Terrorism is a type of violence used tactically in peace, conflict, and war. The threat of terrorism is ever present, and an attack is likely to occur when least expected. In trying to find out what factors can cause an individual to choose terrorism, it is first necessary to define what terrorism is. The Department of Defense defines terrorism as “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.” Per the definition, the terrorists are not giving into a whim of random acts, but these individuals are using calculated moves in order to achieve the purpose of the group. Simply put, this suggests that these individuals are making a conscious choice for violence. What motivates these groups to choose terrorism as a means to achieve a particular agenda? The majority of the motives can be broken down into three broad areas: rational, psychological, and cultural.(1) Although some motives are difficult for the majority of the World to comprehend; given a motive, a terrorist group has a purpose for violence.
The rational terrorist thinks through the options and goals that are to be achieved, making a cost-benefit breakdown. This individual seeks to determine whether there are less costly and more effective ways to achieve the objective than terrorism. Risks and capabilities are assessed to determine whether terrorism should be used or not. This type of thought is similar to that of a military commander choosing which course of action should be taken to achieve the mission’s objectives.
The rational terrorist is more of a strategist, which uses terrorism to achieve an outcome. Sinn Fein can be interpreted as a rational terrorist. In the roots of this organization, terrorism may have seemed to be the only alternative to achieve an audience. Although currently the political party is not directly affiliated with the IRA (Irish Republican Army), past ties gave the appearance of one entity; dealing with Sinn Fein meant dealing with the IRA as well. Now that Sinn Fein has the ability to achieve objectives through political means, it is no longer part of the IRA; although, some still view them to be the political wing of the IRA.(2) This strategy can easily change once again, should the objectives become more di...
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...otherwise be extraordinary acts of desperation becomes a religious duty in the mind of the religiously motivated terrorist. This helps explain the high level of commitment and willingness to risk death among religious extremist groups. The Hezbollah view the West as “the Great Satan” and the foremost corrupting influence on the Islamic world today. This militant group does not view the suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut as an insane act,(5) but as martyrdom against the evil ways of the West. With this underlying holy war against the world, they are forced to use these extreme measures.
With the motives of rational, psychology, and cultural reasoning, the different terrorist groups make a stand for what is believed to be right. The calculation for the next move that a terrorist will make is hard to decipher, but all terrorist do have motives. Although some motives are difficult for the majority of the World to comprehend; given a motive, a terrorist group has a purpose for violence.
Bibliography
1. Origins of Terrorism, Walter Reich.
2. Behind the Mask, Peter Taylor.
3. Field Manual 100-20, U.S. Army.
4. Origins of Terrorism, Walter Reich.
5. Hezbollah, Hala Jaber.
Categorical terrorism, according to Jeff Goodwin, is defined as “the strategic use of violence and threats of violence, usually intended to influence several audiences, by oppositional political groups against civilian or noncombatants who belong to a specific entity, religious or national group, social class or some other collectivity, without regard to their individual identities or roles.” More so, in terms of definition, according to a study done by Jeffrey Record in 2003, there was a count of over 109 definitions of terrorism, covering 22 different categorical elements. During the 70s and 80s, the United Nations struggled to define the term, finally coming up with the following definition: “Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.”
To support his claim, McPherson argues there is nothing morally relevant to make a distinction between terrorism and conventional war waged by states. In other words, from the moral angel, there is no difference between terrorism and conventional war. Both two types of political violence have some common natures related to morality like posing threat to civilian lives. McPherson argues that conventional war usually causes more casualties and produces fear widely among noncombatants. He focuses on defending the claim that terrorists sometimes do care about noncombatants and proportionality. This viewpoint infers that terrorists do not merely intent to do harm to civilians. As a matter of fact, they sometimes put civilian interests in the first place. Those terrorists caring the victims would not resor...
Marketing In this day and age is vital for a company to perform at its possible best. Marketing’s main focus is to give great satisfaction to a customer. There are many aspect of marketing, these aspects give marketer’s the tools to help strive for the best possible success they can achieve. They hope that they can create exposure for their brand, product or service.
Domestic violence has increased over the years and has become a major issue for the children that live through it. In a study organized by David Wolfe, researchers concluded that from 1990 to 1993, there was an increase of 256,112 child abuse cases (Wolfe11). In a more recent evaluation relating to domestic violence by Louise Gerdes, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made an assessment on Child Protective Services (CPS) and reported that domestic abuse and neglect claimed the lives of 1,760 children in 2007 in comparison to 1,460 in 2005 (Gerdes 129-130). The neglect that these children are put in can only be categorized as child abuse. With all of these abuse cases, one could wonder how this abuse might be carried out against the well-being of the child.
