Citizens against Domestic Terrorism - Term Paper Example

 Citizens against Domestic Terrorism Introduction Growth in domestic terrorism, whether home-grown or introduced through external agents, maintains significant implications for ensuring community safety and also for the establishment of legislation and best practice function in a variety of local and state-level agencies designed to combat terrorist activities. The constructs of domestic terrorism are dynamic and complex, requiring intervention and analyses from a variety of federal agencies working cooperatively with local authorities. It matters to defend and educate American citizens about domestic terrorism due to the difficulties in quantifying its catalysts and predictors of terrorist activity within the nation’s borders. What is Domestic Terrorism? The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines domestic terrorism as “the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives.” (FEMA, 1997, p.2). In order to be legitimately considered terrorism, three criteria must be established. The domestic actor must be performing illegal activities that involve exercises of force, actions must be intimidating or coercive, and must be linked with social and political objectives (FEMA, 1997). Domestic terrorism is classified as a product of these activities, occurring within the national framework, conducted against communities, government, or various social systems. Common domestic terrorist activities include using illegal activities to fund violence objectives or proposing threats against members of society in the pursuit of establishing a social or political agenda. The Oklahoma City Bombing The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building on April 19, 1995 represents a domestic terrorism scenario enacted by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Both of these domestic conspirators maintained strong connections to the militia movement and were advocates for removing gun control legislation imposed by government agencies and Congressional legislation (Michel & Herbeck, 2001). The two domestic terrorists were angry with how the government had handled the Waco, Texas standoff between the Branch Davidian religious sect and the FBI, which ultimately led to destruction of the Waco compound, 75 Branch Davidian followers, and its leader David Koresh. The Waco standoff acted as the catalyst for the Oklahoma City bombing, a method of attempting to enact revenge for alleged perceptions held by the men about corrupt and unsuitable federal government presence in the United States. After this bombing occurred, sweeping changes to disaster management practices were enacted at the local, state and federal levels. The Incident Command Systems in the country (ICS) received massive overhauls all over the nation. Lessons learned from the bombing included identifying appropriate chains of command in a situation where a variety of actors were engaging disaster response activities at multiple levels of bureaucracy and authority. These changes included various search and rescue processes, task management function, and the level of authoritative involvement between state, local and federal agencies (ODCEM, n.d.). Prior to the Oklahoma City bombing, there had been no domestic incident of terror in this magnitude, thus Incident Command Systems were generally controlled at the local level. In this situation, the complex dynamics of input influx from multiple agencies required construction of disaster management activities to facilitate more timely and effective response. The Oklahoma City bombing further changed attitudes about the sanctity and security of local agencies and infrastructures. Many city leaders began proactive coordination with various charities, such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, to establish disaster preparedness logistics plans and resource deployment plans in the event of similar terrorist activities (ODCEM, n.d.). The incident began illustrating that there were ineffective systems of protection and disaster response in the country, changing minds and attitudes that domestic terrorism was a legitimate threat to local and national security. Furthermore, this incident prompted local security and protection agencies to develop contingency plans in the event of future domestic terror. State law enforcement units began proposing effective planning methodologies which were subsequently reviewed by federal authorities to assess its relevance and feasibility. A 2005 report illustrated that many law enforcement agencies were submitting these contingency plans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for review, as well as other independent knowledge sources (Riley & Hoffman, 2005). Rather than internalizing the function of planning, the Oklahoma City bombing incident engaged multiple parties in the review and revision process to ensure more effective management of resources, disaster response, and preventative measures in combating domestic terrorist activities. September 11, 2001 The most dramatic domestic terrorist disaster in United States history occurred on September 11, 2001 involving the destruction of the World Trade Center using commercial jet liners as weapons to wage war against the government and the nation’s citizens. Carried out my militaristic and religious extremist members from the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, the attack was meant to intimidate an end to support for Israel and removing American influence from foreign soil. Since the dynamics of the September 11, 2011 attacks is commonly known, it is not important to focus on the specific dynamics of this terrorist incident. However, the scope of government influence in combating domestic terrorism grew in intensity with the development of new legislation designed to combat future terrorist attacks from occurring again on American soil. Almost immediately after the incident, the government enacted the Department of Homeland Security, designed to ensure national protection with the facilitation of local and state level authorities. The federal government realized after this incident that it did not have the ability to protect everyone, in every location simultaneously (DHS, 2007), thus the Department of Homeland Security was established to localize terrorist elimination and create a cooperative