Is a terrorist attack only an attack if it is successful?

There is not much difference. We are running around like headless chickens either way.

An attack of any sort can be failed, successful, or somewhere in between. How successful a terrorist attack is depends on the amount of terror it causes. For example, if a terrorist attempts to blow up a passenger jet just the attempt can cause a certain amount of terror. However if the terrorist is incompetent and sets his crotch on fire instead of completing his mission it causes somewhat less terror. It's still an attack, but not a successful one.

Coming close to blowing up a place might not have te same affect as actually blowing it up, but it still scares the crap out of most people, so I'd say it was a semi-successful terrorist attack.

The news has nothing better to talk about, so they'll beat around an attempted terrorist attack for a long time. At least they backed off the Tiger Woods thing, it wasn't anyone's business who he slept with.

Honestly, at this point more fear has come out of them talking about non-stop for the past 2 weeks than the actual attack itself. News outlets are giant fear mongering outlets.

are you like , anti-islamic? For me terrorists are fail, when they commit terrorists attack we laugh at them or get very angry but we don't go into the corner and cry like babies, we are strong ! Humph!

Serbians terrorists, who cries for the death of the austro-hun monarch is a baby!

Irish terrorists, Haha! They were just a nuicance for us, Angles succedded more than them!

If i find terrorists i will go, and be like "This is sparta!!". Meh there are terrorists everwhere

School bullies are terrorists because they want the people they bully to fear them

Terror=Fear :P But whoever remains fearless makes the terrorists the losers! The Afghans are the most fearless therefor they master the use of terror better than others, its just a saying meaning "pashtuns are brave :P"

But Being smart comes first, you have to fear at neccesary times, don't go fearelessly "leeeeeeeeeeeeeerooooooooooy Jeeeeeeeeeeeenkins" to a giant dragon.

Terrorists are to better being known as mercenaries, cause what they atleast do is blow stuff up, fear is left to the victims, and besides the victims hate 90% more than fearing , they yearn more vengeance than running away for their whole lives.

An attempted attack isn't as alarming and does not have the same results as a successful attack.

coming close to blowing up a plane < 9/11

An "attempted attack" is terrorism.

Here's a small scale example: I worked as a bar bouncer for more than a few years. Many times me or the guys I worked with were jumped from behind in the course of our work. (Angry drunks, stupid people, etc..) Just because they were rarely successful did not make it less of an assault.

And failure didn't erase their intent, or prevent them from being arrested.

A simplistic example, true; but the theory is the same.

I guess you weren't on the same plane as the undie bomber? Whether they blow something up, or come close, but get caught, it is a terrorist attack.

no longer even the strictest secure practices approaches can end each attempt by employing desperate terrorist companies, some like the London bombing and manhattan teach this, Al Qaeda (for example), are no longer a sparkling threat yet a ok universal one, because it replaced into funded and experienced by employing the united statesand U.ok throughout the time of the Afgan conflict interior the 80`s. Dozens of terrorist assaults are foiled worldwide on a daily basis!,and the universal public never even pay attention of them,it truly is many times intense profile assaults,whilst somebody,someplace desires to respond to some serious questions approximately secure practices,that's whilst all the conspiracy theroies happen.it truly is after all no longer unknown for governments to sacrifice civilians to added political good points.present day countries could desire to be answerable for conserving the universal public in a continuing state of shock (for one reason or yet another) in simple terms to maintain them subdued and to teach the dominance of their government ("you could`t stay properly devoid human beings"). Skepticsm on your government could be a reliable factor, dont have confidence each little thing they are asserting, think of and have your guy or woman opinion

A terrorist attack is a terrorist attack of course. Everyone knows that the terrorist got the bomb on the plane and was seated near the wing and except for his incompetence would have successful executed the plan. This is a failure of utilizing the intelligence we already had.

If the masses are scared, inconvenienced and robbed of their liberties / financial assets, it is terrorism. I guess that the debate on whether or not it is an attack lays somewhere in the gray, but IMO, it is an attack as terror was installed into our hearts. Very subjective, if you ask me.

There's a stark difference between Attack and Attempt...

Most Attempts we never even know about... they're handled, or defused behind the scenes, and some are more blatant and serious than others...

Those causing actual injury, death, or loss, are tallied as Attacks...

Publicizing *all* the attempts would cause more issues than not...