Well legally it is murder, and since it is a family member it is domestic violence as well. Now what is required for it to be "terror".. if you go by anything done with "religious or political beliefs", then you pretty much can put any crime into that category.
Allow me to slip this in.....I would submit, that the founding fathers of the United States were terrorists....political violence meets that standard, regardless of their good intent.
Another metric is that terror has to effect random unaffiliated innocent peoples... as in plural. Now a family member does not meet the "unaffiliated" part and not even the plurality unless it is all women in a family.
I want to interject this here.....when considering the random effect of terror; would not the secondary effect on the community meet that criteria? if we are going to use religious terror in that context, and we overlook the immediate family, does not the fear and intimidation on the community force compliance with the religion? just a thought exercise at this point....moving on....
Good
Tricky one, since the word and definition has been abused so much that it can pretty much cover anything.. see above. It is a bit like the American use of the word liberal.. first it is not used in context of the actual meaning, and secondly it is used by the right as a label on anyone and anything they dont agree with, basically making the world absolutely useless other than to attempt to smear people.
For me it comes down to terror... if a person or group for whatever reason.. religious or political, goes out to terrorize (to inflict terror) the civilian population to promote their ideology, real or not. So attacks against military or police can be not terror depending on the situation. For example, the US has hunted and prosecuted people in Afghanistan for attacking and killing US troops and more than often used anti-terror laws
And at this point, I need to clarify......currently, the US is working in conjunction with the Afghan Government and Security Forces, and prosecuting under Afghan law, not US law...prior to that, however, you are correct.
as an excuse. Now the US legally or not, was an invading force, and it is the right of the local population to rise up and confront that invading and occupying force. Hence the "terror" aspect is problematic. When the French resistance bombed places to attack the Nazies and their colaborators, but also had civilian collateral damage.. was that terror? So as you see it can be a bit tricky.
Now how about a guy who goes "postal" and starts to kill random people for whatever warped reason.. is that terror? Well technically yes in my opinion, as the reasoning he is using, for him is "political or religious".. yes he is insane but it is still terror. That is why I say the attack against Gabby Gifford was a right wing terror attack.. and yet the US right still denies this, because the attacker had "mental issues". I also say that Sandy Hook, and other mass shootings in the US are domestic terror attacks, mostly by the right wing, but I bet you that there would be a lot of people opposing this view.
I think you will find that thought plays out on both sides.....When 13 people were shot to death at Fort Hood by Maj. Hassam, US President refused to call it terrorism...it was "workplace violence" for 6 years
The real tricky part comes to the Israel-Palestinian issue, but that cant be discussed here.
