Example research essay topic: Osama Bin Laden War Against Terrorism - 2,160 words

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... claimed by terrorists as well as "just" states. Finally, we should remember that the Crusades or Inquisition, which were executed largely through terroristic means, were authorized directly by the Church. Arriving at Islam, the concept of Jihad, or "struggle, " which in recent decades has been at the theological core of justifying Muslim acts of terrorism, traditionally meant the spiritual and moral struggle of an individual Muslim against his or her evil inclinations. The lesser jihad, that is, war against other human beings, is in classical Muslim sources a "defensive" war with limits that cannot be "transgressed, " even when fighting those who "try to force you to adopt another religion or to leave your home. " In fact, the conservative Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran just called the fight against terrorism a "holy war" -- that is, a jihad. Yet while the Koran has plenty of verses that talk about peace, even with Muhammad's enemies, there are also verses that advocate war and violence.

Indeed, God exclaims in Sura 8: 12, "I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them. " Moreover, while the Koran prohibits suicide, and the Prophet clearly prohibited killing noncombatants, women and children, destroying property or even poisoning wells (the precursor to chemical warfare), there are hadith (prophetic sayings) that list jihad as among the highest religious duties, higher even than performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is one of the five pillars of the faith. And although it is not always clear which jihad is being spoken of, the fact that the Prophet is quoted as saying that booty will be the reward for "Jihad for God, " and that women should make the pilgrimage instead of jihad, one can assume that the martial sense of jihad is intended at least some of the time. Ultimately, the theological roots of terrorism or war in general would seem to be moot, for religion has long been used to justify politics and warfare. Nonetheless, this has not stopped the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon from considering themselves to be good Muslims, nor the Jews who uproot Palestinian homes or Serbs who kill Muslims in Bosnia from considering themselves to be good Jews or Christians. Arguing with them about the "true" nature of their religion is a waste of time. They might indeed by "good" Christians, Muslims or Jews, but are in the end bad human beings. 6.

What are the most common acts of terrorism? Since 1968, when the United States government began keeping such statistics, more than 7, 000 terrorist bombings have occurred worldwide. The State Department currently lists 30 "designated foreign terrorist organizations" and another 14 as "other terrorist organizations" [for a full list, see this report ] According to the State Department, the number of terrorist acts has hovered between 300 and 500 per year during the 1980 - 1999 period. Perhaps surprisingly, about two thirds of all acts of terrorism are against business, numbering five-fold more than attacks on diplomatic, military and government personnel or property, or civilians. Moreover, while the Middle East dominates media coverage of terrorism, in fact Latin America, followed by Western Europe, suffered the most attacks in 1999 (96 and 30 respectively out of a total of 169), with bombings the most popular method of attack, followed by firebombing, kidnapping, arson, and hijacking. But the State Department numbers are misleading, because an incident is classified as international terrorism only if it involves the citizens or territory of more than one country; thus terrorism within countries not harming foreign nationals is not counted. A more accurate accounting comes from Pinkerton Security's Annual Risk Assessment, which show an average of almost 5, 000 incidents per year during the last decade, with terrorism confined to one country.

Yet even these numbers don't account for terrorist actions by governments. Indeed, while hijackings and suicide bombings get the most attention, the fact is that the most common act of terror is torture committed by states against their own citizens, as Amnesty International reports that tens of thousands of cases of torture and extra-judicial killings occur each year (and complains that more often than not, the U. S. "shares the blame" for them). 7. What are the most renowned acts of terrorism? The attacks of September 11 may become the most famous acts of terror ever perpetrated, and are linked to other terrorist attacks apparently sponsored by bin Laden on U. S. embassies in Africa and the USS Cole in Yemen.

Yet many of the most famous terrorist attacks of the modern era were attacks on individual political leaders. The turn of the 20 h century, like today, was rife with terrorism, as evidenced by anarchist killings of a French and Spanish Prime Ministers (Sadi Carnot and Antonio Canova's), Empress Elizabeth of Austria, Italy's King Umberto I, and the assassination of the Arch Duke Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, which sparked the first World War. Anarchist mail bombs in the U. S. started the Palmer Raids in 1920, one of the worst violations of civil liberties by U.

S. government in U. S. history. In the post-war period, acts of terrorism have included the Munich Olympic massacre in 1972, plane hijackings and airport shootings throughout the 1970 s and 1980 s, the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the murderous acts of the Ted Kazinsky, the "Unibomber, " the latter three of which signaled the arrival of large-scale terrorism as permanent fact of life on American soil. Finally, the Tokyo sarin subway attack by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995 has augured a new era in terrorism, now crowned by the September 11 attacks.

Yet while we focus on high-tech problems and responses, these attacks reveal that the new dynamics of terror combine devoted militants, often well-educated, using relatively primitive means to commit acts of extreme and indiscriminate violence. 8. Does terrorism work; and if so, how can it be stopped? Terrorism by the IRA, the PLO and other Palestinian groups, Sikhs, Tamils, Basques, Philippine Muslims -- none of these has succeeded in altering the policies of the affected states. Neither has state-sponsored terror by Rogue states led to the defeat of an enemy. However, if the goal of terrorist acts by these groups is to prevent peace and reconciliation, terrorism has worked.

