Domestic Pre And Post the 9/11 Terrorism Events

When reviewing terrorism, it is vital to understand how their activities have changed over time. Terrorism can be described as the unlawful use of intimidation and violence towards civilians to pursue political gains. Terrorism faced in the U.S. is divided into two broad categories; international and domestic. Domestic terrorism is the threatened use of or illegal use of violence by a person or group that operates entirely on U.S. soil without foreign influence. Over the past decade, at least 21,000 people are killed every year by acts of terrorism worldwide (Gaibulloev, 2019). Terrorist activities have been evolving, and to understand this concept, two domestic terrorist attacks will be reviewed in this paper. The first domestic terrorist attack took place before 9/11, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the latter took place after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the San Bernardino attack. Reviewing the two attacks will show how terrorist attacks have changed regarding motivations to the attacks, methods, impact on society, and lessons learned from the attack.

Oklahoma City Building

On the morning of April 19^, 1995, Timothy McVeigh rented a Ryder truck and packed it in Infront of Alfred P. Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Inside the truck, he planted a bomb composed of diesel fuel, agricultural fertilizer, and other chemicals. He intended to hurt the government of the United States by committing mass murder. He intended to commit mass murder. He left to his getaway car and ignited two fuses, and at exactly 9:02 a.m., the explosion happened. In a few minutes, the place resembled a war zone. Almost a third of the building went down, and all the floors flattened. Many cars that were packed outside were incinerated, and nearly 300 buildings close to the federal building were either destroyed or damaged. The lives the bomb claimed were more devastating as 168 souls were lost, and among them were 19 children (Pfefferbaum, 2016). Almost 850 people were injured, thirty children were left orphan, 219 lost one parent, and nearly 462 were rendered homeless. Approximately 7,000 people became jobless after the destruction of their workplace buildings.

San Bernardino Attack

In 2015, there was an attack on the San Bernardino public health department employees, located in the inland Regional Center, which provides services to people with developmental abilities. The authorities ruled that Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik were responsible for the attack. Syed, a 28-year older adult, was an inspector in the same department. He is believed to have left earlier during the Christmas party and returned with his wife armed with guns to commit first-degree murder. The had two long guns, a riffle or short rifle, and two semi-automatic handguns. They also wore dark military clothing. There was a shootout with the police as they tried to flee the scene but were all killed. The police also found several other explosives as the scene, and the police believed that there had to be some planning.  The attack claimed 14 victims, most of whom were county employees (Braziel, 2016). The attack is still being investigated as an act of terrorism. The police are still yet to establish the motive behind the terrorist attack. One victim of the shooting claimed that earlier in the week, they had a heated discussion of whether Muslim was a peaceful religion, but this cannot be reason enough why he committed the murders.

Comparison

Oklahoma City building attack was motivated by revenge against the U.S. government militia culture, but the San Bernardino attack is still yet to establish the exact cause. The use of explosives castrated the Oklahoma City building attack, and the use of guns castrated the latter. After the Oklahoma City attack, the society lost 168 souls; there was mass destruction of property that left a lot of people jobless. Children were rendered orphans, and people also became homeless (Gaibulloev, 2019). However, after the San Bernardino attack, only 14 lives were lost, which is a lot less than the Oklahoma City building attack.

Lessons learned from the Oklahoma City building bombing are that radical domestic rights pose a danger and that the U.S. government should work towards identifying these groups and stopping them before they cause mass murders. Another lesson learned was that not all terrorists come wearing turbans, speaking different languages, or worship a different God. Anyone can be a terrorist, and that both Americans and authorities don’t have to ignore signs of terrorism from people living among then. The same lesson can be deduced to the San Bernardino attack (Gaibulloev, 2019). The perpetrator was an employee of the public health department, and no one could have suspected he would cause the mass shooting. However, the most significant lesson learned from the San Bernardo attack is that the first responders to such an attack should have been a tactical unit, and not patrol officers. If a tactical unit had responded, then the victims might have survived, and the situation would have guaranteed safety to the first responders.

Studies that review the evolution of terrorism show that the years after 9/11 are less prone to terrorist attacks than the pre 9/11 era. It took almost 20 years to have an attack related to domestic extremists, from the Oklahoma City bombing the 2015 San Bernardino Attack. Domestic terrorism in the past used more bombs, chemicals, or biological weapons, but recent development has noticed that now firearms are frequently used. The two events also serve as a good comparison as the causes that drive the perpetrators are different, together with the number of causalities that were named for each event was different.

References

Braziel, R. (2016). Bringing Calm to Chaos: A Critical Incident Review of the San Bernardino Public Safety Response to the December 2, 2015, Terrorist Shooting Incident at the Inland Regional Center. United States. Department of Justice. Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Retrieved from https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=795341

Gaibulloev, K. (2019). What We Have Learned about Terrorism since 9/11. JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE, 275-328. doi:DOI: 10.1257/jel.20181444

Pfefferbaum, B. (2016). Reactions of Oklahoma City bombing survivors to media coverage of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 70-78. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2015.09.010