Financing Terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Financing Terrorism - Essay Example Terrorism comprises an insensate assault on humankind's most elemental ideals and principles -- the prerogative to a life lived in amity, independence and self-respect. The terrorists' premeditated and arbitrary carnage of innocent civilians is a disparaging refutation of the deference for the inviolability of human life. Ideally, everyone has the right to life, emancipation and security of person, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly declares. Hence, feats of terrorism are on no account valid and reasonable by considerations of a religious, political, philosophical, or other reason of like nature. Principal objective of this treatise is to address the dilemma on terrorist financing, likewise probe and assess the issues related to the economics of terrorism. And based on the investigation, it attempts to advocate ways that will lead to the curtailment of these nefarious activities and possibly for their total eradication. The subject matter proved to be an appealing issue since this writer strongly believes that by adhering to the "follow the money" philosophy, terrorist finances can be spotted, identified, located and eventually its flow can be interrupted thereby disrupting terrorist activities and ultimately preventing further success of terrorist acts and all other forms of global terrorism. Preceding researchers and writers have explicitly tackled the problem of terrorism. However, many of them have focused only on the events themselves and the ramifications on the commission of such crimes, or who are the perpetrators and the possible retaliation of the aggrieved parties and its effects on the global economy. Ignored and overlooked are some highly significant issues and one of them is the financing of such activities which is dealt with in this work. This paper then begins with brief references to the manifold definitions of the term and proceeds to address issues like: 1) Where and how terrorist organizations secure their funds; 2) How these radicals/fanatics transfer money; 3) What steps have been taken by governments to stop terrorist financing; 4) The difficulties in tracking down terrorist financiers; and the important question of 5) how regimes and governmental agencies combat terrorist financing. Literature Review Definition Crisis Providing for an explicit definition of the term "terrorism" and giving it accurate characterization has become a problematic task. It has grown to be so subjective that according to one author, the effort to define it has been likened to an art rather than a science (Burgess, 2003). Reporting of terrorist activities in media over the years has further contributed to the confusion of trying to define the word, which is diversely depicted as the work of, among others, "extremists," "guerillas," "commandos," and "fundamentalists." In addition, the adverse undertones associated with the word 'terrorism' have complicated