network of authoritarians authorized to develop anti-terrorist policies and procedures. The influence of the DHS became apparent in the airline industry, local community government, and organizations involved with protecting infrastructure. The preliminary terrorist activities occurring prior to September 11, 2001 illustrated that domestic terror networks and their activities were difficult to recognize and monitor, thus legislation supporting better supervision and observation of terror-related activities was established. The Patriot Act, enacted in 2001, significantly expanded the authoritative rights of local, state-level and federal agencies in the cooperative pursuit to end domestic terrorism. The Patriot Act provided wider powers to conduct roving wiretaps by requesting court officials authorize these activities to track suspected domestic terrorists and monitor the common criminal offenses usually supplementary for financing of terror objectives (US Dept. of Justice, 2012). The Patriot Act provided a new template of best practice in surveillance of suspected terrorist activities and served to provide better learning about how these networks operate, communicate, and transfer knowledge related to their objectives. It had widely been known prior to September 11, 2001 that terrorists are sophisticated and work diligently to thwart surveillance, by changing addresses often as well as their communications devices. The Patriot Act and its new authorizations in anti-terror surveillance made the process of eliminating evasion simpler and justified by the judicial branch of federal government. The expansion of local, state and federal powers with various anti-terror organizations and law enforcement assisted in thwarting many similar domestic terror activities intended to perform harm against the American people and its government leadership. The methodologies used in assessing potential domestic terror risks also changed as a result of lessons learned in September 11, 2001. New parameters and guidelines were established locally and federally regarding the most effective risk analyses criteria for a terror group’s ability to mobilize or tangibly engage their desired political, community or social targets. The General Accounting Office (1998, p.5) identifies a detailed and updated risk assessment procedure that includes a terrorist’s “capability, likelihood, lethality, and intention” toward successfully completing their terrorist agenda. These changes were prompted by inefficiencies identified in pre-9/11 terrorist supervision and incomplete past assessments where risk analyses included only capability as a criterion for terrorism. Post-9/11 risk analyses identified not only the tangible resources of the network or individual domestic terrorist, but also their psycho-social constructs and many other complex, multi-dimensional characteristics in order to generate a competent terror profile on the group or individual. Department of Homeland Security and its Role with Domestic Terrorism It was previously identified that risk analyses occur with more veracity and complexity than prior to the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center incidents. In order to fully understand the importance of educating and protecting American citizens about domestic terror, it is necessary to further examine the nature of these analyses and the role of the DHS in performing them. Political, religious and other social ideologies are qualitative in nature, thus extremely difficult to quantify (Kilcullen, 2005). No domestic terror sect or individual maintains congruent objectives and psycho-social attributes that lay a singular template by which to engage and monitor suspected terrorist activities. Under this view of domestic terrorism, much more involvement by multiple anti-terror agencies and actors is required to make accurate and reliable assessments of potential risk factors. Therefore, the Department of Homeland Security provides this blended insight and evaluation to identify such congruencies or most dependable strategies for anti-terror activity. Horgan (2005) supports this notion, proposing that significant diversity in ideologies and politically-motivated terror intention makes it virtually impossible to establish a singular profile of terrorist characteristics. Most terrorists, though widely believed to be mentally disturbed or otherwise psychologically unbalanced, actually are well-adjusted psychologically (Horgan, 2005). Thus, assessing whether an individual or domestic terror network will actually carry out violent or threatening acts is highly subjective, requiring a cooperative network of professionals outside of clinical or cognitive psychology to assess the genuine risks to society of domestic terrorist activities, again justifying the breadth of the constructs of the DHS. Manwaring (2009), however, disagrees while comparing epidemiological and criminological concepts that drive domestic terror, which have resulted in new knowledge that Islamic terror groups as well as liberal left-wing and radical right-wing terrorists have much more similarities than differences. Thus, historical conceptualizations and practices in assessing suspected terror groups have begun to emphasize a new all-encompassing belief in universalism for critiquing domestic terrorist intentions, objectives and ideologies and what drives intention to perform violent acts against the nation. Research into the dynamics of what motivates a domestic terrorist to engage in planning and facilitation of terror activities in the United States has illustrated a high frequency of involvement by various social actors. Henry, Tolan & Gorman-Smith (2001) identifies that family members and peer membership stemming from the social environment are often facilitators or supporters of domestic terror activity. Recruitment into the political or social ideologies often occurs within the social framework. Because of this, the Department of Homeland Security now has broadened powers to examine the constructs of these relationships, implicating or observing family and social membership to determine the extent of their involvement or willingness to be recruited into the terror framework. Radicals and domestic terrorists often recruit within this trusted family and peer circle or have a willingness to join radical terror networks in an effort to provide