Assignment 4

I believe that Robert Pape and Charles Tilly make a good argument by stating that, “rather than being random violence, acts of terrorism have “close affinities with political struggle” and that “collective violence occupies a perilous but coherent place in contentious politics”.” As Pape points out, no one wants foreigners to occupy their country and change the way they do things. In response to foreign occupation people come together to try to take back their country. In Pape’s article he indicates that as the United States has been working aggressively to establish a Democracy in Iraq, attackers have increased terrorist activities. After the successful election that took place in Iraq attacker saw the event as a threat to their way of life and have been active in their terrorist activities.

The up rise in terrorist activity could well be considered a social movement. When the United States invaded Iraq the idea was to bring peace to the region and get rid of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. As the invasion took place the United States didn’t really know who the enemy was in the streets of Iraq. Many innocent people died in the line of fire. Would anyone not join the fight if an army came in and killed their father, their mother, their brother, or their sister? If the United States stays in Iraq and not pulls out terrorist activity is not going to end but get worst and the last Iraq election was a perfect example of that. As we push for stability in the region attackers will come together and try to push us out. In order for terrorist activity to cease in the region and around the world we will need to let them find solutions to their own problems. I’m not saying that we should allow the country to be run by terrorist but if there is to be any peace they will have to create a government that they are comfortable with and laws that their culture can accept and follow.

The United States used to be seen as pace keepers but by overrunning Iraq and other country’s all that we are seen as is invaders. No country would allow others to come in and take over their government. All that the attackers in the Middle East are doing is coming together in their own way to try to keep their way of life. The argument is quite sound and the terrorist attacks could well be considered a movement. The reason why many people would argue that it is not a movement could possibly be that their tactics are very radical, unethical, and acceptable by much of the world’s nations. Another reason why people might not want to consider it a movement is because the point of the invasion was to bring peace to the region and by not complying people just label them as extremist, terrorist, etc.

Freedom comes at a great cost but how much cost will country’s around the world have to endure before we realize that the solution does not come by forcing them to change their way of life. As Tilly indicates in his article “Freedom comes with bad news (Tilly, 4).” Pape and Tilly understand that attackers in the Middle East are struggling with opposing political views and the only way they are going to be successful in their movement is by using collective violence. Their radical movement is very extremist but as I have mentioned before, sometimes for a movement to keep moving forward is needs to use very radical tactics. Just as the gay rights movement used violence against police when they were conducting their raids, attackers are using violence against country’s who are opposed to their way of life.

In no way shape or form do I support the way attackers are using terrorist tactics to carry forward their plan but we also have to understanding why they would use radical tactics to drive out invaders and to continue living their way of life. Tilly understands that, “The correlations of misery and conflict do not result from a general propensity of poor people to lash out in violence. They arise from the tyrannies large and small that flourish in undemocratic regimes in which the state has limited capacity to act for the common benefit (Tilly, 5). It is unfortunate that in some country’s political regimes oppress and subdue their citizens. As a result it creates instability in the country and eventually wars among nations. To protect their rights, people often come together to form a movement, whether that movement is ethical or not it does not ignore the fact that the issue needs to be resolved.