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September 11 Terrorist Attacks Against the United States and the Law Enforcement Response
Abstract
The terror attacks on the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001 are defining events in US history. The oceans
separating the North American continent from the tumultuous Middle East no longer seemed such a protective barrier. The long-held
belief that such things only happened over there showed the United States just how vulnerable she was to a highly determined enemy.
The United States of America (US), the third largest country in the world, both in population1 and in size,2 was established subsequent to the American Revolutionary War and the signing of declaration of independence by 13 states along the Eastern coast of North America from British rule in 1776. Following the Treaty of Paris in 1783 the US was recognized as a new nation.3 During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the US expanded westward across North America, increasing the number of states through 1959 and the addition of its 50th state, Hawaii. In addition to the 50 states, the US has a number of dependent areas.4 The United States experienced a civil war from 1861 to 1865, during which the northern states defeated a confederacy of secessionist southern states. The current government is based on the US constitution, which was drafted by revolutionaries that had learned from their experiences with the British that governmental power in the hands of unelected officials not accountable to the people they govern can readily lead to abuses.
The post-9/11 era, with its emphasis on preparedness against terrorist attacks, has seen an ongoing conflict of priorities between law enforcement agencies and the civilian sector: public safety versus individual rights. Community-oriented policing-mobilizing community support in partnership with local law enforcement-has been developed internationally to address this issue, and Terrorism within Comparative International Context assesses the progress and shortcomings of community-based programs. Written by leading experts in police science and based on extensive interviews and focus groups with law enforcement, media, and community representatives, the book offers: A comparative database on terror control strategies in, among others, Ireland, Turkey, Sweden, Spain, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands Analysis of the interaction between the community and local law enforcement in response to terrorist activities. Insights into the relationships between home-grown terrorists, the preventive role of the community, and the proactive role of local law enforcement. A "Best Practices" section including recommendations for investigation and interrogation techniques. A real-world template for training law enforcement personnel. Terrorism within Comparative International Context is critical reading for researchers, students and professionals across a range of interrelated fields, including criminal justice, terrorism/counterterrorism, organized crime, police science, and public administration, and makes an up-to-date textbook for courses in these areas. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009. All rights reserved.
Intelligence fusion centers have grown rapidly in the last few years as state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies have attempted to find the best way to share information about threats to their communities. The Department of Homeland Security and the Information Sharing Environment of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence embraced fusion centers as being an important mechanism to aid them in their missions to share terrorism information among law enforcement, the private sector, and the intelligence community. The development and management of fusion centers have received significant guidance from the Justice Department, via the Global Intelligence Working Group, by developing standards for structure and processes. Critics, however, are concerned that the centers have inadequate protections for privacy and civil rights. This article examines issues in the development of fusion centers and provides an examination of the support for and criticisms of such agencies.
Leading police associations in the United States and the United Kingdom have advocated that law enforcement adopt an intelligence-led policing model (ILP). Much like the situation with community policing, there does not appear to be a commonly accepted definition of ILP nor of the practical implications for police agencies' mission, structure, and processes. This article presents a model of ILP that builds on community policing, problem solving, and continuous improvement business models that have been adopted by police departments. Examples of these practices are reviewed as a method of illustrating the promise of an ILP approach. A broad conceptualization of ILP is presented under the belief that ILP will be most likely integrated into law enforcement and will have the greatest impact if it is adopted from an “all crimes” perspective. The article concludes with illustrations of the utility of ILP for addressing threats of domestic and international terrorism.
This research examined the role of mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Regulatory self-sanctions can be selectively disengaged from detrimental conduct by converting harmful acts to moral ones through linkage to worthy purposes, obscuring personal causal agency by diffusion and displacement of responsibility, misrepresenting or disregarding the injurious effects inflicted on others, and vilifying the recipients of maltreatment by blaming and dehumanizing them. The study examined the structure and impact of moral disengagement on detrimental conduct and the psychological processes through which it exerts its effects. Path analyses reveal that moral disengagement fosters detrimental conduct by reducing prosocialness and anticipatory self-censure and by promoting cognitive and affective reactions conducive to aggression. The structure of the paths of influence is very similar for interpersonal aggression and delinquent conduct. Although the various mechanisms of moral disengagement operate in concert, moral reconstruals of harmful conduct by linking it to worthy purposes and vilification of victims seem to contribute most heavily to engagement in detrimental activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Inside Al Qaeda examines the leadership, ideology, structure, strategies, and tactics of the most violent politico-religious organization the world has ever seen. The definitive work on Al Qaeda, this book is based on five years of research, including extensive interviews with its members; field research in Al Qaeda-supported conflict zones in Central, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East; and monitoring Al Qaeda infiltration of diaspora and migrant communities in North America and Europe.
