Acts of terrorism pose an immense threat to the security of any nation. In most cases, terrorism is a weapon used by errant individuals or groups against the mainstream authorities. Unlike other forms of terrorism, domestic terrorism entails terrorism against fellow citizens, in a given nation. A more outright definition of domestic terrorism is that it “is the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group of two or more individuals against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (Bohn 45). Under the provisions of the US PATRIOT act, acts of domestic terrorism entail dangerous acts that pose a threat to human life and amount to a violation of various criminal laws of the US and/or of any other state within the US. Such acts include acts intended to coerce the public, engineered to intimidate or influence certain policies within the government of the United States, as well as those intended to influence the behavior of the government; for instance, acts of assassination, kidnappings, and even mass destruction. All these acts amount to domestic terrorism and they must occur within the territorial boundaries of the U.S to pass for domestic terrorism. Therefore, based on the study of trends of domestic terrorism, this paper seeks to predict the challenges associated with domestic terrorism in the coming years. It also discusses the forms of the profiling that have been used to combat international terrorism.
Unlike its allies, the United States has not experienced immense threats to its domestic security, until recently. Essentially, as Laqueur notes, “The United States moved into the 21st century as a preeminent global power in a period of tremendous flux within societies, amongst nations, and across states and regions” (7). Indeed, typical examples of domestic terrorism such as the 1910 Los Angeles bombings, the 1920 Wall Street bombings, the 1927 Bath, Michigan bombings, the Unabomber attack, and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings among others, exemplify the trends in which domestic terrorism takes place. Through consideration of the modern age nature of terrorism, all these examples refocus the US sense of its security within its borders. However, acts of terrorism, within the US borders, get sophisticated as times go by. In this context, it is therefore apparent that, by considering the trends of domestic terrorism, it is likely that the measures to curtail them will indeed encounter a myriad of challenges.
As a way of prediction, strategies to deal with domestic terrorism are likely to be hampered by the fact that, the methodologies of execution of terrorist acts are not static, but evolving. What this means is that the strategies likely to be deployed in the future to curb domestic terrorism are arguably formulated with the current perception of methodologies of execution of terrorist acts. In fact, the process of planning and execution of terrorist acts is normally concealed from the public eye (Muraskin and Roberts 67). Additionally, the trends of domestic terrorism make it apparent that terrorists look for innovative methods of executing their intentions, which would escape the surveillance of the security enforcers. It is until after the acts are executed, often after having infringed suffering to the public, that strategies to prevent the occurrence of terrorism acts executed by similar methodology are taken. The challenge of strategies to curb domestic terrorism in the future rests in the appreciation of the argument that the future domestic terrorist attacks are likely to take new formats, which are widely unknown in the present so specific and appropriate strategies to prevent their execution can be engineered in the present.
Some forms of violence, which evolve into acts of domestic terrorism, as defined by the US PATRIOT act, are indeed highly unpredictable in terms of when they would occur so that strategies can be formulated to confront the challenge before occurring. As a way of example, security of self-identity has emerged to constitute a crucial debate in the enormous number of settings. Despite the fact that it is not necessary to accept the argument that the global clash of cultures may surface as mechanisms of emergence of new forms of domestic terrorism, cultural identity perceptions incredibly shape the relationships existing amongst varying regions and societies living in the era of post-cold war. The challenges in the formulation of future ways of handling domestic terrorism, consequently, face challenges especially in the context of the argument that “violent reactions can arise when identities are under siege, sometimes in the form of terrorism” (Bohn 69). This argument makes sense even more in considering typical world examples of probabilities of the ability of different cultural identities to truncate into some new formats of domestic terrorism. Such examples include identity wars experienced in Kashmir and the Kurdish region in the southern part of Turkey and the Uighur region of southern china amongst other places in the world. Chances also exist that, in the future, reactions against cultural assimilations may emerge and take a form of cultural imperialism. While it is widely uncertain whether such an incident would occur, in case of its occurrence, it is anticipated that such a reaction might amount to a breach of the situations likely to amount to domestic terrorism, as postulated by PATRIOT act provisions. In the words of Laqueur, the criticism of the emergence of cultural imperialism is aimed at “the United States with its overwhelming role as a purveyor of international tastes and information” (43). Thinking from this line, this trend has a net repercussion of hiking attempts to expose various institutions that are engaged in all sorts of interactive activities (bureaucracies of the European Union, communication and entertainment firms of the US, and even regional organizations) to probabilities of exposure to domestic terrorism.
In the US, various forms of profiling have been used to combat international terrorism. Terrorism profiling is based on the principles of ethical intelligence on “red flags” or alternatively warning signs of terrorism attacks coupled with past patterns characteristic of known behaviors and attack scenarios. In the effort to carry out terrorism profiling, the information garnered from captured and killed terrorists play pivotal roles. Indeed, substantive intelligence is the heart of a magnificent terrorist profiling strategy, as it eliminates noise from the cloud of noises and signals. Indicators and warnings act as subtle sources of information for legitimate intelligence, which in turn serves as an essential tool in the formulation of strategies for various forms of racial profiling. “Indicators are discrete events or a series of events that are most suspicious, and warnings are indicators which reach a critical mass and signal, and the imminent threat looms” (Khalsa 41). Arguably, when indicators end up being patterned and sequential, they constitute “precursor events” resembling patterns termed as “modus operandi” in criminology. Terrorism profiling extends beyond combining warnings and indicators while attempting to access threats to include estimation of imminent threats. However, as Khalsa reckons, “terrorist profiling runs the risk of being biased because it is willing to add non-behavioral, merely-suspicious factors: race, religion, ethnic origin, and political affiliation” (69). One of the forms of terrorism profiling that attracts concerns of biasness is racial profiling.
Perhaps by considering the September 11 attacks, racial terrorist profiling is not only widely acceptable but also necessary. All the males linked to plotting the attacks were of Arab origin. In fact, proponents of racial profiling contend that the attacks that saw many people lose their lives that resulted in plunging the American economy into turmoil could have been avoided simply by permitting the law enforcers and security personnel in the American airlines to conduct an intensive search to all clients based on ethnicity and nationality. This argument implies that the American government may fail to fight international terrorism proactively from the dimension of racial neutrality. The fight against international terrorism would fail, as a result, to yield fruits without the incorporation of perspectives of race, nationality and region among other forms of profiling. Racial, nationality and religious profiling represent what can be termed as some of the most fearsome forms of institutionalized discrimination that is converse to what the American constitution advocates (Muraskin and Roberts 19). Nevertheless, it is still also relevant to question whether it is still necessary to subject all American people entering hotels, airlines, and even leading institutions to the same magnitudes of scrutiny while only a small group fits in the suspicious group category: a group having the highest probability of being linked to terrorism.
Conclusively, terrorism acts pose an enormous threat to the national security of any nation. Compared to many other forms of terrorism, this paper held that domestic terrorism is an execution made by a nation’s people against their fellow citizens. Upon considering the trends of domestic terrorism, the paper predicts that future strategies to handle domestic terrorism are likely to be subjected to an immense number of challenges largely instigated by the unpredictability of the methods of execution of terrorist acts within any nation’s territorial boundaries.
Works Cited
Bohn, Michael. The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism. New Jersey: Brassey’s Inc, 2004. Print.
Khalsa, Stephen. Forecasting Terrorism: Indicators and Proven Analytic Techniques. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004. Print.
Laqueur, Walter. “Once More with Feeling.” Journal of Contemporary History 3.1(1996): 5–47. Print.
Muraskin, Roslyn, and Albert Roberts. Visions for Change: Crime and Justice in the Twenty-First Century. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.