What Is Terrorism

On September 11th 2001, our country was changed forever. After the World Trade Center attacks Americans were introduced to a new concept: terrorism, but what does it mean? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary terrorism means "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims." This definition has been around for years, however, events that have transpired changed the way we view terrorism and terrorists.

After 9/11 President Bush started up what would be called the war on terror, an offensive military strategy to oust evil regimes in the Middle East. The United States has pushed the hunt for terrorism to a new extreme, having revamped the definition of terrorism. According to the FBI, terrorism means "Appear intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population." The main difference between the dictionary definition and the FBI one is that the dictionary one requires action, the FBI consider appearance as terrorism.

Now that we know what terrorism is, we have to figure out how we stop it. The first step would be not stooping to the level of terrorists just to fight terrorism. Activist Joichi Ito said "If we destroy human rights and rule of law in the response to terrorism, they have won". America has stained their reputation by using terrorist’s tactics like torture to achieve their goals. The first step to containing terrorism is not becoming terrorists yourself. The second step is recognizing terrorism. The world, but America in particular has it in their minds that something is terrorism only when Arabs do it. According to statistics from Europol, less than two per cent of all recorded acts of terror were perpetrated with religious motivations, with an even smaller number being committed by Muslim extremists. Estimates suggest only around two per cent of all terrorist attacks were committed by Islamic groups or