Although founded in 1988, Al Qaeda merged with and still works with several other extremist groups. Hence Al Qaeda rank and file draw on nearly three decades of terrorist expertise. Moreover, it inherited a full-fledged training and operational infrastructure funded by the United States, European, Saudi Arabian and other governments for use in the anti-Soviet Jihad.
This book sheds light on Al Qaeda's financial infrastructure and how they train combat soldiers and vanguard fighters for multiple guerrilla, terrorist and semi-conventional campaigns in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Caucuses, and the Balkans. In addition, the author covers the clandestine Al Qaeda operational network in the West.
Gunaratna reveals:
how Osama bin Laden had his mentor and Al Qaeda founder, "Azzam", assassinated in order to take over the organization and that other Al Qaeda officers who stood in his way were murdered,
Al Qaeda's long-range, deep-penetration agent handling system in Western Europe and North America for setting up safe houses, procuring weapons, and conducting operations,
how the O55 Brigade, Al Qaeda's guerrilla organization, integrated into the Taliban,
how the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui forced Al Qaeda to move forward on September 11,
how a plan to destroy British Parliament on 9/11 and to use nerve gas on the European Union Parliament were thwarted,
how the Iran--Hezbollah--Al Qaeda link provided the knowledge to conduct coordinated, simultaneous attacks on multiple targets, including failed plans to destroy Los Angeles International Airport, the USS Sullivan, the Radisson Hotel in Jordan, and eleven US commercial airliners over the Pacific ocean,
that one-fifth of international Islamic charities and NGOs are infiltrated by Al Qaeda,
how the US response is effective militarily in the short term, but insufficient to counter Al Qaeda's ideology in the long-term.
Finally, to destroy Al Qaeda, Gunaratna shows there needs to be a multipronged, multiagency, and multidimensional response by the international community.
Curtis J. Austin's Up Against the Wall chronicles how violence brought about the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, dominated its policies, and finally destroyed the party as one member after another-Eldridge Cleaver, Fred Hampton, Alex Rackley-left the party, was killed, or was imprisoned. Austin shows how the party's early emphasis in the 1960s on self-defense, though sorely needed in black communities at the time, left it open to mischaracterization, infiltration, and devastation by local, state, and federal police forces and government agencies. Austin carefully highlights the internal tension between advocates of a more radical position than the Panthers took, who insisted on military confrontation with the state, and those such as Newton and David Hilliard, who believed in community organizing and alliance building as first priorities. Austin interviewed a number of party members who had heretofore remained silent. With the help of these stories, Austin is able to put the violent history of the party in perspective and show that the "survival" programs, such as the Free Breakfast for Children program and Free Health Clinics, helped the black communities they served to recognize their own bases of power and ability to save themselves. Copyright © 2006 by The University of Arkansas Press All rights reserved.
How can a human needs perspective inform the practice of conflict resolution? This chapter attempts to answer this question on the basis of my own experience with “interactive problem-solving,” an approach to the resolution of international conflicts that finds its fullest expression in the problem-solving workshop.2 This approach derives from the work of John Burton’ and follows the general principles that he has laid out. My own work has concentrated heavily (though not exclusively) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I will draw most of my illustrations from that arena.
The theory of anomie has undergone two major phases of development, as exemplified by the work of Durkheim and Merton. In this paper a third phase is outlined. As currently stated, the theory focusses on pressures toward deviant behavior arising from discrepancies between cultural goals and approved modes of access to them. It focusses, in short, upon variations in the availability of legitimate means. One may also inquire, however, about variations in access to success-goals by illegitimate means. The latter emphasis may be detected in the work of Shaw, McKay, Sutherland, and others in the "cultural transmission" and "differential association" tradition. By taking into account differentials in access to success-goals both by legitimate and by illegitimate means, the theory of anomie may be extended to include seemingly unrelated theories of deviant behavior now contained in the traditional literature of criminology.