As David Canter stated in his book, The Faces of Terrorism: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, “Terrorism is multifaceted and, as a consequence, no one explanation, theory or discipline will ever fully account for all terrorist activities. However, the psychological and social psychological processes that lead any given person to commit a terrorist act tend to have been under-represented in the terrorist literature. This is doubtless in part due to the difficulty of conducting studies that engage directly with those individuals who carry out terrorist acts.” (Canter 1) Basically, Canter discusses how terrorism, as discussed before, is not a one-sided act.
Even though suicide terrorism has been a part of international politics for a long period of time, there are still many questions that are left unanswered about the tactic. One of the most interesting and obvious questions for suicide terrorism, is simply as to why groups use this as a terrorism tactic. Many believe that this form of terrorism is a result of religious beliefs. However, this is mainly due to the western focus on the Islamic group of terrorists. The Islamic terrorist...
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The combination of these is called hemolymph or haemolymph. It consists of a heart, vessels, and hemolymph. The hymolymph is first pumped into the aorta through the heart, dispersed into the head and throughout the hemocoel. It then travels back through the ostium that are located in the heart, where the process is repeated. Muscular movements by the animal during locomotion facilitate hemolymph movement around the body in all directions. The hemolymph bathes the organs directly supplying oxygen and removing waste. Blood flows at a very slow speed because of absence of smooth muscles that are responsible for contraction of blood vessels. Blood is drawn back toward the heart through open-ended pores (ostia) when the heart relaxes. Most invertebrates (Arthropoda and Mollusca) have an open circulatory
Human organism has two fluids which intertwined throughout the body: blood and lymph. They are responsible for transporting the agents of immune system. Lymphoid system is composed of tissues and organs which produce specific resistance to human diseases (3). Also it consists of tissues which found in lymph nodes. Lymphoid tissues dedicated to circulation and production of lymphocytes, while lymph nodes serve as filtration of lymphoid system and activation of lymphocytes. Human lymphoid system has two organs: central or primary lymphoid organ and peripheral or secondary lymphoid organ. Primary organs are located in bone marrow and thymus and generate lymphocytes from immature progenitor...
This organ assists the body in the fight against infection by utilizing the lymphocytes and macrophages, which are white blood cells. Together the lymphocytes and macrophages attempt to destroy and overcome foreign matter, dead tissue, and bacteria by blood filtration. The spleen has two types of tissue a white and red pulp. The lymphocytes are produced for protection of the immune system by the white pulp. The spleen’s storage reservoir and filtering system for blood is actions of the red pulp. The white and red pulps are incasing in the spleen surrounded by mass of lymph and blood
On August 9, 1896, Jean Piaget was born into this world not knowing he was going to be such an influence on the educational world today. “It is possible to give a rough definition of Piaget’s principal scientific concerns in a single sentence: he is primarily interested in the theoretical and experimental investigation of the qualitative development of intellectual structures” (Flavell, 1963, p. 15). Piaget was a theorist who placed an emphasis on the development of social behavior and nature as they contributed to cognitive development. When looking at cognitive development, you are focusing on problem-solving and how it develops throughout childhood.
He created Piaget’s Theory of Intellectual Development that divided life into a series of stages where certain abilities develop. Similar to Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget was a stage theorist. As I mentioned earlier I volunteered in a first grade classroom, with ages ranging from 6-7 years old. Piaget classifies this age as being in the Preoperational Period. This stage mainly describes children as beginning to learn to think abstractly and expanding their vocabulary. Another skill usually acquired at this age is the habit of solving problems through imitation or by pretending. Mrs. Stainbrook took advantage of this newfound skill quite often whenever someone in the class brought up a situation they were experiencing. For example, one day during morning meeting, a boy named Xavier brought up that he was feeling left out during recess. Mrs. Stainbrook took this as an opportunity to let the children try and solve this problem on their own. She had the class split into groups and create some skits reenacting the situation at hand, and then we all discussed what some appropriate reactions could
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The mind of a terrorist is a very unique and mysterious thing. There are many things that can create different aspects inside a terrorist oganization. With a set of constant new recruits and persons that are willing to commit sucidie terrorism the terror organizations can be extrememly effective in achieving their goals for their organizations. Recruits can be reached through many forms of communications and once into a group that is radicalized they can become suicide terrorist in order to fulfill their own needs.
After series of attacks around the world, terrorism has been one of the most worrisome issues in world politics nowadays. Fortna (2015: 522) defines terrorist as people that utilize indiscriminate violence against public civilian in order to force government to make political compromises and conceding outright defeat. As there is yet no single explanation and definite causes of terrorism that can be relate to all categories of terrorist, I will explore the conditions that create favorable environment for transnational terrorists to keep budding. Despite many opinions and perspectives, I firmly believe that constructivism provides the best and well-grounded reasons for it. First, I will explain the constructivism’s keystones in relation to terrorism.