The Negative Consequences Of Terrorism

According to Nacos (2012) “Terrorism is political violence or the threat or violence or the threat of violence by groups or individuals who deliberately target civilians or noncombatants in order to influence the behavior and actions of targeted publics and governments" (p. 32). We all understand the negative consequences of what terrorism can do and how it can influence societies among the world from witnessing the horrible incident of the attack in New York on September 11, 2001. Now, media, politicians, and citizens overuse the term terrorism; making the meaning vague and hard to accurately define. The definition of terrorism is based solely on perception and what media and politicians want us to believe. A majority of Americans declare

Domestic terrorism is the use of violence or intimidation in one’s own country against one’s own people. According to the FBI, in order to classify an event as domestic terrorism, it must meet three criteria. “It must involve dangerous acts to human life that violate federal or state law, and it must intend to intimidate civilians, influence the policy of a government by intimidation, or affect the government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. In addition, it must occur within the territorial jurisdiction of the Unites States” (“Definitions of terrorism”, n.d.). Domestic terrorism is important to understand especially if it is in your own country. It is difficult to understand the difference between a crime and a terrorist attack. The government is the only one that has priority as to how terrorism is defined; we as Americans rely on them as our primary resource of communication. Bruce (2015) stated that “the definition of terrorism will affect communication and response to this issue and so have consequences for society

Once an issue is officially classified as an international terrorism attack from the government, the government response is critical. For example, the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 by 19 international aircraft hijackers was a catastrophic event that resulted in over 3,000 deaths. We responded by sending out military troops to invade and bomb Afghanistan Our perception of the incident automatically classified this as a terrorist attack because of who was getting attacked and the number of casualties. This was officially labeled as a terrorist attack because it met all of the three criteria provided by the FBI’s definition of terrorism. This is why having a descriptive definition of international terrorism helps the government take the correct course of action on how to respond to the situation.

Conclusion

Since different government organizations have different particular roles and purposes on how they must communicate and respond to a situation; it is important that explain their definitions of terrorism. Since the government has priority as to how terrorism is defined, there will always be conflict between government organizations as to who gets the “final say” in a