How is it terrorism when they kill soldiers?

[Lemur]

Enforcing despotic laws is terrorism? I thought that was despotism... Isn't terrorism quite restricted to killing/scaring civilian populations?

I see the point you're making, and there's some truth in it. Two armed groups going at each other is difficult to classify as "terrorism." It might be what the U.S. military calls "asymmetrical warfare," though. The calling card of real terrorism is that the targets tend to be non-military, such as blowing up a vegetable market in Kirkuk.

So all this talk about "dying for your country" is all a scam?

No, not a scam; soldiers who fall in the line of duty really have died for their country. But that's never the goal, you see. You want to make the other guy die for his, as Patton put it.