Removing Terrorism: International Cooperation - Research Paper Example

Research topic and its association with the international cooperation In the recent years the attention towards terrorism has increased sharply. For last few decades the terrorist have carried out massive destruction to various targets by means of assault. Though the objective and the modus operandi have changed every time but there is no clue of the problem getting eradicated completely in the near future. Some have considered one can deal with terrorism only by understanding the root cause that triggers such an act (Concepts of Terrorism, 2008, p. 4). Terrorism is considered as complex because it is amalgamation of different human aspects. At the same time it is also considered as emotive since terrorism arouses feeling and whoever sees it sometimes think that it is the right to use violence (International Terrorism: Defination, Causes and Responses, n.d., p. 3). But in simple terms terrorism is considered as a criminal act that provokes terror in the minds of the public (Human Rights, Terrorism and Counter-terrorism, n.d., p. 5). So to counter terrorism which is a global problem, international cooperation between the nations becomes important. Hence the topic chosen for research is ‘Would international cooperation lead a way out of terrorism?’. Due to increase in mobility of people and advancement in goods, terrorism has taken a vast form. It is further more exaggerated due to the fast travel of information, worldwide. If every country acts interdependently and cooperates with each other, they can, not only tackle but also prevent terrorism effectively. To assists with each other and effectively is not only an effective way to combat with terrorism but an absolute necessity to stop terrorism (International cooperation in criminal matters: counter-terrorism, n. d., p. 1). If a light is thrown on some of the recent terrorist attacks then a clear picture may be achieved how this has affected our globe and to which extend. Starting with the greatest terrorist attack in the history of America, that is remembered by the whole world (What happened on 11 September 2001, 2011). It took place on September 2001 in USA. 19 Islamic militants from al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally flew these planes into the North and South tower of the World Trade centre, which collapsed within two hours. Hijackers also intentionally crashed the jet in the Pentagon in Virginia and the forth one never reached its target and crash in Pennsylvania. It was believed that might be the people overpowered the hijackers and took the control of the plane (The 9/11 terrorist attack, n.d.). This whole terrorist attack lead to not only the death of thousands people but also the devastation of public property. As per reports there are total 2,975 casualties in this attack (Official 9/11 Death Toll Climbs By One, 2009). This event not only affected USA but also had a wide spread affect on the whole world. The labor market was already weak before the attack but this attack further weakened it. This job market affect also lead to an effect on the economic condition and making it weak. It also affected the transportation and hotel industry (What have been the effects of the events of September 11, 2001 on BLS data, 2004). This attack not only left America impaired but also affected the whole world. Since the government had less money and a huge amount of money was required so the taxpayers were asked for help. America invested heavily on their security but when banks needed money; there was no surplus to provide them. These situations lead to economic recession which affected the whole world (4 Major Effects of 9/11 on U.S. Political Landscape, 2011). Osama Bin Laden was the prime suspect behind the terror attack (Is this the man who inspired Bin Laden, 2001). Since Osama belonged from Afghanistan so United States started war against Afghanistan. Both American and British jet fighters attacked the training camps and Taliban facilities of Bin Laden. Moreover since the four terrorists lived and studied in Germany so the government of Germany spend $1.4 billion on improving security and anti terrorist measures. Germany participated in this war against terrorism. Europe and Russia was also moved by the attack and decided to plan some strategy to avoid terrorist attacks in their own country. The outcome was that both the two country’s police and intelligence service worked through cooperation. They reduced civil liberties and enhanced law dealing with security related issues. The Islamic and Arabian countries also joined the fight against terrorism (The world after September 11, 2003). An article in Washington Post says that US special operation forces were active in Northern Africa, which is believed to be the most poorest and primitive place on the earth. The target of the US military was “al-Shabab in Somalia and Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen”. After 2001 the main preoccupation of the US government and US European Command, who was responsible for Africa and Europe, was counter terrorism. And they stand beside themselves with relevant contribution, which let them gain recognition. Coastal terrorism that is piracy is also a concern for the world. The European Union has included Somali under its Naval Anti Piracy mission. This will start from 2008 till 2014.The long coastline of Somalia serves as a heaven for the pirates to attack merchant ships operating off The East African coast. EU has kept five warships off the Horn of Africa to combat with the pirates. Norn’s of Africa is regarded to be the bridge between Africa and Middle East (Lyman, n.d., p. 3). The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, appears to be on the verge of joining “Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak” - both expelled by their own