Terrorism – Wake Up America!

1076 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: American foreign policy and the cold war

Terrorism – Wake Up America!

America, wake up! That's what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 and maybe it was, but I think it should have been "Get Out of Bed!" In fact, I think the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.

It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign US embassy set the stage for the events to follow for the next 23 years.

America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Viet Nam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then President Carter had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal with terrorism. America's military had been decimated and downsized / right sized since the end of the Viet Nam war. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission doomed from the start.

Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued. In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.

Then just six short months later a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut. 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.

Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber. The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gates of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Taken Hostage By David Farber

    714 Words  | 2 Pages

    This completely changed the perception of the United States within Iran. Many Iranians believed that “American influence and power made a mockery of their national autonomy and desecrated their religious beliefs” (Farber, 37). The real struggle came once the Shah sought asylum in the U.S. Iran believed this to be a betrayal and demanded the Shah be released to the revolutionaries. Due to the fact that the United States did not refuse the Shah, the revolutionaries took the embassy in Tehran and all of the people that worked there hostage. One of the hostages wrote back to his parents during the crisis “‘We will not be set free until shah is released and the longer we stay here like this the better is a chance for something terrible to happen’” (Farber, 156). The siege was led by Iranian students who supported the revolution and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader that the revolution had selected to take the place of the

    Read More

  • Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer

    782 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kinzer tells us that the Iranians celebrated their nationalism in taking control of their oil, but their success was a shock to the British multinational companies in Iran. They did not like the idea of Iran nationalization, so they plan a coup to overthrow the Prime Minister Mossadegh. But this plan failed and the British were disarmed and sent back to their country closing down their embassy in Iran. The British tried to present their case to the United State in a way that the United State would intervene. So they presented a case that Mossaghe is not only nationalizing the Iranians oil, he is also leading Iran into communism. This case stirred the American action and they feared if they assassinate Mossaghe, his seat will be open and communist ...

    Read More

  • Deception, Defectors, and James Bond: The Intelligence Services of Great Britain

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... other small Intelligence Agencies but none are nearly as important as the main three that work together on threats to Britain’s national security, The Secret Service (MI5), The Secret Intelligence Agency (SIS, MI6), and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

    Read More

  • America’s Reliance on Fossil Fuels

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1908, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) predicted that the total future supply of U.S. oil would not exceed 23 billion barrels. In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted that only 5.7 billion barrels of oil remained. In 1920, the USGS proclaimed the peak in U.S. oil production was almost reached. In 1939, the Department of Interior declared that there was only 13 years of oil production remaining. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter claimed, “We are now running out of oil.” Despite these predictions, the U.S. has produced over 200 billion barrels of oil since the early 1900’s. (The Futurist, 1997)

    Read More

  • Zero Dark Thirty is a Movie Loosely Based on Osama Bin Laden

    755 Words  | 2 Pages

    Historical Significance: The September 11th, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, orchestrated by Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, were the events that launched the U.S. War on Terrorism. Al-Qaeda’s attack on the United States was carried out by members of radicalized Islamic groups, whose objective was to spread jihad against the secular influence of the West. This tragic event provided the historical b...

    Read More

  • Black Hawk Down Essay

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    The events that were portrayed in “Black Hawk Down” drastically affected the U.S.’ foreign policy during the 1990’s. The U.S soldiers went into a country in East Africa called Somalia. They went into the one city, Mogadishu, to capture top lieutenants of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The mission was only supposed to take an hour, but it ended up lasting the entire night into the next morning. It was a short war that the U.S. never wanted to get into.

    Read More

  • Foster Care: Protecting Bodies but Killing Minds

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    Weidner, Steve. “Making Children a Priority.” Child Abuse. Tennyson Center for Children at Colorado Christian Home, 2010. 6 May 2011. Web.

    Read More

  • Suicide And Self-Harm And Suicide In Adolescence

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    Self-Harm and Suicide in Adolescence are two topics that are linked together but can have very different purposes and intentions behind them. While both are very concerning and painful topics they must be addressed separately due to their differences, while also acknowledging a tendency to coexist.

    Read More

  • The Iran Hostage Crisis

    2450 Words  | 5 Pages

    The late 20th century was a very turbulent time in American history. In 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected to the presidency, and he had many goals to help make America better. However, on November 4th, 1979, a group of radical students seized the United States’ embassy in Tehran, Iran. This completely altered the course of American history and relations with the Middle East. This crisis had many impacts on the United States.

