What is your definition of terror?? I ask because

my son-in-law is finishing his Masters in Emergency Management, and the subject came up in one of his classes,, I have heard so many different ways it has been explained that I am asking the intelligentsia on DU to help,,, What is Terrorism??

Usually the objective is to achieve ends by terrorizing a population, not that the act itself achieves an end. (The World Trade Center itself was not key to keeping the US involved in the Middle East, but the act might have made all Americans more disposed to leave the M.E... see how well that worked)


Nuking Hiroshima was against civilians to achieve a political goal, but was a state action within a state of war.

People who shoot up a McDonald's because their wife left them have no political goals.

Insurgent attacks on a military occupier are for political ends, but not against civilians.

And so on.

Bombing an abortion clinic is textbook. It makes everyone everywhere afraid to get an abortion, which is a goal of the act.

or is it the effect on the general populace to the witness of the murder????

Usually the objective is to achieve ends by terrorizing a population, not that the act itself achieves an end. (The World Trade Center itself was not key to keeping the US involved in the Middle East, but the act might have made all Americans more disposed to leave the M.E... see how well that worked. But if the political goal was getting the US mixed up more in the ME and radicalizing the population to Osama's cause, it worked very well.)


Nuking Hiroshima was against civilians to achieve a political goal, but was a state action within a state of war.

People who shoot up a McDonald's because their wife left them have no political goals.

Insurgent attacks on a military occupier are for political ends, but not against civilians.

And so on.

Bombing an abortion clinic is textbook. It makes everyone everywhere afraid to get an abortion, which is a goal of the act.

The emergency will have to be managed the same whatever the motives.

There was a guy in the 1950s who put a bomb on a crowded airliner in his mother's luggage, just to collect the insurance on her.

It doesnt matter who or what caused the terror/panic. It's the effect that matters for him, unless he needs to be concerned about potential additional "events" in the very near future. That would probably have an effect on any response.

Also, I agree with the political definition you gave

Over 43,000 deaths while driving a vehicle per year. That's more of a threat than any El Kabong terrorist.