The origins of international terrorism targeting the United States Essay

The origins of international terrorism targeting the United States - Essay Example It is â€Å"political and symbolic†, â€Å"a clandestine resistance to authority.†1 ITERATE’s definition of international terrorism is the following: â€Å"the use or threat of use of anxiety-inducing violence for political purposes, by any individual or group with the intent to influence the attitudes and behavior of a wider target group.†2 Again in this definition we see key words ‘threat,’ ‘anxiety,’ ‘political,’ ‘target group’ which were highlighted above. Defining terrorism is important to follow its origins. Though the phenomenon of terrorism is â€Å"highly diverse† and â€Å"deeply contested concept,†3 which embraces a number of different actions on behalf of certain grouping or states, in this paper we focus on the issue of why United States has been serving a target of international terrorist actions. The research into the psychology of terrorism is also important for understanding the sources of terrorism directed against the U.S. Since the outburst of terrorist actions, most researches were interested with psychology of terrorism. Some interpreted it as â€Å"a form of madness with perhaps an underlying physical disorder.† Some researches related terrorism with â€Å"nervous over-excitement of the period† resulting in â€Å"exaggerated individualism and the spread of decadent literature.† There were attempts to explain terrorism with fluctuations of barometric pressure, moon phases, alcoholism and droughts. 4 Terrorism was explained by personality disorders in particular narcissism or paranoia. Terrorists were viewed as abnormal, different psychologically from general public. This viewpoint was supported by a number of authors. Post (1990) and Pearlstein (1991), who believed that "the individual who becomes and remains a political terrorist generally appears to be psychologically molded by certain narcissistic personality disturbances" (p. ix).5 However, most terrorism researchers do not account