Respond to each initial post below (3 total responses), each response should be 100 words minimum and should relate to the discussion topic, and should help further the conversation.
Discussion Post 1: While terrorist groups are no new thing, ISIS and al Qaida are two well known, dangerous groups that are slowly building footing in the Middle East and spreading Jihadism. By adapting to shifting dynamics and exployting chaos caused by wars, land grabs, and the loss of leaders they are becoming more dangerous for everyone. Both lead with strong senses of victimisation for the Sunni Arab world because of US invasions and cruelity under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bashar al-Assad’s raines. Conditions in the Middle East are dwindling, the political exclusion, lack of ability to peacefully express political opinion, the declining authority of traditional elites’, flawed Western interventions, and the lack of opportunity for the youth populations have all played their part in the growing distrust of the state. Ideaologies that kept communities together and practicing peace are dropping in popularity because of the distrust for the current system and the destructing from rulers. These groups also have a leg up in recruitment, with the rise of social media it has became easier than ever to strech their message to vulnerable ears.
Discussion Post 2: On September 11, 2001, 19 members of Al Qaida attacked the United States of America. Osama bin Laden founder of Al Qaida orchestrated this attack. The results of the attack were airplanes crashing into the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon building near Washington D.C. with 3,000 people. This attack was an act known as terrorism. Terrorism means premediated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub national groups and other cults.
The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property and the government was planned and conducted against the United States. These terrorist groups do not fear the United States which means that the US cannot relax. There have been other attempts on the US by Al Qaida. “AQ likely played a role in the unsuccessful 2006 plot to destroy several commercial aircraft flying from the United Kingdom to the United States using liquid explosives.” This leads me to believe that terrorist are not dummies. They will continue to create groups that are against US beliefs, and we must remain vigilant to all attacks that are being planned by all groups and not just Al Qaida. By learning this evidence, the US should understand that we are still a target and should be doing our due diligence and remain vigilant about the terrorist.
Discussion Post 3: As a former Army Intelligence Specialist who served during both the Cold war and during and after 9/11, I have definitive perspectives about both conflicts that we undertook in fighting the Global spread of Communism and the threat of foreign-based/origin Terrorism.
Lapore’s article argues that the military buildup that occurred after World War II – including President Eisenhower’s farewell warning in 1961 of the rise and growing political influence of the Military-Industrial Complex in the US (Lapore, 2013) – is founded and sustained by a combination of fear-mongering, real AND inflated threats to our national security, intense and perpetual lobbying by the [same] Military-Industrial Complex, political gamesmanship, in the form of acquiring needed votes to secure military construction contracts for local businesses (this equates to certain areas of the US sustaining local employment through those same contracts), as well as a long-standing sense of entitlement (eg ‘Manifest Destiny’) that begs to be satisfied through militarism [and conquest], and a ‘glamor’, ‘romanticism’, and/or ‘sexiness’ of war and violence [that is keenly and heavily promoted and disseminated by the media in the form of film and video games] (Lapore, 2013). In their analysis, Lapore accurately equates the military responsibility AND its response [as directed by civilian leadership] to BOTH conflicts. In other words, BOTH responses/conflicts (fighting Communism and Terrorists) are looked upon as the SAME enemies to the US, but with different faces, labels, and threats to our national security.
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