Media exposure magnifies events, campaigns, and causes, and both terrorists and governments attempt to manipulate reports so that they are portrayed in a favorable light. In the second, the media plays a major role in creating all social definition of terrorism. It can globalize a local event or personalize a global event on a local level. In the third, the World Wide Web has become conduit for propaganda and communication. In any form, terrorism sends a message.
All this demonstrates how sinister1 terrorism is in American society. This paper will explain background data on anarchy/terrorism, case studies including the Oklahoma bombing, and the government’s reaction toward terrorism. A number of terrorist attacks in the 1990s have brought the fear to the public, giving rise to vulnerability2 between many Americans. Most terrorist incidents in the United States have been bombing attacks, involving detonated and undetonated explosive devices, tear gas and pipe and fire bombs. The effects of terrorism can cause loss of life and injuries to property damage and disruptions in services such as electricity, water supply, public transportation and communications.
My analysis mainly focuses on semantic fields and syntax. A semantic field of fear runs throughout the discourses of both Blair and Bush. Bush began his speech with the following sentence; “Good evening… series of deliberate and deadly terrorist attacks”. Blair also opts to utilise the same method “it was the events of September 11 that marked a turning point in history, where we confront the dangers of mankind, it was tragedy, an act of evil”. Due to the semantic field of fear and terror running throughout the discourses of Bush and Blair their choice of lexis is crucial in conveying their political ideologies.
The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as “the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful 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,” (Feith, 2004). Terrorism can be conducted by an individual or a formal organization. A terrorist organization usually initially begins as a special interest group with just a few members, and through recruitment, militia formation,
In the article written with J. Bower Bell, Gurr argues that terrorism is a tactic used by the weak to intimidate the strong and, in turn, used by the strong to repress the weak. In this sense, America’s history is filled with terrorism activities. Labor violence was not the only source of early United States terrorism. The frontier had its own special form of violence. As people moved west, the laws of the United States trailed far from behind.
Today, al Qaeda is a de-centralized, compartmentalised organisation that has self-sufficient networks in many countries. Al Qaeda’s success and influence can be traced to its terrorist attack in New York City and Washington DC on 9/11. The scale of these attacks claiming some three thousand lives acted to galvanise support and unify elements of Muslim extremism in parts of the Middle East. Al-Qaeda seeks to unite Muslims in a caliphate and to fight the West, especially the US and Israel, as a means of overthrowing regimes it deems to be secular or unIslamic expelling western influence from Muslim countries, and removing Israel. On the one hand, its initial influence was quite profound; terrorist attacks in Spain, Indonesia (Bali) and the UK, amongst many others were carried out by groups inspired by or affiliated to al Qaeda.
This identifies exactly how long the country has been dealing with such issues. However the public have become more aware of the growing threat of terrorism since the tragic September 11th disaster in America, 2001 and concerns are rising. Terrorism is defined by the European Union as being offences which “include international acts, by their nature and context, which may be seriously damaging to a country or to an international organisation, as defined under national law, where committed with the aim of; Seriously intimidating a population or, unduly compelling a government or international organisation to perform or to abstain from performing any act or, destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or international organisation”. It can be argued 9/11 witnessed a new type of terrorism being unleashed on the world. The sheer scale of the attacks was unprecedented and provoked America’s ‘War on Terror’ in subsequent years.
In this paper we will examine the impact of 9/11 on Americans and the U.S. economy and why the U.S. responded to the terrorism by enacting the USA Patriot act to “protect” America, which had become a big controversial issue to Americans. Another topic we will discuss is the negative effects of the Patriot Act such as violating Americans civil liberties and how the government stereotyped and secretly arrested Arab or Muslim citizens. The tragedy of 9/11 has impacted America in many ways and ever since then, America has made a lot of changes to prevent another tragedy, such as the national security which is tighter than it has ever been in recent years, especially in airports. According to Jennie Wood’s article, she mentions that the airport has way too many restrictions on what to bring in the plane for every traveler, such as, “Liquids and toiletries have to be a certain size and placed in clear, sealed bags. No food or bottled water is allowed through security.
Due to the events of the 11th September 2001 the USA began its war on terror, and specifically targeted was George Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ which included; Iran, Iraq and North Korea. The USA used their war on terror so to legitimise their actions worldwide thus destroying any hopes for a post cold war collective international security, therefore basing their response to international aggression on protecting their own national interests. This is seen with the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. Together with Britain they acted unilaterally in order to remove the al-Qaeda and capture bin Laden, who was the prime suspect for the 9/11 attacks. The USA believed its actions were justified by labelling them as self defence under Article 51 of the UN charter.
Not only did the attacks leave behind sheer devastation it left behind lots of speculation between what really happened that day. People started to poke holes in what was being shown on the news and what the government was leading the public to believe was the truth. With things not adding up with what they were telling us conspiracy theories began to develop. In this extended project I’m going to explore the main conspiracy theories behind 911 and answer the question were the attacks of 9ll really a conspiracy theory? What is a conspiracy theory?