Strategies for Encouraging Interagency Cooperation in the USA

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Main Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Interagency cooperation is of the uttermost importance since each of them is mandated with the responsibility of providing security to the US citizens from without and within. It has been suggested that Homeland security incorporate other bodies for effectiveness in its mandate but there are some challenges that are to be looked for instance the issue of secrecy. It’s common knowledge that the many agencies involved the higher chances of intelligence leaking out but also many hands and brains working together would make the work lighter. This is often viewed as a cover-up to do covert operations that are not related to national security interests and wastages of taxpayers’ money. If the past record is anything to go by, a lot of mismanagement and abuse of office has always been made in a pretense of national interests but all done to serve the interests of few politically correct individuals (Connor, 1994).

Another problem that is plaguing this department is bureaucracy where there is the establishment of so many departments which deem to have duplication of roles. The presence of these departments is believed to lockout fellow law enforcement agents of the government. The problem arises that the intelligence within the department does not leave out but acted upon from within and does not have another angle to it because there is no outside intelligence relied upon. This department has tried to run a man show by trying to act on intelligence that is gathered by other agencies whereas it does not want information (Fukuyama, 2006).

The running of this department is not transparent and there is the issue of classified material and information where the junior and senior staff has different levels of clearance and it ends in junior staff doing a lot of work without knowing what they are doing or why they are doing it.

Main Discussion

Media plays a major role in the global happenings and has major ramifications on the war to wipe out terrorism. The major work of media is to keep the masses posted on the current issues and happenings around our environments. The reporting sometimes seems partisan or discriminative depending on the part where the media is located although ideally this is not supposed to be the case. Take for example reporting of terrorism by media houses allied to the US and other Media corporations in the Arab world, which would give conflicting reports on the same incidence since they are seeing the story from different angles (Connor, 1994). The media especially news stations would always encourage the viewer to stay glued to the television set and will always have a political or an expert interpreter who tries to put the things in another form in the name of analyzing the news. Imagine two analysts from different media houses who don’t share the same sentiments on terrorism and yet they are analyzing the same situation but giving different outputs. This can only mean a disastrous end result and it will work towards the perpetuation of the vice that the two are trying to fight. You also find that the competitive nature and the desire to be a market leader in reporting current affairs works against the interest of fighting terrorism because it can lead to a leak of confidential and classified material that will fan terrorism instead of stopping it. In the western world, there is the depiction of violent movies as the in thing and a many people are addicted to such movies with extreme violence. This nature of violence only acts as an innovation of the terrorism networks especially in the movies depicting hostage situations which will only attract more coverage from the media and the cycle becomes vicious with an upward trend of the increase of terrorism. It’s always been known that terrorists have infiltrated the entertainment industry whereby they stage those dramas of hostage situations which serves to change the perception of the public towards terrorism. They gradually raise levels of violence which desensitizes the public about violence then they depict the law enforcers as the bad guys (Fukuyama, 2006).

The internet is crucial for terrorists to pasting their propaganda and run their activities incognito. There are some networks that at a casual glance would seem harmless but that form a channel through which messages are passed through the net since the internet makes one hold the entire net in your hands. Since no person can claim exclusive ownership of the internet anybody or organization can abuse the good intentions of the internet to pollute people’s minds in the name of some idealism that is vague. In view of all these, the terrorist have made the media their greatest friend since in their coverage, they depict terrorism as very powerful and almost unstoppable causing extreme anxiety and arousing the interests of the masses who are keenly watching and following the unfolding just as it happens in the movies except this time is real and the actors are non-fictional (Ahmad, 2002).

Ethnic terrorism and nationalistic terrorism are not the same although they are intertwined. One is regional affecting a small population (ethnic) whereas nationalistic affects the population in a bigger proportion. Ethnicity comes about by sociological differences or disparities like cultural or religious perceptions. In other definitions, an ethnic group is categorized so because it’s not sovereign but is incorporated into a sovereign body like a country. This is usually common in the developing world and the Arab world. On the other hand, Nationalism is the subscription of an individual to ideas and laws of a legal system (country) that is recognized internationally. The right to nationality can be acquired through different means e.g. by birth, and/ or sometimes naturalization. Nationalism gives a sense of pride in an individual hence if the rights of a nation are downtrodden there is that need to defend it and terrorism offers a solution. The kind of terrorism we see nowadays has the traits of both nationalistic and ethnic terrorism because there is the emergence of religion and state. So it’s ethnic terrorism under the cover of nationalistic terrorism. One uses the other as a means towards its goal. An example of ethnic terrorism is the one involving the fight among the dominant religious establishment like Christianity faith and Islam. In more cases, there are conflicts leading to human life loss when the two clash. The clash is usually within one country and not crossing the borders. In nationalistic terrorism, it’s the clash of titans like two nations simply for the reason of disparity in ideologies for instance communist and capitalist countries clash. There is always a clash between Russia and its allies on one side and the US and its allies on the other (Ahmad, 2002).

Conclusion

The problem understanding terrorism in the US among law enforcing departments like the police is that most of these officers spend most of their time on matters not related to terrorism like issues domestic and not countering terrorism. This does not mean that terrorism does not happen in the US but it happens (domestic) but they call it something else. In their minds domestic terrorism is not a threat to national security which is a fallacy and not dealing with it doesn’t make it go away but it just thrives more. Terrorism is something new in their minds since the US was not always targeted until 1982 and this is quite a challenge trying to differentiate between domestic terrorism and nationalistic terrorism because after the September 11 attacks of the US domestic terrorism continues unabated (McGarry, & O’Leary,1993).

The only way forward is the culmination of all the security agencies into one giant or the allocation of the different roles clearly so as to avoid duplication of roles. Interagency cooperation is a must to eradicate the vulnerability against both domestic and nationalistic terrorism.

References

Ahmad, A. (2002). Lineages of the present: Ideology and politics in contemporary South Asia. New York: Verso Press.
Connor, W. (1994). Ethnonationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (2006). America at the crossroads. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
McGarry, J. & O’Leary, B. (1993). The politics of ethnic conflict regulation. London: Routledge.

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Strategies for Encouraging Interagency Cooperation in the USA

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