Atma84 wrote:

Pandajuice wrote: Kubo wrote: It's true. Seeing someone try to construct a bomb with some M-88s and Fisher Price clocks is almost laughable, but the truth is, for something to really cause some damage, terrorists only need to get it right once. And as the adage goes: even a broken clock is right twice a day. They have gotten it right a number of time throughout history, and yet we're still here living our heathenistic lifestyles in defiance and we always will. They'd have to get lucky thousands of times to really do any damage to the country and to us. I agree. It doesn't matter how many times they "Get it right". It won't change anything. I will still continue to waste my money on capitalistic things and stare at my women and do everything that offends them. Especially play football.

My point is that they only need to get it right once to kill people. I don't think there's anybody that really takes the threat of terrorism seriously with respect to its capacity to cause widespread political or ideological change. Even after September 11, after a few months, things were just about completely back to normal.
What terrorism CAN do, and some would argue is MEANT to do, is to either 1) cause just enough people in the target population to appeal to their government to change laws and/or submit to the group's demands or 2) make the benefits of fighting the terrorist group/organization less than the costs. That DOES happen sometimes (before they got greedy and had their asses handed to them, the Tamil Tigers actually persuaded the Sri Lankan gov't to negotiate with them... pretty exclusively through the threat of violence).

Fundamental Islam, if you asked me, is doomed to fail on its own. Terrorism can't sustain itself in the long term (see the LTTE), and its goal of a worldwide Salafist empire just isn't possible. But just as we are adamant to continue our way of life, they're adamant to impress theirs.