US Policy on Terrorism

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US Policy on Terrorism

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U .S . Policy on Terrorism

Terrorism Defined

The term terrorism has been defined by Schmid (1988 ) as "an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action employed by (semi- clandestine individual , group or state actors , for idiosyncratic criminal or political reasons , whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets . The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity ) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets

) from a target population , and serve as message generators . Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization (imperilled ) victims , and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience (s , turning it into a target of terror , a target of demands , or a target of attention , depending on whether intimidation coercion , or propaganda is primarily sought

The United Nations (2006 ) described it as the peacetime equivalent of a war crime , and as stated in General Assembly resolution 49 /60 titled "Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism , Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public , a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable , whatever the considerations of a political , philosophical , ideological , racial , ethnic , religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them

The United States Code of Federal Regulations (2007 ) has defined terrorism as .the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government , the civilian population , or any segment thereof , in furtherance of political or social objectives

According to Laqueur (1999 , though the term terrorism ' has been defined differently , it was concluded to have one general characteristic : violence and the threat of violence

A Day of Infamy

On September 11 , 2001 nineteen terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger airliners and intentionally crashed two into the World Trade Center in New York City , one into the Pentagon in Arlington County , Virginia and the last one on a field in Shanksville , Somerset County , Pennsylvania . As a result , 2 ,947 people died and another 24 were presumed dead or missing . The attacks created widespread chaos and confusion across the United States . All international civilian air traffic was banned from landing on US soil for three days The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE , the American Stock Exchange and NASDAQ did not open on September 11 and remained closed until September 17 When the stock markets reopened , the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA ) stock index fell 684 points , or 7 .1 , to 8920 points , the biggest-ever one-day point decline . By the end of the week the DJIA had fallen 1369 .7 points (14 .3 , the largest one week drop in history . U .S . stocks lost 1 .2 trillion in value for the week

Numerous harassment and hate crimes were reported against Middle Easterners and Middle Eastern-looking ' people (CNN , 2001 . Thousand of tons of toxic debris from the collapse of the World...