protection to their loved ones (Sageman, 2004). In order to address the risk and ensure protection to the rest of American society, the DHS must be fully-staffed in local, state and federal levels to address all of the contributing components that pose risk, something unable to be performed by historical federal agent frameworks prior to the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS has also learned and has acknowledged that the prolonged economic problems plaguing the United States pose risks to enhancing domestic terrorist activities. High unemployment, high foreclosure rates in the housing sector, and credit unavailability “could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists” (DHS, 2009, p.7). Historically, economic stability in the United States minimizes potential domestic terror risks as the fundamental needs of the citizen are being met according to respected psychological models of human behavior. When basic physiological needs are impacted by recurrent economic instability, intention to perform violence or seek politically-motivated terror-based revenge would theoretically increase. Because of the expansiveness of the Department of Homeland Security, this agency can draw in various expert assessments from economists and social scientists to collaborate within the framework of professional practice to determine the potential impact on psychological adjustment during times of economic disparity and volatility. Essentially, the DHS provides a foundation for communities of practice in terror risk assessments that can examine multiple conditional catalysts for likely domestic terror activity to build a consensus about how to address these issues. There is also much more emphasis on religious imperatives and ideologies occurring today, observable in a variety of news mediums and Internet-based media both national and global. This growth in religious dogma expression is unprecedented in history. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (2002) identifies that those who maintain radical religious beliefs, such as black-supremacist or white-supremacist religious movements, believe they were anointed by God to alter national and global society in a way consistent with their theological beliefs. Some groups, such as the Phineas Priests, a white-supremacist religious movement, believe that their Christian identity justifies killing to express their religious ideology (FBI, 2002). Recent disputes and protests in the name of a variety of different religions make it necessary for the establishment of a broad anti-terror network across the country to protect individuals from religious-based extremism that poses significant implications to human safety locally and nationally. Thus, it should be recognized that the role of the DHS in combating domestic terrorism now extends to terrorist angst with a religious connotation, further diversifying the complexities of ensuring adequate civil protection from domestic terror planning and facilitation. The complex dynamics of changing terror motivations dictates a much more active role in assessing probable risks and ideologies that lead to intention to carry out domestic terror acts. Conclusion As has been illustrated, the constructs and diversity of modern domestic terror motivations lay the imperative for educating and protecting American citizens from terror-related risks. Whether politically-motivated, socially-motivated, or religiously-motivated, terror potential is now a localized risk that could be occurring within a local community from a variety of actors with strong family ties and peer networks. Because domestic terrorists are usually well-adjusted psychologically, it might be difficult for members of society to recognize potential risk factors acting as indicators of potential domestic terror activities. Educating society means educating anti-terror authorities in order to present and develop appropriate literature that can inform the public about the local and national risks to their security by domestic individuals. Oklahoma City and September 11, 2001 have created a more efficient knowledge transfer and research environment in combating anti-terror and these events as well as the localization of terror networks is why it is important to educate and protect citizens from terror. References DHS. (2007). Future of Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security Advisory Council, p.6, Retrieved September 17, 2012 from http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/hsac-future- terrorism-010107.pdf DHS. (2009). Right-Wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, US Dept. of Homeland Security, Retrieved September 15, 2012 from http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf FBI. (2002). Project Megiddo, Terrorism and Political Violence, 14(1), pp.27-52. FEMA. (1997). Emergency Response to Terrorism; Self-Study. Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington DC. General Accounting Office. (1998). Combating Terrorism, Threat and Risk Assessments can Help Prioritize and Target Program Investments, Washington D.C. Horgan, John. (2005). The Psychology of Terrorism. New York: Routledge. Kilcullen, David. (2009). The Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. New York: Oxford University Press. Manwaring, Max G. (2009). State and Non-State Associated Gangs: Credible Midwives of New Social Orders. Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute. Michel, Lou & Herbeck, Dan. (2001). American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & The Oklahoma City Bombing. Harper. ODCEM. (n.d.). After Action Report – Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Bombing 19 April, 1995 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Department of Civil Emergency Management, Retrieved September 19, 2012 from http://www.ok.gov/OEM/documents/Bombing%20After%20Action%20Report.pdf Riley, Kevin J. & Hoffman, Bruce. (2005). Domestic Terrorism: National Assessment of State and Local Preparedness, p.28, Retrieved September 18, 2012 from http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR505.pdf Sageman, Marc. (2004). Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. US Department of Justice. (2012). The USA Patriot Act: Preserving Life and Liberty, Retrieved September 20, 2012 from http://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm Read More