Power, Morality, and Terror Essay -- Terrorism Terrorist September 11

Power, Morality, and TerrorIn the agitate of events stemming from the bombing of the World Trade Center, citizens of the United States have slowly been flood tide to grips with many changes- parvenue threats, new fears, and a new vision of the worldly concern and our place within it. As we re-adjust the lens through which we see our geopolitical landscape and begin to formulate a national security constitution which can effectively respond to the terrorist threat, we must(prenominal) acquire a incorruptible understanding of what motivates terrorist operatives. It will not suffice to merely throw disclose simplistic explanations of terrorist motives such as, theyre evil. . .they hate us. . .theyre irrational. . .they hate freedom. Rather, we must take a systematic look at what motivates terrorism on the theoretical level. In some ways, terrorism is just a new variation on an old theme. For as long as hands have lived in societies, there have been the haves and the have-nots, the dominant classes and the oppressed groups, the jerry-built and the strong. Whereas the tactics of terrorists may be to a greater extent technologically advanced and, arguably, more cruel than those used by insurgents of the past, their primary goal of altering all the regional or global polarity is as old as mankind itself. For their part, those dominant nations against whom the repressed campaign tend to engage in a brand of rhetoric which portrays the opposition as morally depraved. piece of music this may or may not be the case, two beta questions follow which are asked all too rarely. The first question is how logical are the claims of the repressed that the dominant state itself is morally culpable? In the current case, the United States is responsible for committing a number of evils against Muslims. This is esp... ...orism is the last mending of a desperate people. Perhaps its best cure is to confront and counterbalance the grievances of those who suffer so greatl y at our hands (often because of our narrow oil-interests in the Persian Gulf). Even a minimal increase in the standard of living in such countries, even a small realisation of our role in maintaining and exacerbating this suffering- would instill in potential insurgents the iodine thing that stops terrorism dead in its tracks- hope. SourcesBetts, Richard K. ed. Conflict later on the Cold War Arguments on Causes of War and Peace. Carr, Edward Hallett. Realism and Idealism. Second Edition. Longman twitch New York. 2002. Coates, AJ. The Ethics of War. Manchester University Press. New York 1997.Liang, Qiao and Wang Xiangsui. Unrestricted Warfare. Beijing PLA Literature and humanistic discipline Publishing House. 1999.