Background on terrorism.

Author's note: I took up terrorism as a topic in a high school course on the West and the world for my final essay.
I did a background note list and a rough draft which I posted here to share with readers. This is the background note list that I will share in this post.

Background:
-Earliest recorded organized group striving for political goals through the use of force or violence was found in ancient Roman times.

-The group known as Zealots of Judea, a Jewish nationalist group seeking to free the Holy Land from Roman occupation, demonstrated traits of modern day terrorist groups.

-Main traits of ancient terrorist groups were assassinations of arch-rival or opposing groups.

-Other well organized groups have been recorded since then to be carrying out similar acts of violent behavior.

-The use of the word "terrorist" did not come into being until the late seventeenth century during the French revolution.

-The first use of the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" (terrorisme in French) was found in 1795 in reference to the reign of terror committed by the new revolutionary government.

-These words were based on the Latin verb (terrain) to describe the causing of urinate.

-By the nineteenth century with the growth of technology, terrorism saw a new opening.

-Radical policies and the growth of globalization fed the risk of global terrorism even more.

-Empires slowly started to decline as terrorism based on nationalism rose throughout world colonies.

-Terrorist groups lasted for longer periods of time closer to the nineteenth century such as the Irish Republican army in Europe or the Ku Klux Klan in North America which was founded in the eighteen hundreds and both still have underground members even to this day.

-With the availability of modern day technology for modern warfare and improved communication systems in the twentieth century, modern-day terrorist groups become more and more difficult to track down or tackle.

-Early recorded terrorism showed small, but still violent incidents of assigns and fewer open battles.

-Modern day terrorism is shown operating on a much larger scales and includes full scale war against political arch-rivals which can even be states and organizations (ie. Al-Queda and the USA).

Types of terrorism:
-State terrorism is the role of a state or government (or proxy state) using violence or terror to enforce its power on anybody whether it's a foreign country or it's own people.

-Some examples of state terrorism are arrests by governments, executions, military oppression, mass murder against opposing entities or mass murder by opposing sides during wars which are best known as war crimes.

-A well known and accepted historical example of state terrorism is the aftermath of the French revolution where the Bourgeoisie had thousands of people imprisoned, tortured and executed under false charges.

-Current worldwide accepted killings which are classified as examples of war crimes or state terrorism is the famous 1915 Armenian genocide in which up to two million Armenians were allegedly killed by the Ottoman Empire.
Though the incident is disputed, those who claim it to have happen claim the number of two million to have been killed.

-Other examples include the killing of the Jews in World War Two by Hitler's Nazi government, the killings of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s by Slobodan Moloshevich.

-Ecoterrorism (also called ecological or environmental terrorism) is the destruction or interference of the natural environment or the threat to destroy it by a government/state or political group in order to reach political goals using this destructive measure.

-Examples of environmental terrorism include cutting of water off water supplies to populations, nations or states.

-The use of Biological weapons that strictly cause damage to living beings as opposed to land or infrastructure.

-The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which was adopted in 1998, officially defines such modification or destruction of the environment as a war crime.

-Some witnessed examples of ecoterrorism is the burning of oil well in the first and second Gulf Wars by Saddam Hussein that created heavy fires resulting in massive air pollution.

-Economic terrorism is the act of creating economic chaos by the intimidator to terrorize his/her/its victim to giving in to the intimidator.

-Though the acts of economic terrorism can be extremely harmful they are not necessarily violent acts.

-Examples of this include the economic boycott by more economically powerful nations or states against less powerful economies in an attempt to enforce them to submit to the stronger economic powers demand(s).

-The examples of such practices can include the intimidation of large corporations over smaller markets in order to diminish competition from arch-rival producers.

-Economic terrorism can also be defined as physical attacks on powerful economic sites such as the famous September Eleventh attack on the World Trade Center which is said to be done by Al-Queda in an attempt to damage the American economy which proved to be successful for a temporary period of time.

-To use large profits by rich, powerful individuals and/or companies to have influence on the legal system is also widely accepted as an example of economic terrorism.

-Religious terrorism is the use of force or violence in the name of a religion.


Islamist:
-Islamist groups can be found in mostly Asia and the Middle East.

