Homeland Security Essay Example for Free

Homeland Security Essay Over the last few decades, a large number of terrorist organizations have sprung up around the world and the United States Homeland Security Policy has rapidly evolved to counter the threats that these terrorist organizations come as. The modes and methods of operation that these organizations use have become increasingly sophisticated and one cannot help but agree that amongst the most prominent of these terrorist organizations is the infamous Al Qaeda (Madsen, 2005). This paper seeks to examine the origin, ideology, infrastructure and history of Al Qaeda and provide an analysis of the United States Homeland Security Policy in light of the destructive potential Al Qaeda holds. By doing so, an analysis will be made of the effectiveness of the current Homeland security policy in light of the terrorist threats that are faced by the United States. The first traces of the establishment can effectively be traced back to the Afghan-Soviet War. It was during this war that the desire to join the Afghan Marxist Regime grew exponentially amongst foreign Arab Mujahedeen. In order to utilize this fervor, the Maktab-al-Khidmat was formed. This organization was formed by Osama Bin Laden And his teacher/mentor Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (Williams, Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror, 2002). Together they established carried out extensive recruitment and fund accumulation from 1984 onwards. This organization had its headquarters in Pakistan and it was the Maktab-al-Khidmat that later evolved into the Al Qaeda and this phase of evolution can be traced to the point where Abdullah Yusuf Azzam began to persuade Osama Bin Laden to channel his own finances and resources into the operation (Global Security, 2008). During the soviet war, the involvement of the United States was primarily through the funding that it provided the afghan mujahedeen (Gerges, 2004). Quite a bit of this funding was done through the Pakistani intelligence agency known as the Inter Services Intelligence Agency. This involvement was code named Operation Cyclone and was designed to deal an indirect defeat to the Soviets. An aspect of the Maktab-al-Khidmat was that even though it did not manage to generate any significant numbers in terms of man power, it still allowed likeminded people from over forty countries to find a platform upon which they could unite and work together for bigger projects. When the war ended, the mujahedeen were back in power within three years time and Afghanistan was once more under the control of religious radicals. In 1988, Osama bin Laden, who had returned to Saudi Arabia, decided to form groups such as the Maktab-al-Khidmat in other parts of the world but at this stage in the evolution of the group, Osama had no desire to develop the group on entirely military grounds. Rather it was Abdullah Yusuf Azzam who considered the element of militarism and aggression to be undeniably important. Osama Bin Laden was later joined by former American special forces member Sergeant Ali Mohammad after Abdullah Yusuf Azzam had been assassinated, investigations carried out later showed that Osama Bin Laden worked closely with Ali Mohammad to devise plans for attacks on various United States civilian and military facilities. Later when the Gulf War began, complications grew between Osama Bin Laden and the Saudi government when the Saudi government chose to resort to asking the United States for support instead of taking up Osama Bin Laden on his offer to provide arms and support in the Gulf War. As a result of these complications, Osama Bin Laden was exiled from Saudi Arabia to Sudan, where he continued his objection against the Saudi government (Williams, The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, and the Coming Apocalypse, 2005). This resulted in Osama bin Laden losing his Saudi passport as well as his Sudanese passport along with the humiliation of being disowned by his family. In these hard times, Osama Bin Laden turned to Afghanistan where he was welcomed by the Taliban. Afghanistan served as the ideal recruiting and training ground that was needed for Al Qaeda to develop itself and to strengthen its infrastructure. After having sought and found refuge in Afghanistan in 1996 (Burke, 2004), Osama Bin Laden began to establish training camps and began to gather local forces under his flag who he found shared his opinions from the time of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Ideology Objectives It is believed that the ideology that runs in the Al Qaeda network is one that has been inspired by the writings of Sayyid Qutb who was an author, educator, poet and was considered to be a leading intellectual of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Around the 1950’s and the 1960’s, Sayyid Qutb worked extensively on religious ideologies and published works which denounced the American way of life and the culture that prevailed in the American society. One of the few areas upon which Sayyid Qutb’s work had the most influence was that of Jihad, which is the Arabic term used for the struggle for Islam.   Through the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, the aggressive aspect of jihad became increasingly hostile and violent in its justifications. It is believed that the current set of beliefs that run through the foundations of Al Qaeda are based upon the very same principles of Sayyid Qutb’s political and religious philosophy that justifies the barbaric actions that the Al Qaeda takes today. According to Sayyid Qutb’s philosophies, the more non-Muslim dominance grew, the more justified it became to wage war against these elements. Concepts such as socialism and nationalism are highly criticized and condemned in the beliefs of Sayyid Qutb as were reflected in his teachings. This would explain the momentum that Al Qaeda appears to be gathering the last few years. It is believed that the traditional leader of the Al Qaeda, osama was also   highly influenced by Sayyid Qutb in his days as a student and would relish opportunities to debate upon them and learn more about them. Modern day religious analysts believe that Sayyid Qutb’s teachings served to provide extremists a loop hole through the interpretation of religious scriptures through which they could justify not only their wars but also the techniques that they use in their war. Moreover, interpretations of Sayyid Qutb’s teachings made in the late part of the last century built upon this loophole and reached a degree where it became obligatory to wage war against any and all elements that were non-Islamic. This mutated version of the philosophies