Statement of Purpose: A decline in state-sponsored terrorism has caused many terrorist organizations to resort to criminal activity as an alternative means of support. This study examines terrorists' involvement in a variety of crimes ranging from motor vehicle violations, immigration fraud, and manufacturing illegal firearms to counterfeiting, armed bank robbery, and smuggling weapons of mass destruction. Special attention is given to transnational organized crime. Crimes are analyzed through the routine activity perspective and social learning theory. These theories draw our attention to the opportunities to commit crime and the criminal skills necessary to turn opportunity into criminality. Through these lenses, the research appraises the "successes" and "failures" of terrorists' engagement in crime. Because "failures" can result from law enforcement efforts to (1) interrupt criminal skill development, and/or (2) remove criminal opportunities via technologies and transportation systems, the research represents a best practices approach to the study and control of terrorism.
Islam, like all religions, offers solutions to existential anxieties. This article provides a timely analysis of Islamic mainstream and extremist doctrinal and ritualistic structures through an existential lens to gain an understanding of the psychological underpinnings of Islamic extremism. It is shown that Islam offers an interlocking tradeoff among the ultimate concerns of meaning, freedom, and death in addition to individual solutions for each. It is argued that this container for holding existential anxiety is under assault by modernization and that the resultant psychic pressure is at the core of the psychology of Islamic extremist organizations. The work of Tillich, Yalom, May, and others provides the existential lens through which Islamic doctrines and practices, both mainstream and extremist, are examined.
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Claims by some commentators that "9/11" was an intelligence failure like
Pearl Harbor, that the United States was unprepared for "9/11" like she
was for the Japanese attack on Hawaii, and that, like Pearl Harbor, the
military was not ready to defend against al Qaeda's terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center and Pentagon are incorrect. On the contrary,
an analysis of the two events reveals that they are more dissimilar
than alike.
There is no consensus among experts in and outside the U.S. Government about the magnitude of the threat to U.S. national interests posed by the Al Qaeda organization. Experts agree that Al Qaeda and its sympathizers intend to conduct major attacks in the United States, against U.S. interests abroad, and against Western countries. But many believe that the Al Qaeda organization and its leadership are no longer as relevant to assessing the global Islamic terrorist threat as they were on September 11, 2001. Some believe U.S. and allied counter efforts have weakened Al Qaeda's central leadership structure and capabilities to the point where Al Qaeda serves more as inspiration than as an actual planning and execution hub. According to this view, the threat from Al Qaeda has been replaced by a threat from a number of loosely affiliated cells and groups that subscribe to Al Qaeda's ideology, but have little, if any, contact with remaining Al Qaeda leaders. Those who take this view believe that catastrophic attacks similar to those on 9/11 are unlikely because terrorist operations on that scale require a high degree of coordination. An alternate view is that the remaining Al Qaeda leadership remains in contact with, and possibly even in control of, numerous Islamic militant cells and groups that continue to commit acts of terrorism, such as the July 7, 2005 bombings of the London transit system. According to those who subscribe to this view, Al Qaeda has not been weakened to the degree that some Administration officials assert, and the global effort against Islamic terrorism would benefit significantly from finding and capturing Osama bin Laden and his top associate, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Subscribers to this view believe that a coordinated attack on the scale of 9/11 should not be ruled out because the remaining Al Qaeda structure is sufficiently well-organized to conduct an effort of that magnitude. This paper focuses on the Al Qaeda organization and its major affiliates.
Following the 11 September terrorist attack a number of media revelations asserted that it could have been prevented if only the intelligence community (IC) had acted on information in its possession regarding the impending attack. This article explains why and how the intelligence agencies failed on 11 September, and assesses the need for and viability of preemptive military options for striking first to combat terrorism. First, it describes how the IC doggedly refused to regard terrorism as war through the 1990s. Second, the authors explain that an alternative perspective challenged this orthodoxy in the early 1990s, arguing that war was changing and entering its fourth generation. Third, based on new information about Al-Qaeda, the article addresses how Al-Qaeda organized for war and how it carried it out by delineating Al-Qaeda's organizational structure, ideology, linkages with other terrorist groups and supporting states, use of sanctuary, and financial base, and then detailing its targeting, weapons and warfighting strategy. This assessment reveals how intimately the Al-Qaeda network bears an unmistakable resemblance to fourth-generation asymmetrical warfare and not to the 1990s profile of the IC. Finally, the authors demonstrate that President Bush has grasped fourth generation warfare by advocating preemptive first strikes against terrorists in his new national security strategy.
