Anyone and Everyone Can Stop Terrorism
Miss, do you ride in a car? Sir, do you ride in a car? If so, then would you be surprised that I told you that you are funding terrorists? September 2015, social media exploded after a photo of 3-year old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi lying lifeless with his face in the sand at a beach in Turkey was posted on Twitter. This boy, along with his family, died trying to escape the terrorism in Syria. Terrorists are becoming more powerful and increasingly dangerous with every growing day. They kidnap, kill, destroy, injure, burn, and use endless varied forms of evil to spread their religious beliefs. This all begins with money. We need to cut off the money supply to each major terrorist group because terrorism is the greatest threat to the world right now. There are members of these groups all across the globe, the number and severity of terror attacks has increased rapidly over the last few years, and all terrorist groups rely on money to commit their crimes.
The first important reason that we need to cut off the money supply to each major terrorist group because terrorism is the greatest threat to the world right now is that members of these powerful groups are spread out across the globe. In US News article Financing Terror, author Andrew Soergel teaches us that the Islamic State (ISIS) is a jihadist group who decide to spread their religious beliefs by using violence in a large variety of ways and locations around the world. When the text says, “Islamic State group has managed to draw extremists from all over the world into its ranks – from Belgium, from the United Kingdom, even from the United States,” it becomes clear to the student that ISIS has been able to pull followers from many different areas. This connects to my original statement because it proves that while we already know that terrorism is destructive, we know that these groups have the numbers to perform their criminal activities. In a CNN article, author Paul Armstrong explains to us that ISIS is entering the realm of international terrorism which is evident because of their constant foreign attacks. According to that article, there are, “5,000 Islamic extremists throughout [France]. There have been more than 1,000 French nationals traveling to Syria and Iraq. They know of 250 that have come back.” This information shows that while there is a very strict security system in France, members of ISIS have still been able to exit and enter without trace or without being arrested. To conclude, if we continue to let these dangerous people into our country with plans of violence, then we could be seeing many deaths in the foreseeable future.
The second and highly evident reason defending my claim is that the number and severity of terror attacks has increased rapidly over the last few years. Mike Smith, researcher and author of article “Explaining Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Its Violent Insurgency” posted on africacheck.org, explains to us how Boko Haram began with a young preacher who had strict beliefs about religion in accordance with the Qur'an and did not like the Western ways imposed on Nigerians, but had no intentions of violence. After that, Mike reports events in which Boko Haram used violence to spread their ideas about religion. One of those events goes as such, “In April 2014, [Boko Haram] raided Chibok deep in northeastern Nigeria and kidnapped 276 school girls, generally between 16 and 18 years old. 219 remain missing. Shekau claimed credit for the kidnappings in a video and threatened to sell them.” In other words, Boko Haram kidnapped over 250 female teenagers in 2014 and sold most of them into slavery. This evidence proves that terrorists are a huge threat to many people and, given that a movement with the message “Bring Our Girls Back” was created in order to try and save these girls, people care. This issue is like an elephant hiding in a room; it is obviously there, but we are just ignoring it. Next, in the CNN article mentioned earlier, author Paul Armstrong provides us with a summary of recent terror incidents in which ISIS were the offenders. The summary of incidents was, “More than 100 killed during an attack in Ankara -- ISIS suicide bombers -- the attack in Beirut, 40 to 50 killed, ISIS bombers that claim for taking down that Russian Metrojet airliner. The Paris carnage has left at least 129 dead. It goes on.” This account depicts what ISIS is capable of, especially when you see the hundreds to thousands of innocent people killed and injured in total after each attack. To conclude, we need to stop these events from happening in some way and if we do not, then this graveyard initiated by terrorists will grow in numbers and potentially in a variety of new places. Waiting for these groups to go away is like expecting a ticking bomb to magically disappear.
