Terrorism. It is a word that strikes fear into many. Terrorism has been around since the beginning of time, and has caused empires to rise, fall, and allowed people to gain power.
Terrorism is a growing problem in this unstable world. A simple act of terrorism can cause tensions to break between two countries, as seen with Israel and Palestine’s conflicts due to religious beliefs and territory disputes. Among the various potential threats are wars with neighboring countries, missile attacks on cites, biological and chemical terrorism, suicide bombings, and hostage taking. In an April 1999 survey the most feared terrorism was bombings on US soil. (Cole, 1) There are many ways to combat terrorism.
First, would be an international team that is always on call to respond to terrorist threats, and retrieve hostages with minimal loss of life. The second is gun control, which would limit the weapons accessed by potential terrorists. The last thing is to recognize terrorist organizations before they have a chance to attack. Terrorism has been around since the days of ancient Egypt.
People have been killing leaders of countries to try and overthrow the government, and for the past one hundred and twenty years terrorists have had new weapons of mass destruction, such as bombs. Many political figures in the past were assassinated: King Tut in Egypt, who was poisoned and hit in the back of the head by a political rival, the members of the Roman Senate and Brutus, his best friend, killed Caesar. John Wilkes Booth, a southerner who was angry about the way the Civil War turned out assassinated Abraham Lincoln; and Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy. But terrorism in revealing itself in new forms in this modern world, such as massacres, hijackings, attacks on U.
S troops, and hostage taking. But there is a difference between a criminal and a terrorist. A criminal is after money or drugs, while a terrorist is after the long-term disruption of life in a country, and to attempt to overthrow its leaders. (Kingsley, 13) There are many causes of terrorism, hate, religion, politics, and power. One way to combat terrorism is with a team that is specially designed to go into buildings, planes, or any other place hostages are taken, and rescue the hostages, and neutralize all of the terrorists. This would help not only to prevent terrorism, but save the lives of the hostages.
On the morning of September 5, 1972, eight Arab commandos broke into the Olympic compound in Munich, West Germany. They shot and killed two Israelis outright, one a wrestling coach, the other a weight-lifting coach. The commandos then took nine others of the eighteen-member Israeli Olympic team hostage and settled into the compound for a siege. Throughout the day, West German officials negotiated with the Arab commandos over their demands. These demands included the release of two hundred Arab guerrillas being held in Israel and safe passage out of West Germany for themselves and their hostages.
The Tunisian Ambassador and the representative of the Arab League from Bonn tried to help the West Germans negotiate with the commandos, but to no effect. The Israeli side also did not budge from its position; Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir repeatedly refused to release any guerrillas being held in Israel. At one point, two West German ministers of the interior even offered themselves as replacement hostages for the Israelis. The Arabs refused. New York Times, 2)Convinced that negotiation over the release of hostages would not work, West German officials focused on trying to get the Arabs and their hostages out of the Olympic village where West German sharpshooters could “control” the commandos.
The West Germans did not intend, however, to be embarrassed for both letting the Arab commandos onto their soil and then letting them leave scot free, and they had already rejected the idea of storming the compound as potentially dangerous to the Israeli hostages and other athletes. The West Germans negotiated until shortly after 9:00 p. m. , at which point the Arab commandos agreed to leave the compound with their hostages for the Furstenfeldbruck military airport, some fifteen miles away from Munich. The Arab commandos were well trained and knew how to control their .
