Americans perceive a terrorist as a man wearing a black mask and wielding an AK-47. The terrorist that Americans don’t see is the young man living across the street who watches Islamic propaganda on YouTube or the teenage girl on the lacrosse team who follows the Islamic State on Twitter. Americans worry about terrorists invading their country when in reality the seeds of extremism have already been planted in the minds of young adults in America. The national security of the United States has been structured to prevent extremists from entering the country, but there is no mechanism in place that is designed to catch the citizens who decide to become terrorists at home. These homegrown terrorists pose a significant threat to America as they are easily radicalized to become soldiers for Muslim extremist groups and they are in the ideal location to attack America at its weakest points.
As Islamic extremists all over the world continue jihad against the United States, many Muslims in America feel that other Muslims in countries like Afghanistan are being oppressed and killed because of their religion by the US military. Their beliefs alienate them from the rest of America, so they begin to connect with the rhetoric espoused via social media by Muslim radicals. According to Rich Barrett, an expert on terrorism, the appeal of the Islamic jihadi groups is that it creates a sense of belonging to a group that is fighting to end injustice. Martin Couture-Rouleau is an example of one such person. A convert to Islam in 2008, he watched anti-Semitic videos on YouTube and followed the Islamic State on Facebook. His Facebook page also contained posts that derided the US military as “baby-killers”. After failing to leave the country to join rebels in Syria, he used his car to run over two Canadian soldiers. The US must be able to defend against the propaganda that is flowing into America through the Internet.
Homegrown terrorists have an advantage over their colleagues in the Middle East: they understand their target better. They know the soft spots, the places that Americans feel secure and where an attack would be most effective at spreading chaos and terror throughout the country. Take the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 as an example. The bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, had lived in Boston since 2002 and had become familiar with the culture and importance surrounding the Boston Marathon. They understood that targeting this event would do more damage psychologically as well as physically because they had seen the value attached to the event by Bostonians. They learned how to create the bombs used in the attack from an Al-Qaeda magazine that can be accessed online. They had no terrorist connections until the brothers began to take religion more seriously and subscribe to Islamic extremist propaganda. The United States chooses to focus its resources on stopping terrorists from entering the country when, in reality, the more serious threat is from Americans who are radicalized by propaganda to commit atrocities in their home country.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/22/us/colorado-teens-syria-odyssey/
This post is interesting. I don't entirely agree with you but even so, this is well written. You use strong verbs that make your writing engaging. The evidence you offer about the Tsarnaev brothers and Martin Couture-Rouleau, while interesting, seems mildly anecdotal. You could have been more persuasive if you'd included statistics about the number of homegrown terrorists that exist and the growth rate of this population. Sure, I believe the two examples you offer but how do we know that there are many others like them? Empirical statistics could've bolstered some of these claims a bit better.
ReplyDeleteYour argument is compelling and logical with only a few issues. First, you say the US needs to concern itself more with protecting against homegrown terrorists. These converts wouldn't join terrorists causes if it weren't for external influences. The ISIL Facebook and YouTube pages are likely run by terrorists outside of the US. If the US successfully attacked the foreign terrorists, wouldn't propagandas like the ones you mentioned disappear? But even if we go with your claim that the US should look to stopping homegrown terrorists instead of terrorists looking to enter the US, the government already does a considerable amount of internet monitoring to halt terrorist plots. You could even argue that this monitoring is successful. The foiled Zazi 2009 subway bombing plot is just one of the 50 terror plots that have been thwarted since 9/11 using internet surveillance, according to NSA Director Keith B. Alexander. Also, concerning your example of the Tsarnaev brothers, the FBI knew of their plots months before they were actually carried out. The attack was not thwarted because the brothers were just two of the thousands of terrorists the FBI monitors. They were a needle in the massive haystack of terrorists the FBI, NSA, and CIA monitor because of excessive internet surveillance.
All in all I liked your post. You offered an interesting and unique point of view while supporting it with relatively credible evidence. Nice job.
Works Cited
Dozier, Kimberly, and Donna Cassata. "Over 50 Terrorist Acts, including a NY Stock Exchange Bombing, Were Foiled by Leaked Surveillance Programs." National Post (2013): n. pag. 18 June 2014. Web. 23 Dec. 2014.
Yeah, great discussion.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I completely agree with Lydia's first paragraph. If there is an issue with your post it is that the evidence does feel just a bit anecdotal. You really don't demonstrate the scope of the problem. However, this does not detract from the quality of your post. I think you do a nice job introducing an issue and supporting it, given the limited space you have. I like Lydia's response about internet surveillance, and even cyber warfare. That was a savvy response. I wonder what you think about that?
Ultimately, your introduction scared me. For some reason, your introduction made me realize that this issue is much closer to me than I wanted to believe. Do you have personal experience with peers of yours following foreign fighter groups on social media? Do you know of adolescents who commit time to perusing extremist videos online? If so, then we have an issue as a country that does need to be addressed. I'm not sure Lydia's suggestion, alone, will suffice.
Very interesting debate. Thanks to both of you.