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Terrorism Final Introduction According to famous saying one mans terrorist is another mans fighter for freedom. Why people become involved in terrorist activity? What causes a person to strap explosives across his chest, for blowing himself up along with innocent bystanders? It is just an irrational hate, which is behind peoples willing to become terrorists, as we are being told today? In this paper, we will analyze the activity of three terrorist organizations: RAF (Rote Armee Fraction) which is also referred to as gang of Baader-Mainhof, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam in Sri Lanka and Al-Qaeda. These organizations represent three different faces of international terrorism: ideological, nationalist, and religious.
At the end of the paper will define the main similarities and differences between these organizations and will also try to answer the question, which is becoming ever more acute nowadays can terrorism be effectively dealt with or is it impossible in principle? (A) The Red Army Faction (RAF) was created in 1968 in Western Germany by Andreas Baader, Ulrika Mainhof, Gudrun Ending and Irngard Member. Organizations ideological basis was a mixture of Marxism and Maoism. RAF leaders considered a Capitalist system to be the root of all evils and strived to bring about a proletarian revolution in Germany, by trying to awaken the consciousness of German people. RAF considered the Western consumerism as capitalists invention to divert workers attention from class struggle. Therefore, gangs leaders declared the whole German society, which they considered as being corrupted by consumerism, as legitimate target. This is why, targeting women and children, in terrorists eyes, was perfectly legitimate.
What is truly remarkable is the fact that organizations leaders came from very respectable families and they had never experienced poverty at first hand. Even though that RAF ideology was a materialist doctrine of Marxism, its members were not genuinely interested in it. Neither of RAF leaders had ever read Marx Capital. They were simply attracted to a revolutionary romanticism. The fact that organizations members were continuously hunted down by the law, was esthetic ally appealing to them. This explains why RAF membership was only 80 people, at the peak of organizations activity.
On April 2, 1968 RAF organized a bombing of shopping center in Frankfurt, which resulted in deaths of 5 people. In 1970, organization participated in series of expropriation acts, which RAF leaders referred to bank robberies. In 1975, terrorists seized German embassy in Stockholm, while demanding to release some of their comrades from jail. In the same year, they took over the headquarters of OPEC in Vienna, in order to prove that their intentions were serious.
In 1976, RAF participated in hijacking of a passenger plane in Uganda, which also resulted in many deaths among civilians. The year 1981 was marked with RAF attack on U. S. Air force Base in Ramshtein. Ever since, RAF activity began to decline.
On April 20, 1998 RAF declared that the practice of armed resistance, on its part, was a mistake and that organization will be disbanded, as such that failed to accomplish neither of its goals. The ideological terrorism is metaphysical, in its nature, as the example of RAF proves. That is, organizations members did not have an urgent need to resort to violence. Their murderous practices came as result of abstract philosophizing, on their part, which makes them to appear as being especially despicable. 3 out of 4 RAF leaders were women and, as it emerged later, during the criminal investigation, it was them who kept insisting that killing people was only the way to awaken public. 90 % of RAF members held a university degree and they often referred to Jean-Paul Sartre as their spiritual father. They were simply getting bored out of their bellyful idleness; this was the real reason for them to become terrorists. Right to the very end, they were imagining themselves as prominent revolutionaries.
Still, their political struggle was nothing but a game, on their part, even though that it often resulted in deaths of people. (B) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam is a nationalist-terrorist organization that operates in Sri-Lanka. Organizations goal is creation of independent Tamil state. It was founded in 1976 and ever since, it participated in numerous terrorist acts against Sri-Lankan authorities. Liberation Tigers also deploy legal methods of promoting their cause, along with illegal ones. Many Western countries have large Tamil Diasporas, from where the bulk of organizations financing comes from. Tigers became involved in open military conflict with the government of Sri-Lanka in 1983.