The variables determining the success or failure of acts of terror are thus indeterminate and complex. Perhaps the most we can say is that terror can help the stronger party in a conflict win more quickly and with less loss of life on its side (the rationale underlying the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings or the massacre of Palestinians in 1948). Yet as perpetrators of terrorism move away from single issue causes (freeing Northern Ireland or Palestine) and become more apocalyptic, hoping like Osama bin Laden to start war on a global scale, the standard for measuring success changes, as the worst possible scenario on all sides is exactly what is hoped for. In such a situation it becomes all the more important for citizens and leaders in the West and its allies in the Muslim world -- in fact, all people everywhere -- to understand the role their policies, and indeed the whole world system as presently and unequally structured, plays in the fostering and sustaining this new generation of terrorists.

Yet the scope and horror of the violence inflicted by the new terrorism makes such introspection all but impossible. In this sense, Osama bin Laden and his comrades around the world might achieve their goals through their very destruction. 9. Does violence stop terrorism? All we have to do is look at both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide to understand that violence, including terrorism by a state or occupied population, rarely stops further violence as long as the grievances motivating them are not addressed. In that context, 15 years ago Connor Cruise O'Brien warned that "the free, or capitalist, world provides highly favorable conditions for terrorist recruitment and activity. " Why? Because the number of frustrated were increasing along with their awareness of how good life was for the few and better off. Ten years later, Bill Clinton made the "war on terrorism" a lynching of his reelection campaign just as the neo-liberal paradigm of globalization he championed achieved unparalleled power in international policy-making.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in pushing for Star Wars funds, the U. S. Space Command's pamphlet "Vision for 2020 " argues that "the globalization of the world economy" will widen the gap between haves and the have-nots, and thus the U. S. government has a mission to "dominate the space dimension of military operations" in order to protect the U. S.

from the rest of the world. In the context of a world were conservative estimates declare half of humanity to be living on less than $ 2 a day, asking the CIA or other military agencies to fight terrorism is probably not going to work, as the "blowback" from policies that produce ever-widening gaps between rich and poor between and within countries will likely be at least as bad as the blowback produced by the CIA overthrow of the Mossadeq Government and installation of the Shah of Iran in 1953. Even on an operational level, as former CIA officer Real Marc Gerecht wrote only months before the 9 / 11 attacks, it has proved impossible to place even the best trained Muslim operative into the tight-knit structures that constituted contemporary terrorist organizations. As for America's technological supremacy, President Clinton sent dozens of cruise missiles after bin Laden, none of which hit their target.

From a broader perspective, the ever growing world trade in arms, which fuels violence at all levels, has multiplied opportunities for anyone with a grievance to spread terror anywhere, including here. Yet our entire military-industrial system is based on the large-scale trade in arms, which helps to fund our own defense budget. Finally, since much of the rest of the world, especially citizens of the Global South, harbor deep resentments against the United States for its "cultural invasion" as much as for its economic and foreign policies, using unilateral acts of large-scale violence in the war against terrorism will only feed that hatred. 10. What are the alternatives to our current policies on terrorism? There have been two phases of the U. S. approach to fighting terrorism.

The first, lasting until September 11, has been a "defensive approach" (also called "antiterrorism") that sought to protect against terrorism through increased security measures in airports and cooperation among intelligence services. With the 9 / 11 attacks, the U. S. has officially changed its policy to a more "offensive approach" (called "counter-terrorism") that focuses on the "sources of violence, " that is the terrorists themselves and those who harbor them.

A host of bills have also been proposed, including the "Combating Terrorism Act, " the "Anti-Terrorism Act" and the "Public Safety and Cyber Security Enhancement Act, " all of which civil libertarians argue go well beyond any necessary response to terrorism. However, in terms of international law, there is a clear recourse in situations of this sort: going through the UN Security Council, the only body under international law that can authorize military action, or even authorize the equivalent of an international arrest warrant. Moreover, there are at least nine international multilateral terrorism conventions that the U. S. can use as the basis for a legal war against terrorism through international law, rather than unilateral war. [ See this report. ] There is also the International Criminal Court in the Hague, which has the moral and legal basis to enter this process, be it state of non-state actors who are ultimately accused of engaging in and / or supporting terrorism. This would clearly constrain the range and freedom of action of the U.

S. government in prosecuting its war on terrorism, but that is precisely the point of the UN -- to limit the use of violence by member nations to secure international peace and security. In the last analysis, breaking the cycle of terrorism, and the incredible violence that fuels it, requires a radical rethinking of a world system that forces half of its members to live in abject poverty and destroys ever more of the earth that sustains it. Today we all stand under judgment: colonizer and colonized, exploiter and exploited.

As the philosopher Slave Zizek wrote in the wake of 9 / 11, "the only way to ensure that it will not happen HERE again is to prevent it going on ANYWHERE ELSE. " Only then will the war on terrorism see victory.

Research essay sample on Osama Bin Laden War Against Terrorism