of Sayyid Qutb made it obligatory to wage war not only against non-Islamic elements but also against any Islamic elements that refused to join the war. This can be observed to explain the Al Qaeda attacks on muslim countries as well as non-muslim countries. Organizational Structure The core organizational structure is one that centers on the base and develops and operates from that base (Gunaratna, 2003). Al Qaeda follows a Hydra like organizational structure in which distanced modules of the organizations are placed around the world and kept highly active while the central nerve is kept well hidden and it is ensured that information and funding are supplied to the distanced modules to keep them running. This way, Al Qaeda traditionally operates on a centralized leading structure where decision making and resource distribution is managed and coordinated by the center while the execution of the decisions is assigned to the nodes of the organization. However, the modern day organizational structure of Al Qaeda has evolved considerably as a result of the recent measures taken by the United States military with its partners in the war on terrorism (Wright, 2006). It is believed that the measures taken by this war on terrorism have led to the scattering of these nodes to a point where they have become isolated from each other and are operating independently in a majority of their catchment regions. It is believed that this decentralization of the nodes of Al Qaeda has caused the name Al Qaeda to become something of a brand name amongst terrorist organizations. This would explain attacks such as the 7 July London bombings of 2005 in which the involved elements were identified to be more Al Qaeda trained than of Al Qaeda origin (Corbin, 2002). It was attacks such as these that brought forth the fact that Al Qaeda had begun to optimize itself by making use of likeminded elements rather than spending time and resources to establish itself in regions where it desired to carry out operations. This can also be observed to explain the increasing number of Al Qaeda members who are educated and belong to well to do and sophisticated families. The arrests of Al Qaeda personnel made in the last few years have led to the origination of the belief that perhaps Al Qaeda does not operate by itself any more but has either chosen to disperse itself and inject itself into smaller terrorist organizations or has chosen to take on prodigies in the form of smaller terrorist organizations in reply to the increasing number of measures being taken by the coalition of the members of the war against terrorism (Vidino Emerson, 2005). Al Qaeda does not operate solely by its own self, more than often it utilizes smaller more agile terrorist organizations to obtain its objectives. Frequently groups that it has coordinated with include Abu Sayyaf Group from Malaysia, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Jemaah Islamiya from Indonesia and   Lashkar e Taiba from Kashmir. Hierarchy The current hierarchy that Al Qaeda employs is an element that has not been ascertained by American intelligence in its structure. However, the arrests of Al Qaeda personnel have led to an inference in this regard. It is believed that Al Qaeda is divided into seven divisions. The first of these divisions is that of the Shura Council which comprises of the senior Al Qaeda members and where the emir presides. The second and perhaps most active section is the Military Committee which oversees and managers training of personnel, weapon acquisition, arsenal maintenance and strategic planning. The third and perhaps even more significant section is the Business Committee which ensures that consistent funding is maintained through businesses around the world and also handles the responsibility of the providing of false documentation when needed. The Law Committee evaluates the plans to decide whether or not the plans drawn comply with the religious principles that the organization follows. Closely working with this committee is the Study/Fatwa Committee which is in charge of the drawing up and publication of religious edicts (Bajoria, 2008). A media committee was also formed in the late 1990’s but it is believed now that it has been replace by the As-Sahab which is an advanced media production house which is in charge of handling public relations as well as ensuring a supply of the video and audio requirements that the organization requires. The United States Homeland Security Policy The Department of Homeland security was established on the Cabinet level on June 6, 2002 as an enhancement to the White House Office of Homeland Security. It was through the department of Homeland Security that the Patriot Act was passed and it was observed to be one of the most deep reaching and most extensive of measures that had ever been taken by the Bush administration. In order to gain an understanding of the United States Homeland Security Policy it is first essential to gain a concrete understanding of the major events that have shaped its formation in the past and are currently shaping its evolution in the present through their long term implications. When studying the attacks that Al Qaeda has made in its history, it is necessary to understand that it was not merely the destruction because of the attacks that was the cause for concern, but the degree of information acquisition, ammunition and explosive acquirement and intelligence implementation that is staggering. The modus operandi of Al Qaeda involves well educated and sophisticated people who are well funded. This makes the implications of the attacks of this organization all the more profound and deeper in the long run. One of the first attacks that the Al Qaeda staged was in 1992 in Yemen. As per the objectives of the Al Qaeda discussed above, the objective of this attack was to discourage the prevalence of American armed forces elements from proceeding to Somalia in international famine relief efforts. The operation under which the soldiers were moving was Operation Restore Hope and was meant for the sheer purpose of discouraging the American armed forces and the American people. Seven people were injured severely and two people died, all of them were civilians. Formerly, Al Qaeda had chosen to exercise its resources in battle and against military installations. This attack was perceived as a change in the Al Qaeda’s stance towards the war it was waging. It was in this attack that the Al Qaeda first presented justification for the killing of civilians and this aspect of the Al Qaeda’s evolving modus operandi was one that has been the focus of almost every homeland security policy that has developed ever since.