people. A well known Algerian Journalist, Salima Ghezali argues that by doing this the politicians are using threats to justify state violence. This was considered only a way to distract the voters. A professional research associate, Jeremy Keenan said that such an up rise is due to the prevalent of anti terrorism. So as the present scenario suggests international terrorism can’t be fought alone. There is no border for the terrorist groups. They have shown that they can use the cultural difference between the different nations as their weapons. None of the nations can seal their border and depends upon self defense and participate in the global economy. “Global trade and shipping, border and port access, energy import dependence, migration, tourism, dissemination of weapons and critical technologies, real time global communication through satellite TV and the Internet, and the flow of disease are only a few of the factors that will inevitably defeat any nation or even culture that attempts to defeat terrorism by ignoring the threat to others” (Cordesman & Burke, 2006, p.2) Critical Review of the literature Terrorism continues to inflict pain and suffering to the common people. There is not a single week or a single place on the world, which has not being affected by the terrorist attack. Terrorism has affected indiscriminately innocent people who by their bad luck were present at a wrong place in a wrong time. Catering to the interest of all the nations United Nation has issued an agenda of fighting against terror (UN action to counter Terrorism, n. d.). The strategy says that all the member states of UN should be strong and consistent in case of fighting with terrorism. At the same time they should be committed to each other for wherever, whoever and whatever is the purpose. It has lead down 50 measures that would strengthen the conditions for stopping terrorism and improve individual and collective capacity of the member states in combating with terrorism. There are also some new proposals that enhance the activities already going around and at the same time put all the international actors and all the regional and sub- regional organization under one common strategic framework. UN will be providing support but the implementation of the responsibility is on the Member Nations (United Nations Global Counter Terrorism Strategy, 2009). The fight against terrorisms is thus viewed as a collective effort of all the members of the international community. The “coordination of Switzerland’s counter-terrorist activities is the responsibility of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)” (International cooperation in the fight against terrorism, n. d.). Switzerland has ratified sixteen universal conventions and protocols for fighting against the terrorism. It has entered into various bilateral agreements with a number of countries. In 2006 UN has adopt strategy to counter global terrorism. A contribution towards this initiative, “Switzerland, together with Costa Rica, Japan, Slovakia and Turkey, initiated an International Process on Global Cooperation in Combating Terrorism” (International cooperation in the fight against terrorism, n. d.). The purpose was to provide ideas that may lead to more effective and legitimate ways of fighting with terrorism but with compliance to human rights. Switzerland has also become the member Global Counterterrorism Forum since 2011, where already 29 nations are members (International cooperation in the fight against terrorism, n. d.). Nigeria’s president has taken essential steps to fight against terrorism. As a part of government initiative to build efficient security system to tackle the rising terrorism Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has fired the coordinator of counterterrorism. Jonathan vowed to review the national security architecture in order to fight with the worsening security situation of the nation. Moreover he also assured the citizens of Nigeria that the terror groups along with their sponsors will be defeated by the government since they have already started working on their objectives (Ori, 2011). The Australian government is also acting with other partners particularly South- East Asia to bring terrorist to justice and prevent future attacks. Australia’s counter terrorism effort includes “law enforcement, intelligence, border and transport security, diplomacy, defense, terrorist financing, building legal capacity, countering the threat of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism, and countering violent extremism”. The efforts for counter- terrorism includes Bilateral agreement with “ Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Brunei, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and France” (International Counter-Terrorism, n. d.), Multilateral and regional engagement with “the United Nations (UN), the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Asia Regional Forum (ARF), Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), and the new Global Counter-Terrorism Forum (GCTF) “ (International Counter-Terrorism, n. d.) India and Pakistan is in the process of peace and normalizing their relationships. Though they have achieved some milestone but still problems are there. The positive side in this peace process id that both of them shares a cultural similarity, people to people contact and trade facilities. But the terrorist attack on Mumbai in 2008 has again shaken the base of this relationship. Moreover Afghanistan is seen as a theater in the Indo- Pak relationship. While the Kashmir issue is also another problem in this context (Mukherjee, 2009, p. 404). It was also evident in the study that the “relationship between India and Pakistan is also characterized by ugly instability” (Mukherjee, 2009, p. 436). Though there are enough incentives to cooperate but rivalry continues to dominate the relationship (Mukherjee, 2009, p. 436). Terrorism was always a concern after September 11, 2001 but after the Bali terrorist attack brought more concern for the Southeast nations. One of the spokesperson of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) claimed “international terrorism is probably the most serious security threat in the region since the Indochina conflict”. The effort made by ASEAN to deal with this problem through regional cooperation was turned null by the members due to lack of agreement on the implication of terror on the regional threat. Thus this creates an opportunity for the superpower like America to involve in the regional effort to counter terrorism (Acharya & Acharya, 2007, p. 75) The war against terrorism started in Africa not after the 9/11 attack. It started in 1990 in Sudan when Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was attacked by Osama bin Laden. In year 1998 the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salem was blew by al-Qaeda. In retaliation for this attack US bombed a chemical plant in Sudan, claiming that it was producing weapons for al-Qaeda. These attacks have lead to the change in US policy in Somalia. It started searching and killing of the perpetrators who were taking refugee after that attack. The main focus of the United States was to protect Somalia from becoming the training ground for the international terrorist. After 9/11 attack America engaged a sizeable amount of American troop named “Combined Joint Task Force– Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)” in Djibouti. Moreover America has invested $100 million on the counter-terrorism initiative for East Africa and the Horn. This shows how Africa and America through international cooperation is fighting against terrorism (Lyman, n.d., p. 1). Now let us throw a light on the demerits of such an international cooperation. A recent incident turned the attention of the whole world towards the human right implications of Western State’s with United States in the war on terror. Canadian Maher Arar was detained by United States depending on the faulty intelligence supplied by Canada. Later on he was send to Syria, where he was tortured and imprisoned. Due to public protests Canadian government started enquiry and based on the recommendations of that enquiry Canadian government apologized to him and paid a substantial amount. But in this course that person has lost his one year (Macklin, 2008, p. 11). The above review leads to research on the question ‘Whether really international cooperation will lead a way out of terrorism or whether there exist any correlation between international cooperation and terror attacks?’ Research Design In this case exploratory research will be done. Exploratory research is related to the topics in which very little is known. The research design is less structured. Exploratory research not only describes phenomena but also test relationships. It is best suited for answering problems and hypothesis (Richey & Klein, 2007, p. 43). This research is based on secondary data which can be collected from books and journal, mainly the secondary sources. A close review of the news articles has been done. Since terrorism and international cooperation is a current topic so it requires the perfect mixture of present and historical data. The sample group may be restricted to certain countries only or just considering a bilateral relationship. Conclusion It is easier to talk about eradicating terrorism through international cooperation than to do that in reality. The world in spite of many hurdles and obstacles has really made a progress in removing terrorism in both formal and informal means (Cordesman & Burke, 2010, p.3). Somalia is regarded to be the centerpiece of anti terrorism activities in the Horn, but the policy and military actions were largely damaged much of the expectations and plans for regional cooperation and synchronization in the Horn that was predicted by the United States (Lyman, n.d., p.4). Since there is a wide difference in the cultural background of the nations so there is a difficulty in international cooperation. In case of USA and Afghanistan since USA got the help of so many nations so they were able to fight against Taliban. In some cases though there is international cooperation like in the case of USA and Canada but still the problem was there. Though there was no terrorist attack but still an innocent person was penalized just for some wrong information. In some cases like in case of India Pakistan, though the relationship was to progress peace but it was spoiled due to the terror attack in Mumbai. So it can be concluded that to in some cases though there exist a correlation but in some cases it does not. Limitations Since the research is completely based on secondary source so the authenticity of the source is very important otherwise it may lead to faulty results. Secondly since time is an important parameter and exploratory research requires extensive analysis so this research may suffer from some limitations. References 4 Major Effects of 9/11 on U.S. Political Landscape, 2011 retrieved on January 2, 2013 from http://news.yahoo.com/4-major-effects-9-11-u-political-landscape-173500883.html Acharya, A. & Acharya, A. (2007). The Myth of the Second Front: Localizing the ‘War on Terror’ in Southeast Asia. The Washington Quaterly, 30(4), pp. 75- 90 Cordesman, A. & Burke, A.A. (2006). The Lessons of International Cooperation in Counterterrorism Center for Strategic and International Studies, retrieved on January 2, 2013 from http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/060118_lessonsintctcoop.pdf Concepts of Terrorism. (2008). Retrieved on December 2, 2013 from http://www.transnationalterrorism.eu/tekst/publications/WP3%20Del%205.pdf Cordesman, A.H. & Burke, A.A. (2010). 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