Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Annalycia Morales
1.
Bergen, P. (2018) What is the Threat to the United States Today? (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/terrorism-in-america/what-threat-united-states-today/
Quotes:
“ Far from being foreign infiltrators, the large majority of jihadist terrorists in the United States
have been American citizens or legal residents”
“Since 9/11, hundreds of Americans and people residing inside the United States have been
charged with jihadist terrorism or related crimes, or have died before being charged but were
widely reported to have engaged in jihadist criminal activity”
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2.
(2002-2005). Terrorism: 2002-2005. Terrorism 2002, iii-v. Retrived from
https://heinonline-org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/HOL/Page?collection=usfed&handle=hein.usfed/terr
orism0014&id=4&men_tab=srchresults
Quotes:
“Since the mid-1980’s, the FBI has published Terrorism in the United States, an annual
unclassified report summarizing terrorist activities in this country.”
“Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as ‘the unlawful use of force and
violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian
population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives’”
3.
Hoffman, B. (2017). Inside terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press.
“Terrorism, in the most widely accepted contemporary usage of the term, is fundamentally and
inherently political. It is also ineluctably about power: the pursuit of power, the acquisition of
power, and the use of power to achieve political change”
4.
Martinez, P. (2018) Analysis: Single issue remains huge threat to U.S. homeland security. (n.d.).
Retrieved from
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/analysis-trump-presidency-homeland-security-national-defense-
michael-morell-fran-townsend/
Quotes:
“A week ahead of President Trump's first State of the Union speech, "lone wolf" terrorists are the
biggest threat to the homeland…”
“ ‘It's really twofold: One, the United States worries about the destructive attack -- it's the attack
that corrupts a hard drive and literally destroys it and destroys the data. We saw the Sony-type of
attack we believe out of North Korea where it's the theft of information and then the destruction,’
Townsend said. ‘These that pose a real sort of threat to the United States ... on the other hand, we
ought to worry about what I call 'influence operations.'’”
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5.
Dudley, D. (2018, December 05). The Deadliest Terrorist Groups In The World Today.
Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/12/05/deadliest-terrorist-groups-in-the-world/
#259da1122b3e
Quotes:
“Of the 18,814 deaths caused by terrorists around the world last year, well over half were due to
the actions of just four groups: Islamic State, the Taliban, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram”
“ Islamic State has been the deadliest terrorist group in the world for the past three years. It has
been largely defeated in its home territory of Syria and Iraq but it remains capable of launching
attacks in those countries and has also inspired individuals and affiliated groups to stage attacks
in other parts of the Middle East as well as Europe and Asia”
“ISIS tends to prefer bombings or explosions – these accounted for 69% of its attacks last year.
However, it also carries out hostage takings and assassinations”
6.
American Terrorist. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-american-terrorist/
Quotes:
“His name was David Coleman Headley. He was an American terrorist”
“It’s very chilling, you know, because Headley gathers all this information — the videotape, the
notes — and then he meets with one of the most fearsome terrorists in the world, Ilyas Kashmiri.
And they have a detailed conversation about how this plot would go down, three or four
attackers with automatic weapons who go in and take hostages, but add a wrinkle, which is the
beheading of hostages. Kashmiri says, “You shoot the hostages first. It makes it easier to behead
them. You behead them, and you throw the heads out the window.”
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Investigative Essay:
The definition of terrorism varies among different resources and texts however, they are
all quite similar and say something along the line of the following, “Attacks perpetrated by
individuals and/or groups inspired by or associated with primarily U.S.-based movements that
(Terrorism, fbi.gov). Terrorism is not new, there have been versions of it dating back to ancient
times all over the world. In the United States, there have been instances of terrorism throughout
history, for example during the exploration of the New World and through times of war (Civil
and Revolutionary). Other than that, large scale terrorism was mainly associated with wars and
primarily stayed out of the United States. In the 1990’s a radical group called Al Qaeda surfaced
from Israel and began carrying out attacks on American soil targeted at American citizens. The
attacks only grew from there, in frequency and in damage. On September 11th 2001, the
deadliest terror attack in U.S. history occurred, resulting in nearly 3,000 deaths. This shook all of
America to the core and was the start of the war on terrorism. While this attack motivated the
United States to stop further catastrophes like this, it motivated others to start them and more
groups began to band together. As a country, the United States has made progress in fighting off
terrorism attacks, however it is still a very large concern for citizens and government officals
alike.
As of today there are several terrorist groups that are of a very large concern to our
country due to the amount of attacks they have been successful with and the number of fatalities
and injuries they have caused. The top two groups are, as stated by Dominic Dudley of Forbes,
the Islamic State and the Taliban. The Islamic State caused 4,350 deaths in 2017 while the
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Taliban caused 3,571 deaths (Dudley, 2018), this is not even counting all the injuries. Due to the
amount of harm these groups are causing to innocent civilians, national security has become a
focus of many government officials around the world. In the United States the current president,
Donald Trump, used national security as one of the bases for his campaign. He made a prominent
point that he would work to defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups that were targeting American
people. Micheal Morell, CBSN senior national security contributor, made the following
comment on Trump’s efforts on National Security in 2018, “‘The threat is essentially what it was
a year ago,’ he told CBSN's Elaine Quijano. ‘I do think the defeat of the ISIS [Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria] caliphate has taken the wind out of the sails of ISIS and I think that the president
and Secretary of Defense [James] Mattis deserve a lot of credit for accelerating the fight against
ISIS.’ ” (Martinez, 2018). Although there have been many positive strides in the right direction
regarding the fight against terrorism, these groups continue to find ways to exist and carry out
their plans.
One way that these terrorist organizations have been carrying out their plans is through
“Lone Wolf Terrorists”. This term refers to a single individual that carries out or has a large part
in an attack motivated by Jihadist ideologies. These terrorist groups search for people that are
influenceable and take advantage of that. It is much easier to evade detection when there is one
person involved rather than a large group. David Coleman Headly is an example of a “Lone
Wolf Terrorist.” Born in America to Pakistani parents, Headly was a rather normal person. He
often took trips to Pakistan with his family due to their close ties to the country, but in his early
20’s, Headly became involved in drug use and trafficking in Pakistan. This got him involved
with a deviant and dangerous crowd of people. Eventually, Headly started to follow the radical
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ideologies of Hafiz Muhammed Saeed. Headly ended up being involved in the 2008 Mumbai
attacks and planning attacks against a Danish newspaper. The threat of having American citizens
being the ones to carry out these horrible attacks is frightening to the citizens and government
officials of the United States and continues to be one of the top priorities of their agenda.
In order to put a stop to terrorism its cause must be known. However, there is not a
straight answer to this, which could be one of the reasons why it has been, and continues to be,
such a hard battle. In an article from New America they attempt to answer the question of “Why
do they (the terrorists) engage in Terrorism?”, their answer was the following, “Complaints
regarding American foreign policy certainly play some role as does religious ideology, but so do
radicalization while others don’t” (Bergen, 2018). Because there is no definitive answer to this
question, there is no definitive way to stop these attacks; Although, attempts can still be made to
disengage large terrorist groups and make it extremely hard for a harmful attack to be carried
out. As said previously, the fight against terrorism is a difficult task but there are strides in the
right direction being taken which makes for a promising future for the safety of the American
people.
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