If a group did attack a military convoy with a remote controlled IED, it wouldn't be an act of terrorism.
Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
A remote controlled IED isn't indiscriminate, and a military convoy isn't civilian.
Pressure/etc. detonated IEDs are sort of a grey area, honestly, as are military landmines, cluster munitions where you know a large fraction will become UXO, especially in civilian areas, and inaccurate area attacks like WW2 airstrikes.
Plenty of actual, Iraqi civilian targets were killed by Al-Qa'ida in Iraq and other terrorists with car bombs, suicide bombers, hostage takings etc.
The distinction is pretty clear between the two, I think if you are accusing media of whitewashing all Iraqi insurgents under the banner of terrorism you should back it up.
The actual terms used in Iraq by the US Military varied, too, from "insurgents", "Anti-Iraqi Forces" (irony, when it was Iraqis attacking the US..."), "foreign fighters", "former regime elements" (even when they were foreign and/or people Saddam had persecuted), Iranian-sponsored militias, etc.
The techniques of terrorists (say: car bombings) are shockingly little different in practice from drone strikes. Sure, certainly the intent is very different, but the result is nevertheless a disturbingly high death toll for innocents. And that should concern us a fuck of a lot more than it does today.
[NB That's not to say I can't understand the violent reaction of the members of the Nationalist community - even if I am appalled by what they often chose to do]
During Obama's administration alone (6 years) more than 2400 people have been killed by US drone strikes, nearly 300 of them civilians (89% "terrorists"/military). Certainly that is a better ratio than the IRA, but the fact that we are willingly waging such a devastating war with significant "collateral damage" (in another 6 years or so we will have killed as many civilians as the IRA did) with so little public debate or oversight should be chilling to anyone.
Source? Debating the definitions of words is often silly, but I think it's worth pointing out that 1) the definition of "terrorism" isn't broadly agreed upon, and 2) the definition you're using is more narrow than peoples'. The definition that searching google gives is "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims", which drone attacks certainly fit into.
More generally, it seems that condemning vague things like "torture" and "terrorism" accomplishes very little, because people will simply use different definitions of the terms to skirt the condemnation. So we have to condemn specific things that are wrong, like waterboarding and drone strikes.
Most people's definition of terrorism is "any violent act committed by a Muslim without clear monetary gain," so this definition is actually much more general.
>"the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims"
War, then?
As you said, though, debating definitions is a waste of time.
I disagree with you that "most people" use the definition you claim, but of course neither of us have any data and we both think the debate is silly anyway.
I think the point is that drone strikes (targeting angry people with guns and bombs) are meaningfully different than someone blowing themselves up in a a crowded market or mosque (targeting people whose religion is slightly different from his or her own).
You can say they're the same because they're "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims", but there's something of a different quality to those political aims that warrants a distinction.
I regret making a comment that encourages this sort of debate over what terrible things should and shouldn't be labeled a certain way.
Note that although that's probably the best argument, I'm still not completely satisfied with it.
It's also worth pointing out that war/conflict are not the same thing, the definition of who is protected during a conflict is much broader than members of the armed forces during a formal war.