The Effects of Domestic Terrorism

On April 19, 1995, a detrimental explosion targeting the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma took place. This incident of domestic terrorism and the mastermind behind the explosion was credited to Timothy McVeigh who used a truck-bomb to kill 168 people and injure countless others (History.com Staff, 2009).

On April 19, 1995, a man by the name of Timothy McVeigh carried out an attack that would leave the United States, along with other countries, devastated. At 9:02 A.M, a truck bomb explosion outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, left 168 people dead and hundreds more injured. Many people apprehend that McVeigh carried out this attack because he was mentally unstable. He was actually thinking logically. McVeigh planned out the attack based on his life experiences and by what he read in books. He retaliated against the government because of his personal beliefs and he wanted to be recognized for the bombing.

Later, the government changed the bombing theory and insisted that McVeigh was the sole mastermind behind the attack and that no other person other than Nichols who had been involved (Vohryzek et al, 2001). The FBI provided bogus investigation documents to prove their case, but realistically, McVeigh and Nichols were not in capacity to build such a huge fertilizer bomb due to lack of trainings in explosives. Thus, the law enforcement agencies and the federal government lacked evidence in their response to contain these attacks. Instead, they acted in a way to prove their superiority and seriousness to contain terror attacks, thus leading to deaths of innocent

When police interrogated McVeigh, they found out his motive for bombarding the building. McVeigh felt upset because poor actions of the ATF during the siege didn’t go as planned. McVeigh stated in response “ATF, all you tyrannical people will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous actions against the Constitution of the United States. Remember the Nuremberg War Trials.”

He truly believed that it was not necessary to drop such a deadly bomb on a city that was not expecting it. However, Secretary of War Henry Stimson wanted to warn the Japanese about the bomb while at the same time telling them that they could keep the emperor, their most powerful leader, if they surrendered. Clearly everybody had there own ideas and opinions on how to go about dropping the bomb.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Japanese struck United State by bombing Pearl Harbor and killed 2,000 Americans. United States responded back by bombing back. The bombing purpose was to end the World War II. The US first boomed Hiroshima and the second bombed at Nagasaki. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 200,000 civilians. There were 3,200 interned Americans citizens died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The bombs were also a warning shot to the Nazis who, according to President Roosevelt, “have proclaimed, time and again, that all other races are their inferiors and therefore subject to their orders.” (Riggs 2) Thus, Germany’s defeat

The Oklahoma City bombing was the deadliest Terrorist attack event in the history of the United States (Andryszewski). It was just a normal day at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building , nothing really interesting was going on. Then out of the blue, the building just explodes killing, injuring, and separating people from their families. . Because Timothy McVeigh was upset with the government, ( Andryszewski, Tricia Homegrown Terrorism) he decided he’d do what he thought was best for the United States. Clearly what he did made the United States worse. ( Andryszewski)

At 8:16 A.M on August 6, 1945, 80,0000 people ceased to breathe immediately upon the bombed dropped on Hiroshima (History.com.) Meanwhile, three days later another atomic bomb discharged from the aircraft of the Enola Gay, navigating its way on Nagasaki killing 40,000 people instantly. As a result, others endured severe burns and were contaminated with radiation illness due to the exposure from the bomb. In addition, the dynamic blast that plummeted onto Nagasaki and Hiroshima was equivalent to the power of 15,000-18,000 tons of TNT (History.com.) The United States wanted to put a stop to World War II as soon as possible and decided to release two dominant charges on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ryan Browne from CNN states, “Rushay said that Hiroshima was one of four potential targets and that Truman left it up to the military to decide which city to strike. Hiroshima was chosen as a target because of its military importance.” President Harry Truman wanted to make a statement to the world and Japan by releasing the two atomic bombs, which is similar to the government (Big Brother) in 1984 when

Many people were baked alive in this raid. About 873 bombers were bombing the German city. Dresden did not have any military or industrial targets that opposing countries would have wanted to destroy; it became known as a terror bombing by the British because it was not a target. The raid caused many unwanted deaths and destroyed a small city. The casualties that occurred in these events would not have happened if it were not for the new and improved aircraft.

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

Terrorism, a word most people fear, but so often misinterpret. The textbook definition of terrorism is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. But how does that compare to domestic terrorism? Domestic terrorism or “homegrown terrorism” can be defined as “the committing of terrorist acts in the perpetrator’s own country against their fellow citizens”. Throughout the years, America as a nation has experienced quite a few occurrences of both types. An early example of homegrown terrorism would be the Haymarket Affair which occurred May 4, 1886 where in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, labor protesters detonated a bomb during a rally. Chicago police then responded by firing

Hiroshima was such an ideal target for American bombing. According to the book, this was because the city was considered an important place for establishing a military command center. Another reason was that it was a place where communication would be coordinated from. It was the perfect city for militaries to station their operations in.

By bombing Japan, many civilians were killed as a result of the U.S. 's desire to use a new weapon. Laurence describes the bomb as, "a thing of beauty to behold" and "Never before had so much brain power been focused on a single problem" (11). This demonstrated how the U.S. saw Japan as a problem that needed to be dealt with quickly and that the new and supposedly destructive weapon was the best choice. While the targets, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were both production areas ,they were inhabited by a number of civilians. By choosing to drop the bomb, thousands were annihilated and any survivors began to suffer from radiation sickness shortly after. Because of its destruction, the U.S. believed the atomic bomb was a quick solution to the war.

A similar reasoning could be applied to the usage of the second bomb, "fat man," which was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. One could wonder if the motive behind this second attack was similar to the first; the only difference being that the bomb to be "tested" this time was considerably more powerful.