War against Terrorism

Terrorism is an illegal use of force against people, their property, or government where these are held hostage in demand for something, or where a murder or destroying of assets takes place. It has become a major problem in the world; there is no single country that is not alert of such threat. However, governments must make sure their civilians are secure, and there is no intrusion of terrorists in their country. Presence of terrorism paralyses the economy, destroys its social composition and makes the government fall. A lot of lives have been lost all over the world, mostly in the Arab countries where governments are being overthrown each day. Nevertheless, there are some countries that do not have stable governments, e.g., Somali and Syria. They have governments, but they are not functional. In Somali, there is a terrorist group called Al Shabaab, and in Syria there is ISIS. Such terrorist groups are under the influence of the Al Qaeda group that was led by Osama Bin Laden (LaFranchi, 2015).The aim of this paper is to discuss effects of the war against terrorism and how it has brought negative changes to the lives of people and the economy.

What Has Happened and Where the Problem Is

Due to war against terrorism, countries all over the universe have come together to fight the terrorist attacks, the recent occurrence being in France where more than one hundred people lost their lives. Moreover, as retaliation, peace missions have been intensified in the countries harboring terrorists. The problem with such peace keeping missions is that when there is a firefight between the army and the terrorists groups, there are innocent locals who lose their lives. As a result, this situation intensifies as the locals are bitter to have lost their guiltless loved ones. Terrorists use this as a weak point and recruit new members under pretense of seeking revenge for their lost relatives.

In the spirit of destroying terrorists, surveillance has been intensified, security systems are being improved each day. Through satellites in space, the globe is being monitored, and the terrorists are being tracked (Nesi, 2006). Additionally, their movement is being observed daily, and soldiers are being organized to raid and arrest them so that the respective security organizations can use such platform to gather more intelligence information. The received information is used to prepare the country for another attack. On the other hand, to control terrorist funding, freezing of their assets has intensified. It is a move to make sure they are weakened as they cannot buy fire arms again. They cannot move much as they do not have money to fund their needs. Freezing of assets has been done to the people harboring them and those supporting them as they are also enemies in this fight against terrorism (eMediaMillWorks, 2001).

Terrorism has resulted in numerous negative changes. Among them is the growing imperfection of boarders due to corruption. Subsequently, officials at the boarders are allowing unknown and unchecked foreigners to enter their country because they have been bribed (The fight against terrorism: Council of Europe standards, 2007). In the process, terrorists enter another country, and their networks increase as they recruit new members. They use new followers to conduct terrorist attacks on unexpected places like malls, schools, and, the worst of all,  churches. However, the problem with the fight against such evil is that there are many sympathizers. Sympathizers include some governments, multinationals, nongovernmental organizations, and the locals (The United Nations and the fight againist terrorism, 2011).

With the backup of such supporters, the fight against terrorism becomes compromised; for example, in Bangladesh, a senior chief of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh confessed how he was being financed by an Indian businessman to organize terrorists attacks (Bhattacharjee, 2010). Mostly, for there to be financing of terrorists, there must be a conflict of interest where the one sponsoring wants to conduct business and the locals are against such business. They take the shorter route of creating war that leads to terrorism and shortages in supplies. The local officials are bribed so that the financials can place supplies at an inflated price because of their scarcity, which leads to their businesses growing. The same is happening to the countries where the terrorists are collaborating with big multinationals, and the local militia is supplied with firearms creating disturbance. In such situation the government conducts business of their own interest, just as conglomerates do.

Effects of Terrorism

The undesirable situation the terrorism has caused for the citizens is that it has destroyed the people’s way of living. People are afraid that any minute they can be attacked. Moreover, this condition has led to an increase in panic and suspicion among friends and families leading to breakage of domestic ties (Martin, 2003). As a result, schools have been closed and education is disrupted – countries that have numerous terrorists attack have been seen to have a decline in their literacy levels because children are not going to school. According to BBC News, there was a terrorist attack on a University in Kenya (Garrisa University) where 147 students lost their lives and the school was closed (“Kenya attack:147 dead in Garissa University assault,” 2015).

Harmful effects on the economy that has been caused by terror are that poor health has spread since hospitals have been abandoned because of fighting.  Additionally, doctors fear being forced to go and treat terrorists. They also fear being killed at their place of work. There are some instances where hospitals have been raided by terrorists so that they can take medical supplies interrupting patients’ treatments (Saul, 2012). Moreover, economies have been ruined due to destruction of property in large numbers; their growth is slowed down because instead of government engaging in development projects, (O’Kane, 2007), they redirect the money for reconstruction. Politically, the governments have fallen – the Middle East countries are the ones hit the most by this as there is numerous government overthrowing.

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