American Terrorist From Terrorizing America example essay topic

AMERICANS THAT TERRORIZE AMERICANS With the cold war still thawing out and terrorism on the rise, there is a fear within the borders of the world's greatest nation. This is a new kind of fear, especially in light of the recent attack on the World Trade Center, and even radical solutions are being considered. The United States for the most part of the last fifty years has felt an adequate sense of security from the "evils of the world", but now that blanket of freedom has been threatened from within America's own national borders. President Bush has vowed to track down every terrorist group in the war on terrorism, but the war needs to begin on United States soil. The solution to the war on terrorism is to start with educating the citizens of America about the terrorist organizations within United States borders, and stop American terrorist from terrorizing America. When an American terrorist threatens the freedoms of their own next-door neighbors, the current policies of policing the streets must be weighed.

The threat lies within various groups that have been identified by the already established Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) about a month before the Oklahoma City bombing by McVeigh. These groups are overwhelmingly white, almost entirely Christian, and predominantly male. The group is called the Patriot Movement, which are compiled of members that are bitterly disappointed in what America has become. Experts estimate that about 200,000 Americans are active in the hate groups of the Patriot Movement, and that an additional 1 million citizens are sympathizers. The SPLC lists 602 groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, racist skinheads, black separatists, freemen, and militant abortion foes (Reich 89-90). These various organizations were developed and have flourished under the current constitutional rights to the freedom of speech.

The messages that these organizations are trying to spread may not necessarily be widely accepted; but under the laws of free speech, the message is spread. The problem with totally eliminating these groups is that the American public is not willing to give up the rights that have been enjoyed under the Constitution. These rights of free speech have let the American terrorist organizations run on a rampage for way to long. Another problem with taking the freedom of speech away from various organizations is that a little bit of misinterpretation can lead to a large infringement on the American public's rights in general. There is a solution to rid the United States of American born terrorists. Americans do not like to see fellow citizens die at the hands of a terrorist, especially by an American terrorist.

Timothy McVeigh, probably unknowingly, helped in decreasing the number of American terrorist (Gross cup, 117). McVeigh's act, bombing the Murray building in Oklahoma City, was seen as so repulsive that many law-abiding people attracted to militias simply walked away. The majority of Americans didn't want to be associated with anything like the killing of 168 Americans, even though McVeigh had only attended a few militia meetings. The media coverage for the bombing in 1995 gave the American public the education needed to assess what was going on in the militant organizations across the United States. In order for the United States to have a "piece of mind" about domestic and global terrorism, is to suppress offenders before the actions are taken. If there are records of the Ku Klux Klan being active in Ft.

Worth, TX (Mizell, 14), then action should be taken against that organization to keep the group from bombing any targets at all. The group's activities should be published and made public knowledge to the entire community and not kept a secret. Through educating the citizens of the United States on the goals and the radical methods that may be used in order to accomplish those goals, the organization will be avoided entirely. Granted there is no one way to dismantle all terrorist organizations overnight, but through education the majority of the militant sites can be divided. In order for President Bush to attack in the war on terrorism, the war must begin in the United States.

Bibliography

Grosscup, Beau. THE NEWEST EXPLOSIONS OF TERRORISM. Far Hills: New Horizons, 1998.
Mizell JR, Louis. TARGET U.S.A... New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
Reich, Walter. ORIGINS OF TERRORISM. Washington D.C. : Woodrow Wilson Center, 1998.