    Read More

  • Islamophobia

    1900 Words  | 4 Pages

    One that was fundamental for the rise of Islamophobia was an event that occurred in 1979 when Iranian revolutionists seized the American embassy in Tehran and held American citizen hostages for months. This event established the terrorist stereotype. However, the terrorist image was not targeting Muslim groups specifically, but rather Middle Eastern communities such as Arabs and Sikh (Love 405). By the mid of the 1990s, the stereotype about Middle Eastern terrorist was widely spread in the United States, specifically after the 1995 terrorist attack on Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, as the media rushed to assume that the terror is caused by an Arab before any evidence was available. A similar case occurred in 1998 with the accidental explosion that caused the destruction of TWA flight 800 (Kumar 255; Love 410). But the real upsurge of Islamophobia occurred in the 21st

    Read More

  • Understanding Self-Mutilation in Western Culture

    1611 Words  | 4 Pages

    The literature also gives a detailed description on self-mutilation. Within the description are the attributes, functions or purposes, antecedents, and consequences of self-harm. Some theories state that the functions for self-harm can either be intrapersonal or interpersonal. “The term intrapersonal refers to functions aimed at altering an individual’s internal state (emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations), whereas the term interpersonal or social refers to functions that aim to change the external environment” (Dahlström, Zetterqvist, Lundh, & Svedin, p. 303, 2015). So, an example of intrapersonal function might be using self-mutilation as a way to relieve feelings like anxiety or sadness, or to punish themselves for doing something they perceived as wrong. An example of interpersonal function could be doing it

    Read More

  • Terrorists Attack: a Media Analysis

    688 Words  | 2 Pages

    February 26, 1993, the day that terrorists made the biggest attack on American soil to that point. It was early afternoon on a Friday, 12:18 pm to be exact, a car bomb ripped through the guts of the now infamous North World Trade Center twin tower. It happened very quickly, and without warning, normal people were simply going about their daily business, when all of a sudden, the building shook, the power went out, and smoke began to fill all 110 floors of the towers. Many wondered what had happened, had a plane struck the building, was it an earthquake? D, none of the above, some crazed maniac had decided to kill 5 people and injure many more just to get some point across.

    Read More

  • Self Harm

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Self-harm is a growing and troubling trend. It's a frightening disorder, most common among women, where hurt and alienation are expressed by injuring oneself. There are several kinds of self-harm. Self-mutilation and various eating disorders are among the most common forms of self-destruction. These forms of self-harm often lead to suicide. There are three types of self-mutilation. The rarest and most extreme form is Major self-mutilation. This form usually results in permanent disfigurement, such as castration or limb amputation. Another form is Stereo-typical self-mutilation. This usually consists of head banging, eyeball pressing, and biting. The third and most common form is Superficial self-mutilation. This involves cutting, burning, hair pulling, bone breaking, hitting, interference with wound healing, and basically anything that causes harm to oneself. It's almost unimaginable that one would inflict injury upon oneself. However, cutting, burning, slashing, stabbing, and bruising occurs while apparently no physical pain is felt. As many as three million Americans are believed to be suffering from this psychiatric disorder. (Simpson) The very nature of this problem is shrouded in secrecy. It is no surprise that it has taken some time for people to get wise to this growing problem. There are several different theories as to why one engages in such behavior. One popular theory is that it's a control issue. There are also several reasons for a need for control. For instance, when children are abused, they are in a situation of no control. Their abusers can hurt them at anytime, and the children are largely powerless to stop it.

    Read More

  • WHO WAS CORNELIA (CORRIE) TEN BOOM?

    877 Words  | 2 Pages

    Corrie was a child of husband and wife, Cornelia “Cor” Johanna Arnolda (Luitingh) Ten Boom (Wheaton College 2010) and a little sister to three,(Betsie), Willem, Hendrick Jan (died in infancy), and Arnold Johanna (Nollie) (Wheaton College 2010). Corrie lived a normal, happy childhood in the small town of Haarlem, Holland. Corrie and her oldest sister Betsie remained single their entire lives (Boom). Thereupon, after their mother died October 17, 1921, their two other siblings, Nollie and Willem, married and moved away, Betsie kept up the household and Corrie went to work with their father in his watch-making and repair shop. In regards to Corrie’s new position at the watch shop, she decided to broaden her education on watch making; she attended school and became the first licensed female watchmaker in the Netherlands (Nosotro).

    Read More

  • The Impact of the Oil Crisis on the American Economy

    5564 Words  | 12 Pages

    With the current spike in oil prices, many American consumers have asked, 'what is going on?' In order to fully understand the current situation and how it is affecting the economy one must look at a variety of factors including: the history of oil crisis in the United States, causes of the current situation, and possible outcomes for the future. It is only after meticulous research in these topics that one is prepared to answer the question, 'what is the best possible solution to the oil crisis?'

    Read More

More about Terrorism – Wake Up America!

Open Document