Illusion in Madame Butterfly Essay -- David Henry Hwang Gender Sexuali

Illusion in M. Butterfly In David Henry Hwang's play M. Butterfly we are introduced to Rene Gallimard who has unknowingly been sexually involved with another man for twenty years. The idea of mistaken gender within the play causes the reader to question how could one mistake his/her lover's gender for so long? In Rene Gallimard's search for self-identity he ignorantly chooses illusion over reality. Hwang effectively uses the opera Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini as a framework to mold the main character, Rene Gallimard. Gallimard longs to be like the hero in Madame Butterfly, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, who dominates and possesses a beautiful Asian woman. Within the drama Gallimard concedes that he is not very attractive and that he hasn't always been popular amongst the ladies. Gallimard states "We, who are not handsome, nor brave, nor powerful, yet somehow believe like Pinkerton, that we deserve a Butterfly"(747). Obviously Gallimard is not happy with himself or his life so he goes in search for his Butterfly or more importantly a new identity. Gallimard thinks he ...

Critical Lens Essay on the book Night by Elie Wiesel Essay

â€Å"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.† That quote is from Elie Wiesel in his Nobel Peace Prize Speech. I agree with the quotation. In the story Night by Elie Wiesel, many elements correspond to the quote and to the idea of silence and complicity. Wiesel says in his book that many different people were silent because they were not directly affected by the Holocaust, and thought that if they did something to try to stop it, then they themselves would get hurt. He also explained how people like Moshe the Beadle and other characters in Night who were humiliated by fellow Jews did not believe that the Holocaust was occurring. Overall, the Jews, God, and the German citizens were all silent during the Holocaust. Their silence encouraged the Nazis to gain strength and reach the magnitude of eventually massacring six million Jews. â€Å"I did not move. I was afraid,† (37) said the character Eliezer in Night. That quote refers to when his father is beaten at the concentration camp and Eliezer just stood there watching it and doing nothing to stop it. The setting of the story Night takes place in a small town of Transylvania in 1941. To this day Wiesel still feels guilty about his inaction. The silence of the victims and the lack of resistance to the Nazi threat is one way in which neutrality and silence helps the tormentors, or in this case the Nazis and never the victims who were the Jews. Even when Eliezer was being led to the fire pit and thought he was going to die, he did not try to run or escape. In the concentration camps, the Jews greatly outnumbered the Nazi soldiers. Maybe if they revolted then even though many would die in the attempt, many could still escape and the number of people who died would be insignificant to the amount of Jews who died when they did not rise up together. It is implied throughout the text that silence and passivity are what allowed the Holocaust to continue. Wiesel’s writing of Night is itself an attempt to break the silence, to tell loudly and boldly the new generation of people about the atrocities of the Holocaust. He feels that people need to know so that they can find out the warning signs and prevent anything so horrible from ever happening again. â€Å"Where is God? Where is He?† (61) someone behind Eliezer asked. This quote  from Night refers to when a child is hung in front of all the Jewish prisoners to scare them into behaving. â€Å"For more than half an hour the child in the noose stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.† (62) Behind Eliezer, he heard the same man as who said the above quotation asking: â€Å"Where is God now?† (62) And Wiesel heard a voice within himself say: â€Å"Where is He? Here He is–He is hanging here on this gallows. . . .† (62) Those quotes show that God was also silent during the Holocaust. It is the idea of God’s silence that Eliezer finds most troubling. Eliezer’s point of view during the story Night changes from not questioning why he prays, to believing that God is dead and does not care about him or any other person on earth. When a man asks, â€Å"Where is God?† (61) the only response is â€Å"total silence throughout the camp.