by Travis Casey

Created on: February 05, 2008   Last Updated: February 08, 2008

Terrorism cannot be justified because it involves murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment or some other felony which denies life or liberty. The taking of innocent life for one's own advancement of a cause cannot be dismissed as justifiable.

Within the past 50 years, the severity of terrorism has escalated dramatically. Although terrorism has been around since the year dot, let's stick to "recent" events.

In the 1960's and 70's, getting hijacked on an airplane was about as severe an act of terrorism that any of us were afraid of being subjected to. The hijackers would use the passengers as hostages in exchange for a ransom, to be taken to a particular destination or to demand the release of prisoners from a particular country. Although terrifying for those involved, in most cases the passengers, or hostages, would survive.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army was formed in 1969 and shortly thereafter began it's campaign to disenfranchise Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. They wanted the whole island to be part of Ireland and not leaving the northern part under British rule. They carried out acts of terrorism in an attempt to get the British government to surrender Northern Ireland to the Irish.

The IRA began shooting soldiers and setting off explosions in Northern Ireland and eventually began hitting targets on Mainland Britain. Many of their victims, as with any terrorist act, involved the killing of innocent civilians. Some saw the IRA as freedom fighters. This term is laughable. They were cold blooded killers attempting to hold the British government to ransom by killing what they saw as targets, but in actual fact were fathers, mothers and children. Sometimes they would hit their target, a British soldier.

Their campaign was savage, but to the rest of the world it really only involved Ireland and Britain. As long as one steered clear of those to two countries it did not pose a risk to personal safety.

1972 put terrorism on the world stage. The Black September Organization used the Olympics in Munich to highlight their cause to the world. They were able to relay the plight of the Palestinian Refugees to the entire world by seizing control of buildings in Olympic village and proceeded to kill 11 Israelis. The situation between Israel and the Palestinians was suddenly a worldwide issue and not confined to that small area of the Middle East. The victims were the eleven Israelis. The impact was worldwide.

Most of us were aware of terrorism. We knew

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