Haley Fudge

Manuscript Speech
Speech 270
Due: April 29, 2015

If the past 20 years has taught us anything, I think it would be that literally
anything can happen. We have seen almost everything from, natural disasters to
terrorism attacks. While the world is a scary place, there is one place most people
should feel safe and that is home. Not just home as in their own personal homes,
but the country that we live in. Due to recent acts of domestic terrorism such as
school shootings there are people who dont feels safe here. When we really look at
the facts we will see that the real threat is not at home. Even though domestic
terrorism is an issue, I believe international terrorism is an even bigger issue. Today
I am going to speak to you about why we should put all our time, effort, and
resources into international terrorism and not worry so much about the terrorism
that could be going on here at home. First I will give you some definitions and
statistics about both forms of terrorisms, next I will go over some recent acts of
international terrorism and lastly I will talk about some steps I think the government
should take moving forward.
Domestic terrorism is defined by the FBI as activity with these three
characteristics: Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state
law; appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence
the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct
of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur
primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. International terrorism is
defined by the FBI in the exact same way except for that it occurs primarily outside

the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. or it transcends national boundaries in terms of

the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to
intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek
asylum. It is important to understand that means if someone travels to the U.S.
from a different country to carry out their attack that is international terrorism.
Research done by Dr. David B. Muhlhausen and Jenna Baker Mcneill states that
between 2001 and 2009 there were 91 homegrown terrorist attacks in the United
States and 380 acts of international terrorism against the Unite States. It is also
stated that domestic terrorism during that same time killed 8 people while
international terrorism killed 3,681 people. While these number have changed over
the last six years it is safe to say that they stayed on trend and international
terrorism is still higher than domestic terrorism.
Im sure the first terror incident that comes to people mind when is 9/11 as it
was the worst act of international terrorism to ever happen to the United States and
3,000 people were killed that day. Since that day terrorism has been on the rise. On
April 8th 2015, Cnn.com reported that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty of all 30
counts he was charged with in connection to the Boston Marathon Bombing.
Tsarnaev was born in the former Soviet republic of Kryzgstan and came to the
United States in 2002. Prosecutors on the case said he dug deep into writings and
lectures of Al-Qaeda leaders and wanted to punish America. But this was just the
beginning. In an article posted on Heritage.org on April 22, 2015 writers David
Inserra and James Phillips stated that the February arrest of Abdirahman Sheik
Mohamud brings the number of uncovered Islamist terror plots against the U.S. to
67. Mohamud was born in Somolia but currently lived in Ohio. After traveling to
Syria and engaging in combat training he told an unnamed person that an ISIS cleric

told him to return to the United States and to commit terrorist acts. At the time this
was the fifth terrorist plot uncovered in the year 2015 and since then that number
has risen. On April 2nd 2015 the Huffington Post posted online that two women were
arrested in New York after allegedly planning to detonate bombs in New York City.
On April 20th 2015, USA Today online reported that six more men had been arrested
in Minnesota on terrorism charges. With things like this happening everyday it is
clear that action needs to be taken.
In the same article I referred to early on heritage.org by David Inserra and
James Phillips they outlined three steps that need to be taken in securing the United
States that I agree with. The first is maintaining essential terrorism tools. This mean
to support investigative tools and surveillance programs used by the government.
While doing all this the government must be careful to still respect individual
privacy. The second is to support stronger action against terrorist groups which
would include help from our allies. This includes greater use of intelligence and law
enforcement to help monitor activities people deemed suspicious. The last is to
ensure security at home. The United States cannot rest in its fight to protect our
citizens.
The world is a scary place and as you all know we have much more to worry
about than hurricanes, tsunamis, and wildfires. I hope after listening to some
definitions and statistics about terrorism, learning about some recent acts of
terrorism and the steps we can take to ensure our safety in the future you all agree
that we should be focusing all of our time, effort, and resources on international
terrorism.