Understanding Terrorism

  As always, pay close attention to the following guidelines. You will want to start working on your paper this week so you can have enough time to best meet the requirements listed below. You also have a final exam next week, so plan accordingly.

Criteria for Paper Four

1. Select one of the major terrorist incidents presented in the Appendix of our textbook.
2. In a well-written paper:

   Explain the role media played in the incident. (Prefer the Beirut bombing if you can find enough information)
   Make sure your discussion reflects themes in chapters 14 through 17 of our textbook.

3. Papers must adhere to the following guidelines PRIOR to submission on or before the last day of Week 8:

   The first page of your paper will be a cover sheet correctly formatted according to APA guidelines.
   This paper will use 1-inch margins, Times New Roman 12-point font, and double spacing.
   The citations for each article MUST be correctly formatted according to APA guidelines. Do NOT use an automated citation manager to perform this function. Do it manually for this assignment and check your formatting against available APA resources.
   Excluding the cover page and references, this paper must EXCEED 12 pages of written text.
   Only COMPLETE paragraphs consisting of an introductory sentence, a full explanation of key points supported with properly cited sources, and a concluding sentence may be used.
   Only use published articles from academic texts, such as those found at scholar.google.com or accessed through your Grantham University EBSCO host account.
   The entire paper must be your original work. It may not include quotes, and at no time should text be copied and pasted.
   This paper DOES require an introductory paragraph, explicit thesis statement, concluding paragraph, and references page.
   Text book: Terrorism and Counterterroism, Author Brigitte L. Nacos, 5th edition Chapters 14-17

Heads-up! Looking Ahead to Paper Four – Due Week Eight

Major Terrorist Incidents:

The Fort Hood Massacre

1. On November 9, 2009, U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan carried out a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, Killing thirteen and wounding twenty-eight others. Hasan, a Muslin, was to be deployed in Afghanistan later that month. He had been in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American imam who encourage his followers to kill Americans.

Two Catastrophic Bombings in Beirut (1983)

2. On April 19, 1983, a delivery truck loaded with400 pounds of explosives sped past the guards in front of the U.S Embassy in Beirut and, as it reached the front portico of the building, blew up in a powerful explosive that destroyed the central part of the building. Sixty-three people, among them seventeen Americans, were killed and 120 others were injured. General John Vessey, The Chairman of the joint Chief of Staff, called the lethal attack on an American Diplomatic facility “an inexplicable aberration.” As it turned out, the first Anti-American suicide bombing was only the beginning of a sustained terror campaign against Americans by fundamental Lebanese Shi’ite groups, namely the Hezbollah (Party of God) and the Lebanese Islamic Jihad, who were inspired by the Iranian revolution and actively supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and thus the Iranian leadership.

What these circles resented most of all were the presence or US Marines and other foreign forces n Lebanese territory even though the troops, together with their French and Italian counterparts, had come to restore law and order after Israel had invaded in the hunt for Palestinian Liberation organization (PLO) and had carried out the evacuation of PLO leader Yassir Arafat and his followers from Lebanon.

Far more devastating blows followed six months later, on October 23, 1983, when suicide bombers drove their explosive-laden trucks simultaneously into US Marine Corps and the French forces compound outside of Beirut. Two hundred and forty-one American Marines and fifty-eight French service men were killed. President Reagan called the Terrorist attacks “despicable” and expressed his “outrage.” But while immediately after he learned of the carnage the president emphasized his determination to keep a force in Lebanon, four months later his administration decided to withdraw all marines from Lebanon. The terrorist had achieved their goal.