The Affects of Terrorism

How does terrorism affect the man in the street? Does terrorism really affect me?

The questions above may seem ridiculous and naïve but there are an increasing amount of people that think they are valid and sensible questions. After all, when a bomb goes off in a city and kills or injures innocent people it is easy enough to say “It was not meant to kill or injure them in particular, they were unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time”. While there is a certain amount of truth in that, particularly if you live far away from areas that are the main targets of terrorist activities, it must still be said that indiscriminate attacks are just that, indiscriminate, and can happen anywhere.

It is unlikely that Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) made for use in activities in London, for example, would be made there. It is more likely that they were made elsewhere, possibly far away in an area not likely to be as security conscious, and transported to the target. Where IEDs are concerned accidents can happen, or they can even be detonated outside the target area in the event of discovery. The recent plot to detonate explosives on passenger planes bound for America did not target any particular travellers. The bombing of cities by Air Forces in times of war, such as Guernica, London, Cologne and Hiroshima, rocket attacks by Hamas terrorists into Israeli villages, or the crashing of the planes into the twin towers were not designed to kill individual people but to cause an affect. Although the people in the street were physical victims, the targets were the “will and the resolution” of the population and the governments of those countries.

These attacks were designed to reduce a nation’s will to fight or resist, make civilians and governments so wary that they could be reduced to inaction or capitulation The physical affects of destruction to property have always to be resolved as well, but in most cases this is an incidental by-product of the attack. In the case of the wartime terror bombing attacks, only the American nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced the desired affect on the civilian population and government, the others in the main encouraged civilians to further support their governments. Not the desired affect.

The Peripheral Affects of Terrorism

In the wake of the plot in the Summer of 2006 to destroy passenger flights flying between Europe and America, many restrictions were imposed on passengers of internal and inter-continental flights. It was suspected that IEDs made of several, by-themselves harmless, components were to be assembled on the aircraft and detonated over the Atlantic, making it more difficult for possible analysis of the method of attack. Immediately following the foiling of this plot, restrictions were placed on what could be carried onto flights (particularly those departing and entering the UK and US). For a few days passengers were unable to take any liquid on board an aircraft in the UK and even medicines were forbidden unless prescribed and sampled before boarding. These restrictions, while possibly overly harsh, were regarded as necessary and brought home the fact that, while intentional or not, the man in the street has become a target for terrorists. These restrictions have been lifted to some extent but airport security is more vigilant.

The response by Israel to the kidnapping of one of its soldiers by Hezbollah in 2006 was a retaliatory attack into Lebanon, which resulted in the deaths of many innocent civilians. While these civilians were not the targets of the initial attack, knowing how Israel always responds to attacks on its population, it is not reasonable to think that their deaths were taken into account when the attack was planned. In this case the terrorists were attempting to shift the blame, from their own terrorist activities, to the initial victims for their own political reasons.

The response by the US to the Twin Towers attack in September 2001 was to declare war on International Terrorism. As terrorist activity became “real” for the United States for the first time they began to gather their resolve to fight back. For the man in the street, jumping on to an aeroplane the way that they get on a bus or train became a thing of the past. Internal security, which was almost non-existent, tightened overnight and security on international flights became even stricter. The invasion of Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power was heralded an anti-terrorist act, showing that even countries were not safe from the US response to terrorism.

From becoming an innocent victim, through the restrictions placed on personal freedom, to the mistrust shown by many to others who would not have previously been regarded as anything or anyone out of the ordinary, the ordinary person has become a victim of terrorism. This has always been the case in areas where terrorists operate, as victims of IRA or PLO atrocities will attest to, but has really been brought home to many other parts of the world where people used to ask “does terrorism really affect me?”