Their fighting strategy is based on the concept of rural guerilla warfare. However, Tigers do not limit their activity only to Northern part of the country, where the majority of population consists of Tamils, but also often organize a terrorist acts in Sri-Lankan capital Colombo. Among the most famous deeds of Liberation Tigers is a kamikaze attack on Sri-Lanka's President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993 and assassination attempt on Indias Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Organization tries to refrain from attacking Western tourists, because it is afraid that Western countries might simply deport all Tamil immigrants, which would automatically cut off the most important source of Tigers financing. Tigers usually deploys a hit and run tactics, when they attack a governmental building and retreat, before governments reinforcements would arrive. Organizations membership accounts for 13 - 16 thousand guerilla fighters, which allows it to successfully challenge governmental authority in Northern parts of the country.
In fact, Liberation Tigers have their own checkpoints on the roads, which create a situation when there are two factual governments in Sri-Lanka. Liberation Tigers proved the legitimacy of Mao's concept of political authority that comes out of guns muzzle. Organizations headquarters are located on Jan peninsula, which remains fully under control of Liberation Tigers. Organizations leader Velupillai Prabhakaran had declared on numerous occasions that Tamils armed resistance would continue on, until the time when they will be allowed to create their own state. Despite all the attempts of Sri-Lanka's government to stump out Tamils armed resistance, it gains more and more momentum. Liberation Tigers tactics become more efficient and their weapons often surpass the weapons of Sri-Lanka's army.
It is assumed that organization buys weapons from North Korea. It is being recently reported that Liberation Tigers have in their possession 13 rocket systems BM- 13 Katyusha and BM- 21 Grad, which were made in Russia. In addition, there were also unconfirmed reports of Tamil guerilla fighters deploying French made AFVs (Armored Fighting Vehicle) in their operations. This points out to the fact that we cannot refer to Liberation Tigers as solely terrorist organization, because we would have to refer to all Tamils as terrorists, as 99 % of them support organizations political aspirations.
It would be much no proper to think of Liberation Tigers in terms of liberation movement. Most of modern nations were born out of violent confrontation between ethnic groups and repressive political powers. It is hypocrisy, on the part of Western countries, to consider Albanian terrorists in Kosovo as freedom fighters, while denying the same right to Tamil separatists. Liberation Tigers refrain from deploying classical terrorist tactics, such as kidnapping hostages or bombing civilian planes, because they always stresses out that they have nothing to do with international terrorism. Tamils believe that they have a perfectly good reason to strive for independence. Yet, Sri-Lankan constitution does not allow them to do it legally; this is why Liberation Tigers have no other option than to engage in violence against their oppressors.
As history shows, the political rights cannot be acquired through participation in endless negotiations. When ethnic group becomes powerful enough, it simply takes them forcibly. Tamils had already gained independence de facto and it is only the matter of time, before it is going to be officially recognized by other countries. (C) Al-Qaeda (International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders) is a terrorist organization of Islamic fundamentalists, which main goal is overthrowing secular governments in Arab countries and establishing a Sharing regimes in their place that would be based on Islamic law. Al-Qaeda considers U. S. and Israel as its main enemies and strives to cause the maximal damage to these countries geopolitical interests around the world, as well as to kill as many American and Israeli citizens as possible.
Al-Qaeda was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, who used to be on CIA payroll, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden began his career in 1979, when he used to seek out the volunteers, who would like to participate in Jihad against USSR. His activity back than, coincided with U. S. geopolitical goals, at the time, this is why he was receiving a financial support from U.
S. government, right up until the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. In 1988 Osama bin Laden turned against his former masters, by declaring America as Great Satan. During the Afghan War, a whole generation of Muslim professional fighters was being raised, who could not realize themselves in any other way than through participating in armed conflicts. During the conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia, Chechnya and Kosovo, Bin Laden's disciples gained an additional military experience, which they were willing to use against America and its allies. In 1994, Osama bin Laden moves to Sudan, where he creates a training facilities for the members of Al-Qaeda.
His personal income of hundreds millions dollars a year, allows him to undermine U. S governments efforts to capture him. However, because of growing international pressure on Sudan, in 1996 Osama bin Laden had no choice but top relocate to Afghanistan, where he continued to plot terrorist acts against America. In 2001, Al-Qaeda manages to destroy New Yorks WTO towers by the mean of flying passenger planes, which were piloted by kamikaze pilots, into the buildings.
