Terrorism Represents The Most Significant Threat Criminology Essay

Terrorism Represents The Most Significant Threat Criminology EssayTo locomote with, Terrorism is not a new phenomenon it was first used in the 18th century during French Revolution, but its exposition is still a way out of debate in the international bodies. The term Terrorism has been defined variedly by different people, governmental, non-governmental and international organisations in the field of international relations and beyond. at bottom the United States of America Terrorism is defined differently, taking some examples, The United States Department of Defence defines act of terrorism as the calculated use of unlawful military unit or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear intended to coerce or to frighten governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that ar mainly governmental, religious, or ideological.2However The FBI uses a different explanation as Terrorism is 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.3Outside the United States, there are greater variations in other features of terrorism United Nations defines Terrorism in 1992 asAn anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent attains, employed by (semi-) clandestine individuals, groups or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby in contrast to assassination the direct targets of violence are not the main targets.4The Key legal definition of terrorism in the UK legislation is contained in the Terrorism Act (2000)In this Act terrorism means the use or threat of action where-(a) The action f every last(predicate)s within subsection(b) The use or threat is designed to influence the government or anInternational governmental organisation or to intimidate the publicOr a section of the public, and(c) The use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political,religious or ideological cause.5 iodine of the most comprehensive and solid studies of modern terrorism required more than a hundred pages to survey and compare the various definitions.6Walter Laqueur, as frustrated with the proliferation of the definition of terrorism concludes that any definition of political terrorism venturing beyond noting the systematic use of murder, injury and destruction or threats of such acts towards achieving political ends is bound to go bad to endless controversy.As a result it can be predicted with confidence that the arguments intimately a comprehensive and detailed definition of terrorism will abide for a long time that they will not result in an agreement and that they will cultivate no notable contribution towards the understanding of terrorism.7sometimes it might be just easy to generalize terrorist groups, whereas at other times it is important to recognize significant differences because they can be critical for moldable policy responses. In the sense that they c ontribute all engaged in acts that meet most definition of terrorism. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Al-Qaeda, can all be considered terrorist organisations. Whereas, they are very different in terms of their motives, goals and objectives, as well as the attacks committed. The IRA can be viewed as a conventional terrorist in the sense that they involve in small scale onslaughts, they also tend to calibrate their use of violence, using enough to rivet world upkeep but not much as to alienate supporters abroad.8Al-Qaeda on the other hand, has much more open political and religious goals and is motivated by a particular form of religious fundamentalism its tactics and the scale of attacks are in a very different level with the IRA. Although terrorism is not a new thing but the September 11 attack suggests that the world will be dealing with something very different, September 11 is very different type terrorism from what the world is used to. It is particularly significant bec ause religious motivated organisations have been increasing in number since the 1980s. According to Hoffman, only dickens of the sixty-four groups active in 1980s, could be classified as predominantly religious in character. The majority of terrorist groups were nationalist and ethnic in nature, but by 1995, however religious groups are nearly half of the sixty-four known in the 1980s.9In addition to the organisations that fuse fundamentalist religious doctrine with political aims, there are also groups like the Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, that conduct a Sarin Nerve gas attack or the Tokyo subway in March, 1995, killing twelve people and taking as many as 5000 to the hospital.10Generalisation of terrorist or terrorism organisations can sometimes be complicated, because recognising their motives can make it easier to respond its problems.Terrorism is posing severe threats to the whole array of securities. Threats now come from far end not just from neighbouring states. The world today i s confront with the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons by different states, which has a lot of threat to the international security. The Bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrates that terrorism is and will rest a central threat to international security as the 21st century has approached.Bombs are the most common form of weapons used by terrorists groups some the world. Many experts fear that terrorists will ultimately resort to weapon of mass destruction terrorism, because they talk about it lot and videos and training manuals that deals with Weapon of Mass Destruction, have been seized from their training camps.11However researchers who had an interview with imprisoned terrorists found that the terrorists are not interested in Weapon of Mass Destruction.12Terrorism is seen as the unpredictable ruffle of threats in todays International security some see terrorism as the fundamental security threat of the 21st Century, while others argue that it is a kid stress compared to greater threat of global warming or other fatal diseases. Still some group of people argue that terrorist violence is insignificant compared to daily travel accidents in many developed countries.13Terrorism affects the foreign policy of many nations. A huge number of lives have been destroyed, and material goods outlay billions also destroyed. People live in continuous fear of insecurity, because they do not know the next turn of events, or where it would take place.14International terrorism continues to pose difficult challenges to the world and human security in the international system. Apart from the fear of insecurity terrorism brings about, it also reflects in economic decline, and unemployment, it brings about poverty and a general sense of frustration amongst the victims of terrorism.15Although the total number of terrorists incidents has declined worldwide in the 1990s, the percentage of terrorist incidents resulting to fatalitie s has nonetheless increased. According to the (Research and development) RAND-St. Andrews Chronology of International Terrorism, the number of terrorist attacks has declined in the late 1990s.16Table 1Source RAND, RAND Database of cosmopolitan Terrorism Incidents, at http//www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/terrorism-incidents/Table 2. List of Significant Terrorist Attacks from 2001-200917YearAttackFatalities/InjuriesLuanda, Angola10 Aug 2001Attack on train152 146United States of America11 Sep 2001crashing of hijacked planes into World Trade, Centre Pentagon and site in Pennsylvania2,993 8,900Kuta, Indonesia12 Oct 2002 railroad car bombing outside clubhouse202 350Madrid, Spain11 Mar 2004Bombings of 4 trains191 1,876Kadhimiya and Karbala, Iraq2 Mar 2004multiple suicide bombings at shrines188 430Uganda21 Feb 2004Armed attack and arson at refugee camp239 60Baghdad, Iraq14 Sep 2005Multiple suicide bombings and shooting attacks182 679Hilla, Iraq28 Feb 2005Car bombing outside medical clinic135 130Baghdad, Iraq23 Nov 2006Multiple car bombings202 250Mumbai, India11 Jul 2006multiple bombings on commuter trains200 714Baghdad, Iraq18 Apr 2007multiple bombings193 197Armili, Iraq7 Jul 2007multiple suicide truck bombings182 270Al-Qataniyah and Al-Adnaniyah, Iraq14 Aug 2007multiple car bombings520 1,500Hilla, Iraq6 Mar 2007two suicide bombings and additional attacks137 310Luanda, Angola10 Aug 2001attack on train152 146Mumbai, India26-29 Nov 2008multiple shooting and grenade attacks and hostage takings370includes 9 terrorists killedPeshawar, Pakistan28 Oct 2009bombing at marketplace118 200Baghdad, Iraq25 Oct 2009two vehicle bombings at government buildings155 540Baghdad, Iraq8 Dec 2009five car bombings127 448Sources Shimko Keith. International Relations, Perspectives and Controversies (USA Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008). RAND, RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents, at http//www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/terrorism-incidents/From the table above, it shows clearly how Terrorism is posing significant threat to innocent civilians around the world, killing hundreds and thousand of innocent people the unexampled terrorism of the Al Qaeda network has entirely replaced the Old terrorist regimes and movements of the last 3 decades, by far the most worrying and significant trend in terrorism globally is the increase in lethality and towards indiscriminate attacks in public places.World terror represents a true modern epidemic that threatens the very natural selection of the free world. This shows that terrorism is the most significant threat in International Relations today.