The following paper examines the growing fear and discrimination currently projected towards Islam and Muslims in the United States. This thesis will specifically focus on what role the U.S. mainstream media has played in either increasing or decreasing Islamophobia amongst the American public post September 11, 2001. The research collected to conduct this study came from theories of political science, conflict resolution, international affairs, psychology, sociology, and personal interviews. I conclude that Islamophobia has increased in the United States since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and that Islamophobia, due to the mainstream media, is more pervasive in the U.S. culture the initially assumed.

В процессе исследований были проанализированы текущие особенности обеспечения антитеррористической защищенности мест массового пребывания людей, межведомственного взаимодействия, выявлены основные проблемы, возникающие при проведении комплекса мер по обеспечению антитеррористической защищенности, установлены причины этих проблем, определены способы совершенствования комплекса мер для обеспечения антитеррористической защищенности мест массового пребывания людей. / In the process of research, the current features of ensuring the anti-terrorist security of places of mass stay of people, interdepartmental interaction were analyzed, the main problems arising during the implementation of a set of measures to ensure anti-terrorist security were identified, the causes of these problems were identified, ways of improving the set of measures to ensure anti-terrorist security of places of mass stay.

This study is a quantitative content analysis of the New York Times and Washington Post coverage of Iran during the period surrounding the Ayatollah Khomeini's ascension to power in 1979 as well as the period surrounding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election in 2005. The results showed that coverage of Iran in the elite American print media as it related to terror was higher in the period after Khomeini came to power and also in the period after Ahmadinejad's election than it was in the period immediately preceding their respective ascensions. The results also showed that there was more coverage of Iran as it related to terror in the year surrounding Ahmadinejad's election than there was during the year surrounding Ayatollah Khomeini's rise to power in Iran.

Understanding temporal relations among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom dimensions has received increasing attention in research. However, current findings in this area are limited by group-level approaches, which are based on inter-individual variation. PTSD is a heterogeneous syndrome and symptoms are likely to vary across individuals and time. Thus, it is important to examine temporal relations among PTSD symptom dimensions as dynamic processes and at the level of intra-individual variation. The aim of the present study was to capture temporal dynamics among PTSD symptom dimensions at an individual level using unified structural equation modeling (uSEM). World Trade Center (WTC) 9/11 responders (N = 202) oversampled for current PTSD (18.3% met criteria in past month) were recruited from the Long Island site of the WTC health program. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), PTSD symptoms were assessed three times a day over seven consecutive days. The person-specific temporal relations among PTSD symptom dimensions were estimated with individual-level uSEM. For the sample as a whole, hyperarousal played a key role in driving the other three symptom dimensions longitudinally, with the strongest effect in intrusive symptoms. However, daily temporal relations among PTSD symptoms were idiosyncratic. Although hyperarousal was a strong predictor of subsequent symptom severity, only 33.95% of the sample showed this predictive effect while others showed more evident temporal relations between intrusion and avoidance. Implications for personalized health care and recommendations for future research using individual-level uSEM in psychopathology are discussed.

In his first term as president, George W. Bush was confronted with one of the worst national attacks in United States history: the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001. Through the devastation, however, President Bush triumphed in unifying and guiding this nation during what would become the height of his rhetorical leadership. Following his reelection in 2004, President Bush faced one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history: Category 4 Hurricane Katrina. In its aftermath, Katrina became known as "one of the worst mishandled disasters ever." Utilizing Kenneth Burke's pentad, this study analyzes the president's rhetorical response and the primetime network news coverage following each crisis in an attempt to determine how President Bush could fare so well in one instance, consoling and leading the American people, while falling short in his second major crisis during his term as president. / Master of Arts

This study examines the motivation factors that make some individuals (terrorists) confidential informants. The study is based on the assumptions of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theories. Accordingly, main assumption of the present study is that some individuals with unsatisfied needs in religion-abusing terrorist (RAT) networks choose to become confidential informants to satisfy their predominant needs. The main hypothesis for the purpose of this study is “The individuals’ decision-making processes to cooperate with law enforcement intelligence (LEI) as a confidential informant is affected by some motivation factors during recruitment process.” The present study tests 27 hypotheses in order to answer two main research questions. To meet its objectives the present study uses quantitative research methodology, constructs a cross-sectional research design, and employs secondary data analysis to test the hypotheses of the research questions. A dataset was formed based on official records of Turkish National Police by including all confidential informants within eight different RAT networks in Turkey. First, individual effect of each motivation factor on being a confidential informant is tested and discussed in detail. Then two group specific multivariate models for being an informant in Al-Qaeda and Turkish-Hezbollah are illustrated, compared and contrasted. Both bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses not only revealed the extent of individual effects of motivations among RAT groups, but also helped us to build fitting multivariate models that explain the probability of being informants in certain RAT networks. By doing so, the present study aims to make contributions to the literature and practice on this relatively unexplored phenomenon. Findings indicate that while some motivation factors are common among all RAT networks, the strength and direction of their effects vary among different RAT networks.

The diploma thesis deals with the terrorism and war, their meaning in the globalised world and with the possibility of ethical justification of violence. Theoretical part delineates terrorism, its terminology and political and social environment. It describes kinds and methods of terrorism, its history and some of the terrorist organizations with their goals. The thesis also compares terrorism and war in the parts where they intersect. In the next chapters it presents original ethical theories which would be supported by the moral assessment of violent enforcing of interests. There is explained the term of just war, its basic principles and obligatory attributes. Practical part characterize three chosen actual conflicts: the Al- Qaeda attacks on the United States from 11th September, 2001, Chechnya war for its autonomy and current factual occupation of Iraq by allied forces. Legitimate setting in the sense of ius ad bellum, the right to defend by the use of violence, was not mostly deconstructed. In the area of ius in bello, the right in the war, the hypothesis was not verified and the particular violent action did not fulfill some of the basic principles of just war.

