GMAT Essays (AWA)

Please evaluate the essay:

Following the September 11th attack, where the Al-Queda acquired bombmaking and terrorist knowledge over the internet, many lawmakers have proposed that an international body regulate the internet so that sites which provide information to terrorists could be eliminated.

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations or reading.

Essay:

The issue in discussion is that Al-Queda acquired the knowledge of bombing and terrorist knowledge from internet. Further the issue explains that an international body regulates the content on the intenet. There are several flaws in the argument. First of all there is no clear conclusion of what will be achieved by the eliminating the sites that have bomb making and terrorist knowledge.The author may want to explain that terrorist organizations will not get enough knowledge with the sites being avaialble on internet.

The issue in discussion is flawed for the reason that author assumes Internet is the only repository to gain the access for the knowledge about the bombmaking and terrorist knowledge. If the internet sites that have knowledge about the terrorists and bombmaking are eliminated, the terrorists will not have the knowlege of attacks. Terrorism is a old phenomenon and terorist attacks used to happen before the internet was born. So, there might be several other ways to gain the knowledge. For example when Afganisthan was invaded by Russia, terrorist outfit Al Queda was made to support Afganisthan and counterattack Russia. The knowledge was transferred by few nations in the international community that had differences with Russia. Internet was not born when the attack happened but the terrorists acquired the know how bombmaking and attacking techniques.

In order to avoid the knowledge transter regading the terrorism and bomb making, the root cause need to be identified of where the knowledge is orginated and it need to be stopped there. Fox example, most of the times prospective students in the universities are the source of knowledge for the bombmaking techinques and other terror attack techniques. There might be several reasons for the students to be motivated towards the terrorism such as poverty, injustice cause by the government towards the poor people. Hence attacking at the issues at the universtity level will help in solving the problem.

In some cases, knowledge to the terror outfits is provided by few nations in order to achieve some selfish goals. It is a known fact that , in order to carry out the terror attacks in india, a pakistan state funded intelligence agency is providing training to terrorists. This kind of gestures need to be avoided by the internatinal community to stop the terrorism. Hence international community should behave more maturely towards the propogation of destructive knowledge to terrorists.

The argument should have provide more examples to improve the effectiveness of the conclusion. Eliminating the internet websites that diffuse the knowledge on the terrorist outfits might stop easy access to gain the knowledge, but as explained above, there might be several otherways to acquire the knowledge.