by Elena Mastors

Created on: June 07, 2008

Roadside and subway bombings, cars driven into airports, assassinations, kidnappings and beheadingswelcome to the al-Qaida terrorist network. This is a network with global reach and is one that commits terrorist acts against individuals and governments throughout the world in countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, Indonesia, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, amongst many others. Al-Qaida perpetrated several attacks against the United States at home and abroad and the United States is a central target of the network. Notably on August 7, 1998, two attacks were carried out within minutes of each other at the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. On October 12, 2000, in Aden, Yemen, two men drove an explosive-laden boat into the USS Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer in which seventeen American sailors were killed. Even during this time, al-Qaida was not perceived as a fundamental threat to the U.S. homeland. This all changed on September 11th 2001 with the unprecedented use of airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

Seven years after these attacks on U.S. soil, many say the threat from the network is not as significant as portrayed by some government officials. They say the threat from terrorism is simply overblown. These people generally do not have access to government information and do not see the threat reporting from all levels of the government apparatus. They talk about civil liberties, about government conspiracies, and argue that the United States isn't really facing a "war on terrorism." In their mind, it is all simply contrived and hyped to benefit anyone from corporations to the defense industry.

The reality is there is a lot of money being spent by the U.S. government in order to ensure the safety of Americans both at home and abroad. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies work around the clock to disrupt the activities of those that would like nothing more than to kill Americans. What they do is not always publicized. From time to time we hear about this plot or that plot being thwarted. And, there are just some things that Americans should not be told. Fighting a war against any threat requires some level of secrecy. We simply cannot be told everything the government is doing, otherwise these agencies couldn't effectively fight against al-Qaida because they would be informed of our efforts every step of the way.

Like before 9-11, we are going

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