scattered impaired body part from victims and lots of blood and a lot of pain is evident from those who live through the traumatizing event to tell the story. Laws and procedures, or organizations, either national or international, can play a role in preventing these activities of terror from taking place. The UN can promote peace among communities of different ethnics sharing the same resources who will always tend to fight for the same by teaching them and showing the importance of a fair share and that quarrels among communities like the Jews and Muslims should cease.

Laws like curbing ownership of guns for anybody may also control the rising numbers of shooting cases experienced and more lives may be saved. However, with all these initiatives, terrorists are martyrs and are ready to die for what they believe in, so, to some extent, the laid down laws may fail to work. The body, which should determine what sort of laws are most effective to implement is a neutral party who isn’t biased to any side. With such a body setting the rules, the aggrieved parties will tend to fill that the laid down procedure is fair, as it wasn’t biased.

Lives of individual Americans have been affected since 9/11 in many forms. Most affected Americans suffered psychological impacts of fear and rage, also loss of loved ones in the vicinity of the terror site. Many people have become intolerant toward Muslim immigrants and become victims of bullying and hate speech.

First, the Bush administration made retaliation to al-Qaeda attacking Iraq on the war on terror. Many American soldiers were deployed to Iraq and a good number died in the line of duty never to return to their loved ones, hence some American families suffered a personal loss. This war also greatly affected the country’s economy, millions of tax payers’ dollars have spent to fund the war.

The physical health of the Americans involved in the process of rescuing the injured at the crash site of the twin towers suffered lung illnesses, as a result of inhaling poisonous fumes from the debris.

World relation of America has been affected, as when the US attacked Iraq, they invaded the Arab world and this made the hate from them increase. Also, after the killing of Osama bin Laden, this widened the gap between the US and the Arabic world relations. American priorities have changed since 9/11 by enforcement of laws at a large scale and improvement of security systems so that there may not be a repeat of 9/11.

Work cited

Dyson, W. E. (2012). Terrorism: An investigator's handbook. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson.

Kegley, C. W., & Wittkopf, E. R. (2008). World politics: Trend and transformation : [2007-2008 update]. Boston, MA: Thomson/Wadsworth.