The third and most important reason that we need to cut off the money supply to each major terrorist group because terrorism is the greatest threat to the world right now is that all terrorists rely on money to commit their crimes and without it they are weak. In the US News article quoted earlier in this essay, author Andrew Soergel discusses where ISIS get their money; selling oil. In Financing Terror, “Their source of funding is oil. Around September 2014, they were making about $3 million per day, we estimate. And then it went down to maybe $1 million, maybe even less – $750,000 per day. Now we assess it's somewhere between $40 to $50 million per month, which is a huge amount of money.” This statistic clearly provides us with the information that ISIS is receiving their money through those of us who ride in cars. Multi-million dollars per month raked in through people who don’t know what they are sponsoring is the sneaky reason why ISIS can afford all the dangerous materials and pay for all of the fighters that they currently have. This is where the everyday person can impact the downfall of these particular extremists. You can be energy efficient and buy cars that use less oil or just bike to work or take public transportation to school in order to spend less on gas and reduce ISIS efforts as well as decelerating global warming. Next, in The Independent article “Paying for terrorism: Where does Boko Haram gets its money from?,” author Terrence McCoy reveals where Boko Haram are acquiring all their wealth. Terrence McCoy writes, “Osama bin Laden sent £1.8m in local currency to Boko Haram.” This means that Boko Haram received aide from Al-Qaeda during the beginning of their uprising. Additionally, McCoy reveals, “Experts now estimate that kidnapping is worth “millions of dollars in ransom money” to the militants. A robust and terrifying slave market exists in Nigeria and neighbouring countries.” We can assume from this fact that Boko Haram are getting a great deal of their wealth from kidnapping and selling people into slavery, even though we do not know how much. These pieces of evidence can be understood as something the average person cannot prevent. But, in Washington Times article, “Terrorists Slaughter African Elephants, Use Ivory to Finance Operations,” author Ashish Kumar Sen explains the other way Boko Haram are raking in the cash. In that article, Ashish expects, “monthly ivory income to be $200,000 to $600,000 [and] pay a salary to its militants, estimated at around 5,000 people.” This statistic shows us that even though ivory income is not the main source of money, it is definitely a factor into their abilities and power and easily one we can stop as average human beings working together. This item is much easier to avoid because our everyday lives do not depend on it in any way. In all, we need to avoid ivory because it finances a huge terrorist group doing terrible things. This supports my claim that we need to cut off the money supply to each major terrorist group because terrorism is the greatest threat to the world right now because by doing this, we will be reducing terrorists’ power as well as saving innocent animals’ lives.
While it is quite evident that we need to cut off the money supply to each major terrorist group because terrorism is the greatest threat to the world right now, one argument I have heard used against this is that not many people have died from this cause in America these last few years, so this does not concern us. Supporter of this outrageous claim, Zaid Jilani of AlterNet.org, provides, “Dog bites actually killed more Americans last year than terrorism, with 32 fatalities from dogs.” Although America has not endured a massacre from terrorists in the last few years, terrorists' greatest weapon is that they do not attack internationally often, but when they do, they catch us by surprise and kill many, many, many people and destroy millions of dollars worth of property. This is clear because of when terrorist group Al-Qaeda hijacked planes and destroyed the twin towers in New York on September 11th in 2002, Statistic Brain Research Institute tallied, “Total number of people who died in 9/11 attacks [was] 2,996.” This means that just under three thousand people died from one single attack and that isn't even counting the injuries or the money for repairs or loss of jobs or despair for families who lost loved ones. In all, we must be aware that we are not magically safe from terrorists because we know they are based in countries hundreds of miles from us.
For some self-centered reason, many people believe that terrorism is the problem and only the problem of the nation it abides in. Karen Attiah of the Washington Post believes passionately toward this belief. She supports it by sharing, “Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy, with a GDP of $510 billion.” But this evidence only strengthens my claim. According to the World Bank, “United States’ [GDP is] 17 trillion 419 billion dollars.” This means that our GDP is over 34 times Nigeria’s. Just because they are the richest overall in their continent, they do not even compare to the rest of the world. Additionally, the part of Nigeria that is being terrorized is one of the poorest in the world. According to The Independent, “the poverty of northern Nigeria – where 70 per cent of people live on less than 60p [67 cents] a day.” This means that the vast majority of the population in Nigeria are unlikely to be able to defend themselves from Boko Haram. We cannot just pretend that the people in those countries can just fend for themselves without our help. In all, we must protect our fellow human beings and stop assuming that they can just defend themselves, because they cannot.
To conclude, we need to cut off the money supply to each major terrorist group because terrorism is the greatest threat to the world right now. There are members of these groups all across the globe, the number and severity of terror attacks has increased rapidly over the last few years, and all terrorist groups rely on money to commit their crimes. This is easily a problem we can stop, but it is not a problem we can stop easily. Many people (and animals) are suffering because of privileged and maybe even greedy people in first world nation avoiding the elephant in the room. We should be operating together to try and abolish terrorism in these countries. We are using oil to power our cars; so we are not only ignoring ISIS, we are funding their cause! Even in many places, people are buying ivory; we are killing elephants and hippos and other animal plus sponsoring Boko Haram's killing and kidnapping and destruction! Stop! Stop killing people! Stop helping terrorists and try stopping them for once. Avoid ivory and oil as much as possible, I beg you. These people can be saved only if we start paying attention. If we weaken their armies by cutting off their money supply, then we could attack them in combat when they are collapsing and searching for a solution. Our cash is their Achilles heel. Once we stop funding them, that is when they will experience their downfall. Let's end this childish ignorance and start caring. Be smart America.
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