What do Terrorists Want?
What motivated nineteen to hijack four planes and crash them against different targets in the US? What is the reason the suicide bombers in Palestine? What was the purpose behind the vehicle rampage attacks in the different European cities? What what do terrorists want? Those are pressing questions often asked by the general public, government officials, and scholars; the common answers seems to be that terrorists want to communicate a political message (Crenshaw, 1981; Fromkin, 1986; Freedman, 2007; Abrahms, 2008).
For Fromkin (1986), Terrorism is a political strategy ; “an uncertain and indirect strategy that employs the weapon of fear in a special sort of way in which to make governments react” (Fromkin, 1986,
…show more content…
Why do they continue using terrorism to achieve their political goal? Fromkin (1986) affirms their goal is to frighten, paralyze, persuade, and exhaust the adversary, and achieve popular support. However, trying to find a common cause of through a comparative analysis of different cases of terrorism, Crenshaw (1981) proposes a three levels of analysis to explain why terrorists chose terror to advance their ideas: (1)environment, (2)political, social and economic situation, and (3) physiological. Crenshaw states the objectives for terror actions are: disrupt and discredit the processes of government, affect public attitudes, provoke a counter reaction from the government, to win public support, opponents, appeal for sympathy, impress an audience, or promote the adherence of new people to become terrorists. In addition, the author argues that the most basic reason for terrorism is to gain recognition or attention (p. 386), and today more than ever, they can get the recognition and attention needed through Social Medea. Certainly, in today’s world, any organization can get to millions of people from any corner of the world in a matter of seconds. In a twit ISIS can showcase the beheading of its prisoners, and Anonymous can communicate their