INTRODUCTION
“Al Qaeda gunmen kill French EU worker in Yemen, officials say.” “Gaza's Hamas executes 2 alleged spies for Israel.” “13 killed in Afghanistan bombing; Taliban claims responsibility.” “Lebanese MPs fail to elect president on second try as Hezbollah-led alliance boycotts vote.” These headlines have appeared on news sources such as Fox News and CNN just within the last week. It is hard for the American people to forget what happened on 9/11 and for that, the American media, political climate, and population in general are all focused on terrorism abroad. According to Tim Lister, a correspondent for CNN, the world’s 10 most dangerous terrorists all reside either in the Middle East or North Africa; none from within the United States.1 Almost every ‘most dangerous terrorist organizations’ list on the internet is absent of any domestic group. If they do have one, then it is the Ku Klux Klan.
Even within the United States, people only know the extreme right-wing group such as the Ku Klux Klan, Army of God, and the Sovereign Citizens. However, there is a rise in left-wing groups in America. Eco-terrorism is gaining popularity in the United States as issues including fracking, oil, and the claim of global warming are becoming more common at the dinner table and water cooler. Specially, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is at the forefront of American environmental terrorism. Many new sources and experts in the field have urged politicians and the American people to take ELF seriously as they are dedicated to their mission and are willing to go to great lengths for their cause.
ECO-TERRORISM AS A WHOLE
Though environmental terrorism and eco-terrorism seem similar on the surface, there is a stark difference between the two f...
... middle of paper ...
...c Terror: Who's Most Dangerous?” CNN. August 24, 2005. Accessed May 7, 2014. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/schuster.column/.
Works Consulted:
Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1975.
Anti-Defamation League. “Ecoterrorism: Extremism in the Animal Rights and Environmentalist Movements.” Accessed May 6, 2014. http://archive.adl.org/learn/ext_us/ecoterrorism.html.
Diary of Earth Liberation Actions 2006-2008. Earth Liberation Front Press Office, 2008.
Fitzgerald, Andrew. “10 Terrorist Organizations Operating in the Us.” List Verse. March 24, 2013. Accessed May 6, 2014. http://listverse.com/2013/03/24/10-terrorist-organizations- operating-in-the-us/.
Lewis, Judith. “Earth to Elf: Come In, Please.” LA Weekly. December 22, 2005. Accessed May 7, 2014. http://www.laweekly.com/2005-12-22/news/earth-to-elf-come-in-please/.
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) was established in 1992 in England and originally developed from members of Earth First! that did not want to give up the criminal acts as a method (Earth Liberation Front). Earth First! as an organization did not want to engage in violent attacks, but rather make change through protests and civil disobedience. ELF moved to North America in the mid-1990s. The group primarily operates in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Earth Liberation Front).
For approximately the past three decades, a terrorist group has come to plague the world with its activities (Gunaratna, 2002). This group is known as Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, when translated means “The Base”. It is a terrorist organization that seeks to remove western influence from the Middle East and spread its radical Islamic views. Al Qaeda’s most prominent leader was Osama bin Laden, until his death during a raid upon his compound in Pakistan. The Al Qaeda’s motivation stems primarily from extreme and deeply rooted religious beliefs. Their most used method of attack is through suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices. This organization has also used chemical warfare and at this time is believed to still actively seek to utilize chemical and biological agents as means to battle.
The most well known of these organizations is the ELF or the Earth Liberation Front. They are a reincarnation of an earlier organization that also used the acronym ELF but the earlier version was the Environmental Life Force and did not advocate the use of unlawful methods. It was the later group that published the field guide for monkeywrenching. They were later plagued by the same problems that follow extremist groups across the spectrum. Savoie noted in ‘If a tree falls’ that because they were so critical of outside people ...
The terrorist attacks of September 11 led to a lot of pressure from the public to find those responsible and bring them to “justice”. In order to do so, President Bush declared a war on terrorism just a few days after the attacks, but little did he know that this very decision would also bring devastating consequences to many countries. Over time, people have been losing faith in the war and in its purpose. Consequently, countries whose economies have fallen under the Military Industrial Complex have manufactured a societal fear against Muslims and jihadists. As a result, they are now being stigmatized and portrayed as the enemies of democracy, and of the United States in particular. To make matter worse, it has driven western countries to implement many extreme security measures that undermine the democratic principles they are attempting to spread over the world. The war on terrorism has had many negative consequences on modern society, which include a legitimization crisis of democracy, mainly in the U.S, and the manufacturing of moral panics over security risks that have led to the criminalization and stigmatization of the Arab world.
Jasper, James M., and Jane Poulsen. "Fighting Back: Vulnerabilities, Blunders, and Countermobilization by the Targets in Three Animal Rights Campaigns." Sociological Forum 8.4 (1993): 639-57. JSTOR. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. .
