International Terrorism

International Terrorism is a big issue today. From the Lockerbie bombing to 9/11, terrorism is at the forefront of international politics. There are two types of terrorism. State sponsored terrorism is when terrorist groups are sponsored by the government. The other type of terrorism is when groups are independent. The Irish Republican Army is an example of a state sponsored group that performed terrorism. On the other hand, al-Queda is an independent terrorist organization who has made an impact recently. They have to supply themselves with their own funding and weapons.

Terrorism affects social, political, and economical aspects of living. Social effects may include prejudice or paranoia. After the 9/11 attacks, some americans thought that all muslim people were extremists, and began discriminating against and being afraid of them. Political effects may include disagreements and war between countries. When the IRA attacked British troops, the British started a war with the Irish for Northern Ireland. Economical side effects of terrorism are staggering. A car bomb that went of in an affluent part of England cost $1billion dollars!

In my opinion, the only way to stop terrorism is to stop handing out weapons. Without the flow of money and weapons, terrorist groups have no way of attacking anybody. Also the only way to stop state sponsored terrorism is to identify the countries that are sponsoring it and crush them. The problem you run into is that countries like Russia are hard to stop, so you would need a unified front of all of the world powers to fight against them. That is the only realistic way to stop terrorism in my mind.