† (61) Eliezer and his fellow Jews are left to wonder how an all-knowing, all–powerful God can allow such horror and cruelty to occur, especially to such devout worshipers. The existence of this horror, and the lack of a divine response, forever shakes Eliezer’s faith in God. At first Wiesel used to pray without questioning God’s existence. Now, Eliezer does not fast on the holy day of Yom Kippur and believes that God has died along with the boy that was hung. The silence of God shocks Eliezer and allows the Nazis to persecute them because the Jews hope for a miracle that never comes from a God who does not exist. â€Å"The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.† That quote is also from Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech. The German people living right next to the death camps such as Auschwitz and Buna could smell bodies being burnt, and could see the fire and smoke yet they did nothing. This is complicity, which is defined as the involvement as an accomplice in a questionable act or a crime (according to dictionary.com). The Germans were silent, and because of their silence, the tormentors and Nazis were able to further persecute their victims, who were the Jews and many other ethnic minorities that were used as scapegoats. In Night, Eliezer says, â€Å"Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.† This famous quote can be interpreted to mean that  the silence of the Germans and the Allied forces is what really allowed the Jews to be murdered so heartlessly. Even though the German civilians did not do anything, Eliezer blames the Allied countries such as Great Britain and the United States for their slow response in reacting to the Nazi threat. It was said years after the Holocaust that if any powerful figure got on the BBC news radio station, telling all of the Jews to evacuate their homes and flee to Russia because all of the other Jews are disappearing, then more Jews might have been saved. Eliezer and his family were taken to Birkenau in 1944, when the war was already going on for many years. His family could have been warned and most likely saved from the Nazis. It was the neutrality and the lack of involvement of the Allied forces that led to the death of the Jews because they were not warned. In conclusion, the quote â€Å"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented† is valid because the silence of the Jews, God, the German civilians, and the Allied forces contributed to the mass murder of millions of people. All of these people in their own separate ways, due to their neutrality and silence during the Holocaust period, allowed the victims to be murdered. The Jews did not rise up against their tormentors, and therefore allowed themselves to be killed. God did not act to protect his â€Å"chosen people† and at the moment of a horrible sacrifice, God does not intervene to save innocent lives. The German people went along with Hitler’s grand scheme as puppets. Finally, the only way that the Jews could have had the opportunity of escaping their fate was if they were warned. The allies had the opportunity to warn the Jews, but didn’t, perhaps believing that other countries would warn the Jews. But they didn’t. â€Å"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.† That quote is from Martin Niemoller and proves that â€Å"silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.†

Juxtaposition Of Adlerian Therapy And Cognitive Behavioral...

Juxtaposition of Adlerian Therapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is widely known and utilized in the psychological field; however, Adlerian therapy, also known as individual psychology, is not universally known yet has roots that appear in CBT. In fact, Albert Ellis, founder of CBT, has acknowledged that Alfred Adler, founder of individual psychology, was one of the earliest therapists to emphasize the importance of understanding people’s thoughts, their observations of themselves, and their conscious experiences (Carlson, Maniacci, Watts, 2006). Therefore, a juxtaposition of CBT and Adlerian Therapy is warranted in order to evaluate the similarities and differences in conceptualization of client psychopathology, of their approach to treatment, and of how these therapies stand in terms of empirical evidence. Conceptualization of Client Psychopathology Human Nature and Psychopathology in Individual Psychology Alfred Adler maintained that the first four to five years in a child’s life were crucial in developing the child’s life style, which contains values and guides to life, as well as the child’s schema of apperception, which is how the child sees himself and the external world. The life style has two main components: one, beliefs about what exists, which is established through self-concept and worldview, and two, beliefs about what should be, which is created through the ideal self and ethical expectations (Carlson et al., 2006).