Miller, M. A. (2013). The foundations of modern terrorism: state, society and the dynamics of
There are many differing definitions of terrorism. What is terrorism? How do we define it? Why is one man’s terrorist another man’s freedom fighter? These are just a few of the questions that face the world on a daily basis. There are many challenges that face the international community when it comes to how to define terrorism and what it constitutes. This paper will explore the challenges facing scholars when it comes to labeling terror and discuss potential ways to properly define it.
Terrorism can be specifically classified as asymmetric conflict, or a ”war between political actors of equal strength, in which the weaker party tries to neutralize its opponent’s strength by exploiting the opponent’s weaknesses” (A16, Glossary, Mingst.) Terrorist groups pose a great security threat, on an international scale (278, Mingst.) As terrorist groups increase in size and influence, the threat on security grows as well. The question then arises as to how to eli...
A United States citizen turning against one’s own government and embracing an ideology to kill another citizen or commit an act of violence is a growing phenomenon commonly known as homegrown terrorism. This transition or radicalization process that transforms an individual into an adversary has intensified since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The problem continues to persist in other parts of the world such as Canada, United Kingdom and even in Saudi Arabia, a Non-Western country. This form of extremism has shown its propensity in the United States since the turn of the century when Muslim extremism had its early beginnings as a venue to support a black separatist movement. Today, the threat emerges more rampantly with the accessibility and excess of information technology; as well as the political and socio-economic environment influencing many spectrums of perception and intent.
The key to identifying the threat posed by a particular terrorist group is its basic tenets, and the level of violence thereof. “Groups that model themselves on an avenging angel or a vindictive god…are more likely to lash out than those whose core myth is the suffering Messiah,” (Stern, p.72). For example, the element that may be both the most prevalent and violent in the world today is fundamental Islamic extremism. With its emphasis on violent martyrdom and conquest on “infidels,” Islam is a religion based on values that are easily twisted to an extreme. Due to their religious ...
Developing primarily in the 1980's, the United States has seen over one hundred acts of destruction causing close to $42.8 million in damages as a result of eco terrorists' protesting (Nilson). Using these harmful and disruptive acts to bring publicity to an issue is not highly unusual, but when it is administered on this level, something needs to be done to stop it. For the majority of these groups, their goal is to prevent the progress of any businesses that they deem harmful. Increasing rapidly in the last 20 years, this threat has become a serious problem in terms of types of acts committed, their potential for deadly violence, and the number of individuals involved in committing these acts or aiding in their commission through providing financial support. With the danger and severity level of these crimes increasing, something needs to be done to protect the United States and it's devot...
Herman, E. & Sullivan, G. O.1989. The Terrorism Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror. New York: Pantheon.
The threat of the terrorism is a global concern and need to be addressed globally in order for it to have effective solutions. The Bureau of Counterterrorism in the State Department (CT) is responsible for continually monitoring the movements of the active terrorist groups flourishing in different parts of the world for the sake of identifying the potential targets for designation. The review of the potential targets by CT considers the counts of the actual terrorist attacking a group has been fund to indulge into, along with the careful understanding about the way the group has planned and prepared for the act and estimating the probability of the acts of terrorism in the future in terms of their capability and intention for pursuing such acts (http://www.state.gov). There have been security threat issues not only in terms of the foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) but the threat is also growing due to domestic terrorism. According to the report of Homeland Security, (2007) it has been indicated that domestic terrorists based and operating within the terrains of United States including the eco-terrorist groups, white supremacist groups, and the animal rights extremists pose a serious terrorist threat to the country (http://www.hlswatch.com). Such groups are observed in all regions of the globe. The official definition of a FTO suggests that these are the foreign organizations designated by the Secretary of State according to the section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (http://www.state.gov). According to a memo by its Terrorist Research and Analytical Center, the FBI has partially defined Domestic Terrorism as “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of violence by a group or individual based and operating entire...
Terrorism has many forms, and many definitions. “Elements from the American definitional model define terrorism as a premeditated and unlawful act in which groups or agents of some principal engage in a threatened or actual use o...
The word terrorism was first used during the French Revolution from the reign of terror inflicted by the French from 1784-1804 ("International Affairs"). It was used to describe the violent acts perpetrated on the French that inflicted terror on the various peoples and instilled fear within them. However, at the time it had a more positive connotation than the term that instills fear today. During the French Revolution this was because it referred to state-sponsored terrorism in order to show the need of state instead of anarchy, sometimes promoted by other groups (Hoffman 2). Therefore, even though terrorism has taken a new nature, terrorism can refer to official governments or guerrilla groups operating outside national governments ("International Affairs"). In order to encompass terrorism’s various sectors and explain it to the public, in both positive and negative aspects, many analysts have tried to put it into a few words. Terrorism is a method used by tightly of loosely organized groups operation within states or international territories that are systematic in using deliberate acts of violence or threats in order to instill...