This study uses data from the second and third waves of the National Youth Survey to examine the effect of neutralizations regarding violence on violent behavior. Data indicate that only a small percentage of adolescents generally approve of violence or express indifference to violence. A large percentage of adolescents, however, accept neutralizations justifying the use of violence in particular situations. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal data suggest that the acceptance of these neutralizations contributes to violent behavior. Further, the effect of these neutralizations on violence is conditioned by certain variables; neutralization is most likely to lead to violent behavior among those who disapprove of violence and associate with delinquent peers.
Research on political terrorism, which began in the early 1970s, faces some persistent problems. These involve defining the concept, collecting empirical data, building integrative theory, and avoiding the attribution of terrorism to personality disorders or “irrationality.” Furthermore, analysis risks being driven by events or the concerns of policymakers. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that psychological explanations of terrorism must take multiple levels of analysis into account, linking the individual to the group and to society. Future research should critically examine the assumption that a “new terrorism” has appeared at the end of the 20th century. Analysts should also take advantage of 30 years of history to develop comparisons and developmental studies that look not only at the causes of terrorism but at changes in terrorist strategy, the termination of terrorist campaigns, government decision-making, and policy effectiveness.
Some conditions in the lives of children, adults, and groups can be construed as fulfilling universal human psychological needs. The constructive fulfillment of these basic needs promotes caring and positive, helpful relations; their frustration creates an inclination toward hostility and aggression. The article describes diverse influences that can lead to violence between individuals, groups, and societies, as well as ways to halt and prevent genocide, mass killing, and other intergroup violence, including terrorism, in part by fostering culture changes that promote harmony and peace. Ideally such culture change would involve healing from past wounds, the creation of positive (rather than destructive) ideologies, supportive communities, reconciliation and the creation of a shared collective memory, education that promotes peace, and the development of inclusive caring in children. The article also refers to work in Rwanda that aims to foster healing and reconciliation, in part by helping people understand the roots of violence and its implication for prevention. Societies and families that help to fulfill basic needs promote goodness as well as optimal human functioning—the continued growth and development of individuals.
This paper presents a general strain theory of crime and delinquency that is capable of overcoming the criticisms of previous strain theories. In the first section, strain theory is distinguished from social control and differential association/social learning theory. In the second section, the three major types of strain are described: (1) strain as the actual or anticipated failure to achieve positively valued goals, (2) strain as the actual or anticipated removal of positively valued stimuli, and (3) strain as the actual or anticipated presentation of negatively valued stimuli. In the third section, guidelines for the measurement of strain are presented. And in the fourth section, the major adaptations to strain are described, and those factors influencing the choice of delinquent versus nondelinquent adaptations are discussed.
El autor de este libro revisa la evolución de la política global desde el fin de la guerra fría y prevé que las fuente principal de conflictos en el futuro tiene raíces culturales, a partir de las líneas divisorias entre civilizaciones. Huntington vislumbra que Occidente enfrentará civilizaciones no occidentales que rechazarán sus ideales más típicos (democracia, libertad, derechos humanos, soberanía de la ley, separación entre el Estado y la Iglesia), a la vez que aconseja un más sólido conocimiento del mundo no occidental, con objeto de potenciar la influencia occidental, sea a través de las relaciones ruso-japonesas, el aprovechamiento de las diferencias entre los estados islámicos o el mantenimiento de la superioridad miitar en el este y el sudeste asiáticos.
Part I of this two-part article describes the major forms of domestic and foreign terrorism, the motivations of the perpetrators, and the psychological, social, and political forces that contribute to this most particular expression of violence. The article addresses the question of whether all terrorists are sick or evil and considers the possibility that some forms of terrorism, however odious their result, can be a rational response to a situation of perceived intolerable injustice. The article examines what motivates people to join terrorist groups and what may later move them to leave the terrorist lifestyle. Special consideration is given to the psychological and religious dynamics of suicide terrorism and what might motivate some people to give their lives for their cause. Finally, the article offers recommendations for a multipronged approach to dealing with this modern yet ageless scourge.
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