International Terrorism and Response in US

The World Trade Center bombing and the subsequent alleged plot (which appear to have been indirectly connected) caused a spate of reports in the American press, speculating that the relative immunity of the United States from international terrorism was at an end. More generally, the bombing and threat of more bombings drew greater attention to the subject of terrorism as a whole. The press response to the New York incidents had a further consequence, a consequence which is, perhaps, worthy of closer examination.

The Trade Center bombing and the alleged plot were both associated with followers of a previously obscure New Jersey clergyman, Shaikh Abdul Rahman, a Muslem fundamentalist who preaches at a mosque which occupies an upstairs room in a building in a nondescript New Jersey neighborhood near New York City (Frantz, 1993). U

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l impact has been gained through what might be called the direct material consequences of terrorism. The bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 led directly to the U.S. military pullout from Lebanon, but it put no significant dent in American military power. The combined totals of ransoms, costs from damage, and other financial consequences of terrorism was insignificant. Even the human cost is in numerical terms unremarkable. The total number of American civilian victims of international terrorism since the early 1970s has not to my knowledge been computed, but it is almost certainly under a thousand. Yet upwards of twenty thousand Americans are murdered every year. In purely actuarial terms, becoming a victim of terrorists is one of the least of the risks faced by Americanseven those who regularly travel abroadin their daily lives. If terrorism has had no significant material impact, why has its political impact been so substantial, and in large measure favorable to the goals of the terrorists? It is the purpose of this study to argue that terrorism is effective primarily as a means of communication, and that it sends its message through the megaphone of the Western mass medi
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4810
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page)

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