The death toll, during these attacks, has reached to more than 2000 people. Ever since, Osama bin laden and Al-Qaeda became the enemy number one for America. Despite numerous attempts to capture him, on the part of U. S.
government, Osama bin Laden remains at large and Al-Qaeda continues to strike U. S. targets, every time opportunity arises. Al-Qaeda views the political developments in the area of Middle East as part of global struggle of righteous Muslims against heretics and atheists. The U. S.
puppet regimes, such as the one in Saudi Arabia, are also considered the enemies of Islam. The fact that U. S. troops are present in Saudi Arabia is considered by Al-Qaeda members as the part of Christian new Crusade against Islam. Al-Qaeda drafts its members from wealthy Muslims, for whom money cannot serve as motivation for their murderous activity.
These people usually have Western education, which allows them to efficiently use the modern means of communication, as well as to carefully plan their attacks. Al-Qaeda members are famous for their religious fanaticism and high idealism, which makes conventional ways of dealing with terrorism to be ineffective, when applied to Al-Qaeda's terrorist network, around the world. We can say that Al-Qaeda had accomplished its preliminary goal of keeping American society in constant fear. Leaving an unattended bag with groceries in public place in America is considered as major threat to peoples security, while doing the same in Ukraine, for example, will not even be noticed, because there are no geopolitical reasons for this country to be the target of terrorists, in the first place. We simply lack information about Al-Qaeda operational capacities; this is why it is impossible even to come up with any figures, in regards to organizations membership.
There is no doubt that we are not much safer then we were 5 years ago. Every time Al-Qaeda strikes, it does it in the least expected manner. Today we deploy the strictest security measures in airports, which provide almost a complete security for the air travelers. However, terrorists are also aware of this. It appears that designing an effective strategy to deal with Al-Qaeda will require much more time and resources that it was originally assumed. Conclusion The analyzed cases of ideological, nationalist and religious terrorism have one thing in common they all describe groups of people that try to achieve political goals by the mean of violence.
Yet, it appears that only RAF and Al-Qaeda can be referred to as truly terrorist organizations. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam is rather an armed expression of national liberation movement. RAF ceased to represent any danger long ago. This is why we can say that the only dangerous form of terrorism remains to be a religious one. The religious fundamentalism always had a potential of escalating into a violent confrontation. Unlike the cases with RAF and Liberation Tigers, the Islamic terrorism was able to gain truly global proportions.
We have a paradox situation when the most powerful country in the world has declared a war on one person, without being able to win it decisively. Therefore, it becomes clear that strictly military attempts to eradicate Islamic terrorism are going to remain ineffective. We simply cannot instill fear into Islamic terrorists, because dying for their beliefs is only the goal of their lives. It also appears that we cannot eradicate them physically, because there is no unified definition of who can be considered as terrorist. As practice shows, terrorism is rarely the full-time occupation for majority of terrorists. In the Middle East, terrorism is like a hobby for most of Muslims.
They can be law-abiding peasants by day and terrorists by night. Therefore, when we attack them while they look after the herds of sheep, we will inevitably be branded as murderers of civilians. This is often the case when our planes bomb terrorist targets in Afghanistan, for example. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It is whether we designate certain countries as such that support terrorism and bomb them into the Stone Age, or simply stop talking about it. There is no third option.
Bibliography: Engel, Richard Inside Al-Qaeda: a Window into the World of Militant Islam and the Afghani Alumni. 28 Sep. 2001. Janes. Com. 28 Apr. 2007. web Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. 2006. Council on Foreign Relations. 28 Apr. 2007. web Red Army Faction. 2007.
Wikipedia. 28 Apr. 2007. web Abstract: This paper analyses the activity of Red Army Faction, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam and Al-Qaeda, in context of ideological, nationalist and religious terrorism. Outline: Introduction A) Red Army Faction B) Tigers of Tamil Elam C) Al-Qaeda Conclusion
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