During the last 40 years the country has received terrorist attacks, some of them perpetrated by nationals, such as the famous Unabomber, which between 1978 and 1995 caused the death of 3 people and another 23 were wounded, while keeping us all terrified. The author, Ted Kaczynski, was sentenced to eight life sentences for murder.
On April 19, 1995, a homemade bomb exploded in the middle of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and wounding nearly 700. Timothy McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges and executed in 2001.
On September 11, 2001, we suffered the largest terrorist attack perpetrated in the history of this country, this time by foreign citizens, nineteen members of Al Qaeda who hijacked four planes full of American passengers. Two of the planes flew and crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, another crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a Pennsylvania field, after passengers tried to seize control of the aircraft from terrorists to avoid an attack on the US Capitol.
In these attacks 2,753 people died in the World Trade Center; 184 in the Pentagon, and 40 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. A total of 2,977 fatalities.
After the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, there have been about a dozen terrorist attacks. We cannot forget that April 15, 2013, when two explosive devices built with pressure cookers exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring at least 264 people. The suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was accused by the US government of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. He was sentenced to death on June 25, 2015.
Al-Qaeda has been active in other parts of the world. Countries like Spain and England, just to mention two, have felt their blow. In others, they have tried to attack, but have failed. If they failed, it was not because of lack of organization and willingness on their part or because we were happy, no, it was because the authorities are better prepared to fight them. Its main objective is to destroy everything and everyone who opposes their fanatical beliefs.
We must remain vigilant and united with the rest of the world, regardless of religion or political parties, against these extremist believers. We have the right to live in peace and we must do whatever is necessary to achieve it. Peace is not cheap, we know it, and it does not matter what price we have to pay for it.
