Terrorism

Son-in-law John reports:

Hey Joe,

Thought you’d find it interesting. I’m taking a criminal justice course online at the moment and this weeks assignment is to write a paper on a terrorist or extremist event. The 7 events they use are:

  • Ramzi Yousef 1993 World Trade Center Bombing
  • Beirut, Lebanon vehicle bombing of the Marine barracks
  • Ruby Ridge
  • Oklahoma City Murray Federal building bombing
  • Theodore Kaczynski letter bombs
  • Waco Siege
  • Lockerbie PAN AM Flight 103 bombing

I briefly considered writing about how waco and ruby ridge were more examples of the ATF and FBI being the terrorist entities, but I don’t think that would fly very well, grade wise.

More details followed:

School Name: Grantham University

Course title: CJ101, Intro to Criminal Justice Instructor; Carolyn Dennis
Description:
Introduction to Criminal Justice presents a broad view of the criminal justice system. The course focuses on decision points and administrative practices in police and other criminal justice agencies, as well as basic criminal procedures. A realistic description of the American criminal justice system is presented and how it works – police, courts, and corrections. Topics include: what is criminal justice, the crime picture and the search for its causes, criminal law, policing history and structure, police management and legal aspects, adjudication including the courts and sentencing, corrections involving probation, parole, community corrections, prisons and jails, prison life, juvenile justice, drugs and crime, multinational criminal justice, and the future of criminal justice.

Week 7 assignment:
Case Study: Terrorists and Extremists

As described in the Module 7 Power Point presentation, criminologist Gwynn Nettler outlined all terrorism shares six characteristics:

  • No Rules-No moral limitations on the type or degree of violence that terrorists can use.
  • No Innocents-No respecter of persons; from soldiers to children; all are game.
  • Economy-Kill one, frighten 10,000
  • Publicity-Terrorists seek publicity, and publicity encourages terrorism.
  • Meaning-Terrorist acts give meaning and significance to the lives of terrorists.
  • No Clarity-Beyond the immediate aim of destructive acts, the long-term goals of terrorists are likely to be poorly conceived or impossible to implement. Terrorism that succeeds escalates.

The last seven slides of the Module 7 Power Point presentation depicted the following case studies of actual terrorist or extremist type events.  Select one of these case studies, do further research on it and complete a 2-page APA formatted essay discussing the application of these six characteristics in the event you select. In addition, the student will state if the chosen event was a Domestic or International event and why it is so.

By that definition it does seem the actions of the FBI at Ruby Ridge and Waco are properly classified as terrorist events. Good to know.

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6 thoughts on “Terrorism

  1. “By that definition it does seem the actions of the FBI at Ruby Ridge and Waco are properly classified as terrorist events.”

    That’s the logical conclusion, all right. if you can, could you keep us posted on whether this thesis is recognized by the instructor?

  2. Hhmmm… Looking at this, is it possible the Brady Bunch and VPC could be considered terrorist organizations?

    1, They lie repeatedly and change their lies as they see fit.
    2, They respect no one who is not 100% on their side.
    3, They will use any story to scare as many as possible.
    4, The more we or the news media pay attention to them, the harder they push
    5, They seem to thrive on highly publicised crimes
    6, Other than the feel good laws of disarmament they seem to have given no thought whatsoever to what comes after their utopian laws are passed or even if their laws would stop crime.

    I realize I am kind of reaching here, but am I that far off the mark?

    Sam

  3. “Criminal justice” is a phrase with more than one definition.

  4. src,
    you are reaching. A lot.
    Trying to redefine speech as criminal behavior is a bad, bad, bad idea. Even if it seems like a good idea at the time it is sure to make trouble later. It may be tempting to vilify them as they vilify us but let the other side be the ones to act like book burning totalitarians as it’ll make it easier for us to win.

    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you seems like a good foundational principle for a republic.

  5. “…the crime picture and the search for its causes, criminal law, policing history and structure…”
    Hmm. When I first read that, I read “policing” as a verb and thought of Michelle Obama.

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