I will always remember my Dad and I talking after the 9-11 attacks, when they were speculating if/when/where they would strike again. Being in ninth grade, I was just waking up to politics - a stage when you don't know much, but always pretend that you do. My Dad's definition of terrorism then lines up well with the Department of Defense's. He said that terrorists wanted to attack symbols in America - things that were distinctly American, to scare us from doing the things that keep us distinctly American. The Defense Department says terrorism is being violent to make people fearful. I agreed with my Dad then, and still do...but reading the definition page, I like the UN short definition best: "the peacetime equivalent of a war crime". This is not the first time acts like this have been committed, but what makes this act terrorism is it's peacetime context. The bombings of Dresden in WWII were kind of similar in certain points, but it was during a time of war and unrest - so at worst, is defined as a war crime.