The terrorist label became recently so widely used. It strongly influenced the language of media, politicians and society. The security discourse is seemingly dominated by the counter-terrorism policy. Both the national and international legal systems introduced laws to avert the terrorist actions. Ironically, no universal definition of terrorism has been found yet so the use of the terrorist label depends mainly on own interpretation. The thesis aims to critically analyse the terrorist label and to determine if it prevents the conflict between so called terrorists and the rest of the society from peaceful resolution. The first chapter introduces theoretical and methodological framework of the research. It is followed by the analysis of the EU's designation of Hezbollah's military wing as a terrorist organization in the second chapter. A special attention is paid to the Israeli diplomatic pressure on the EU to blacklist Hezbollah which was selected as an appropriate example of the terrorist labelling.

因應全球化時代國防安全的多元挑戰，國軍長期以來始終秉持憲法所賦予的使命，不斷精實壯大，期能確保國家利益與安全的終極目標。我國國防已逐步藉由「國防轉型」邁入現代化的新紀元，無論是國防理念、軍事戰略、建軍規劃與願景，都是以「預防戰爭」為依歸，以「有效嚇阻，防衛固守」為戰略構想。國防政策仍以確保國家利益與安全目標為最高準繩，透過施政方針，來達成「預防戰爭」、「國土防衛」、「反恐制變」的基本目標。 本研究目的在於探究恐怖主義相關定義與組織概況和發展趨勢，並檢視國際、區域反恐公約及法令制定與我國參與之情形，另藉由各國反恐軍事特種部隊現況，藉以提供我國修訂反恐專法之參考，補充我國反恐怖行動法第五條之內容。 本研究發現：由於各國政治立場不一，對於恐怖主義的定義亦不盡相同，導致國際恐怖組織發動攻擊之事件頻傳，而各國反恐行動亦以設置反恐特種部隊為主。當然，國際反恐公約之合作趨勢，反映出各國修訂反恐專法的必要性，以收國際反恐法與國內反恐法之成效，惟我國應儘速通過反恐專責法令，以符合法律保留與比例原則。 另方面，我國政府在反恐行動架構中面臨實務操作上之窘境，導致地方政府與中央機關在反恐成效上難保統一行事；而以國軍參與反恐之角色與定位來說：在國防政策基本目標下之國防組織再造，國軍反恐怖協調體系呈現出組織扁平化之架構，且各特勤隊需具備學習型組織之性質，突顯出我國軍事部隊終生教育之必要。 / As the challenges of national security are being more globalized, the Ministry of National Defense of ROC has achieved remarkable success in benefiting the nation and people based on the responsibility under the Constitution. All these improvements and changes carried out in the national defense system are to keep the nation away from war and guard the homeland safely. The main policy still upholds the safeguarding of national interests and security targets as the highest criterion in order to achieve the basic objectives of “war prevention”, “homeland defense”, and “counter-terrorism and contingency response” through policy implementation and directives. The main purpose of this research is to find out the definition and development of terrorism around the world, the international counter-terrorism cooperation, and the role of the R.O.C. in the international counter-terrorism system. Furthermore, this research also provides the patterns of the counter terrorist forces around the world that derives some useful adjustments for the ROC Anti-Terrorism Law. This research discovered that since the political standpoint and the definition of terrorism of each country are different, the special forces of each country are still the main counter-terrorism power. Of course, the international cooperation of anti-terrorism brought each nation to revise its anti-terrorism law. On the other hand, our government has been facing several challenges in bringing our anti-terrorism mechanism into practice. What should be improved now is to put our Anti-Terrorism Law into effect. In addition, as anti-terrorism is a very important issue around the world, further organizational transformation such as organization flattening and continuous education must be accomplished to improve the national defense system.

This research project seeks to explore aspects of the post-reporting phase of the public inquiry process. Central to the public inquiry process is the concept of legitimacy and the idea that a public inquiry provides and opportunity to re-legitimate the credibility of failed public institutions. The current literature asserts that public inquiries re-legitimise through the production of authoritative narratives. As such, most of this scholarship has focused on the production of inquiry reports and, more recently, the reports themselves. However, in an era of accountability, and in the aftermath of such a poignant attack upon society, the production of a report may represent an apogee, but by no means an end, of the re-legitimation process. Appropriately, this thesis examines the post-reporting phase of the 9/11 Commission’s public inquiry process. The 9/11 Commission provides a useful research vehicle due to the bounded, and relatively linear, implementation process of the Commission’s recommendations. In little more than four months a majority of the Commission’s recommendations were passed into law. Within this implementation phase the dominant discursive process took place in the United States Congress. It is the legislative reform debates in the House of Representatives and the Senate that is the focus of this research project. The central research question is: what rhetorical legitimation strategies were employed in the legislative reform debates of the post-reporting phase of the 9/11 Commission’s public inquiry process? This study uses a grounded theory approach to the analysis of the legislative transcripts of the Congressional reform debates. This analysis revealed that proponents employed rhetorical strategies to legitimise a legislative ‘Call to Action’ narrative. Also, they employed rhetorical legitimation strategies that emphasised themes of bipartisanship, hard work and expertise in order to strengthen the standing of the legislation. Opponents of the legislation focused rhetorical de-legitimation strategies on the theme of ‘flawed process’. Finally, nearly all legislators, regardless of their view of the legislation, sought to appropriate the authoritative legitimacy of the Commission, by employing rhetorical strategies that presented their interests and motives as in line with the actions and wishes of the Commission.