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target america: as the bush white house weighs its options, what are the lessons from america's first 'war on terrorism' in the 1980s?" / />
live online: producer mike kirkrelated FRONTLINE report: hunting bin laden
introduction
interviews
white house advisers, national security experts, and veteran journalists
timeline: terrorist attacks on americansEvolution of Modern Terrorism
from 1979 to 1988 - the attacks, the groups, and the u.s. response
the rise and spread of militant islamic groups from the late-1960s to today
lessons of the 1980'slinks & readingsvideo excerptjoin the discussion
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Target America

Last month, the nation's top leaders gathered to decide the U.S response to the September 11 terrorist attack. Some of the same individuals were in Washington, DC, twenty-two years ago when the United States suffered its first humiliation at the hands of Islamic militants. U.S. embassy employees were taken hostage and held captive before the world. Over the decades, incident followed incident - the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, the killing of American soldiers in a Berlin nightclub, the downing of Pan Am 103, and the first attack on the World Trade Center. In "Target America," FRONTLINE uncovers a long-standing division within the nation's security apparatus about how to deal with an enemy that has been targeting America and Americans for decades.

published oct. 2001

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