DD,
While appreciate your sentiments, let's not ignore facts. Terrorist have no religion - just hate of humanity. Just a few examples :
* Hitler had a hatred of the Jews and was responsible for sending approx. six millions of innocent men, women and children to their deaths in gas chambers. He was actually the head of state, is that the reason that he is not called a terrorist? What about the ordinary Germans (besides the Nazi and officers) who were involved in hunting down and exterminating the Jews? They too are complicit in the crime. What should their actual label be?
* Timothy McVeigh was raised a Catholic, who loaded a truck bomb that killed 168 people and injured 600 more. Is he a Christian terrorist? Or because he did what he did for his hatred of the FBI, the religious background and upbringing should be ignored and not labelled?
* The Rawandan Genocide - The full scale of slaughter of the Tutsi by the Hutus resulted in between 500,000 to a million deaths. BTW both Tutsi and Hutus were Christians - How can one classify this wholescale killings of (again innocent people) people based on their skin color (here lighter skinned blacks vs. darker skinned blacks) or ethnicity by tribe? This level of violent hatred against another section of humanity - is that not terrorism?
* The Bosnian Genocide resulted in capture of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by the largely Christian Serbs. There are US war crime tribunals that have prosecuted the top political leaders of Serbia. This too is an xample of terrorism, no less.
* 1984 Anti-Sikh riots - This is a glaring blot on our democracy. The perpetrators of this crime are well doccumented and known to everybody. How many people were actually convicted of killing the innocent? Would this be an example of Hindu terrorism? (Sound offensive to me as I write it, but let's just not ignore facts)
* In Burma, we have the Rohingya minorities who are largely Muslims and are killed and persecuted for their beliefs. How do we label their killers?
* Swami Aseemanand (a former RSS member) planned the Malegaon blasts and the Samjhauta Express bombings. Fearing bad karma, he confessed before the judge (later recanted) In his confession said that he and other Hindu activists were involved in bombings at various Muslim religious. Shamefully, I must accept that there is Hindu terrorist as well. And just to add - Maya Kodnani (RSS member) lead a mob who in which 97 Muslims, including 36 women and 35 children, were murdered by stabbing, dismemberment and being burned alive individually as well as in groups. She was at the scene handing out swords, and also fired with her pistol while on the crowds who were trying to save their lives. The prosecution case is not being pursued against her for obvious reasons. This incident is widely quoted by the Pakistanis (as if a reason was required) to incite hatred against India. I as an Indian, am appalled that this happened, but the fact is that justice is being sabotaged because the perpetrators are from the majority community.
* The Wahabi Sunnis (sponsored by their financiers - The oil rich Saudis) are responsible and to be held accountable for the spread of hatred in official school textbooks and the madrasas. If you carry your holy book be it the Gita, The Bible or the Torah or such to any Saudi airport, all these will be taken and thrown in the dustbin in front of you. Why will no other country (the West who are the champions of human rights) speak against this and label these as crimes? - Because of the oil! (And BTW, these fanatics do not discriminate - other Muslims including Shias are fair game. But there is a saying if you keep a snake in your house, it will bite you, the radicals are now turning against their own in their own country as well!)
* There are too many examples of radical terror from the Muslims (Bombay blast, 9/11 attack, Kenya mall siege, Capture of 400 Nigerian school girls etc) - so am not even attempting to write about this.
The point I am trying to make is that in the 'name of God' sadly humanity is being killed - and this stems from the belief I am right and you are wrong. The point is we are all children of the same God, and he does not discriminate against another, so where is this hatred against another's belief coming from? It's only from wrong interpretation of the Holy Books. Just sharing my views..... as we have first to look into our own prejudices while we accuse others. As the Bible says - Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? Enough said. Have a good weekend all!!!