-Abu Sayyaf Group based in the Philippines with the political objective of creating an independent state for Philippine Muslims through the use of violent attacks for intimidation.

-Groups in Egypt such as Al-Jihad or the Egyptian Islamic Jahid with the objective of the violent overthrow of the Egyptian government and an establishment of a pure Islamic state.

-The famous Al-Queda with the goal of expelling all Western military and civilian presence in the Middle East as well as overthrowing the ruling family of Saudi Arabia.

-Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based group dedicated to the removal of the state of Israel.

Christian:
-The Army of God, a Christian group that has been seeking the end of abortion because they see it as going against their religious teachings. This group is known to have bombed several abortion clinics.

-The Ku Klux Klan which appeared as early as the eighteenth century to terrorize freed black slaves and has sought to keep North America as "White" and Christian. The group has used violence towards people who are not of European descent and not of Christian faith.

Jewish:
-The Jewish defense league has been known to be pushing it's point of view through the use of extremely violent behavior and has been described by the FBI as "a right wing terrorist group."

-The Gush Underground which has sought to terrorize Palestinian-Arab populations out of the Holy Land with the use of violent attacks in many cases. Similar groups have been banned by the government of Israel which fears they threaten peace and the stability of the country.

Buddhist:
Other religiously motivated groups have been found in almost all religion. However they're mostly unheard of because of their underground activities or small populations of their religion.

Some of these other religious oriented terrorist groups include Buddhist groups based in Sri Lanka and Japan, such as the Aum Shinrikyo.

Hindutva:
There are various Hindutva groups that are known to engage in terrorist activity especially in India and among Hindu expatriates living in Western countries.
Hindu Unity for example is a well known terrorist group founded by an Indian expatriate living in the USA by the name of Bajrang Dal whom sees himself as a Hindu nationalist. The organization openly describes itself as anti-Christian and anti-Islam. Hindu Unity is possibly most famous for its "hit list" which seeks to target people who they see as a "threat" to their "religion."

-Political terrorism is used as a tool or as blackmail to influence a change in world events or to intimidate political entities to change their conduct to a way seen more suitable to the imposer or intimidator.

-Political terrorism usually cannot be predicted by its course and international rules of war (ie. the deliberate killings of non-combatants during war is considered a violation of the fourth Geneva convention which forbids the killing of unarmed civilians during war).

-Political terrorism can have a reason behind it, depending on the background of the issue. The terrorists may strike at their targets according to that. For example, if the terrorists want to simply retaliate for an action committed against them or their people, then they may simply attempt to kill their targets in cold blood to gain satisfaction of vengeance.

-In other situations if the terrorists have a demand then they may only take hostages and use them to reach those demands. For example, a Palestinian group by the name of Black September seized members of the Israeli Olympic team in 1972 and held them hostage. They placed in demands for the Israeli government and its supporters worldwide and at the same time had an intimidating message for them.

-In other similar situations the terrorists may repeatedly attack in a form of insurgency until their arch-rivals give in to their demands or simply to force them away from what the terrorists or insurgents see as a threat to their own interests.

-The Irish Republican Army, for example has a long history of setting off bombs across Britain and at British government installments in Ireland in an attempt to intimidate the British government to withdraw from their country and to physically remove their presence in Ireland by attacking their installments.

Inquiry questions:

-What may the future of terrorism be like in decades or even generations form now?

-How does the growth and sophistication of technology increase the threat of terrorism?

-Could issues that affect the world today such as global warming or a shift in economic power amongst countries or the rise of corporations ever become a source of terrorism?

-What would the world do to keep itself safe in the rise of growing capabilities of the terrorists?

-Will Cyber terrorism be another key issue in the rise of technology since it is a growing threat today?

Quotes and sources:
-"Terrorism is a term used to describe violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians." -http://wapedia.mobi/

-"Terrorism:The systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population hereby to bring about a particular political objective" -www.Brittanica.com

-"Terrorism is the use of fear to threaten people or nations to make them do things they do not want to do".- World cultures textbook. (Don't remember the name of author and publisher).

-"Terrorism has been described variously as tactic and strategy; a crime and holy duty; a justified reaction to oppression and an inexcusable abomination." -www.terrorismresearch.com