Yes, some definitions are crappy.

Do we have a word for "imperialist government uses violence against people to achieve political goals"?

Because "it's not terrorism because it's a state" is always gonna stink of trying to dodge the topic on a technicality.

This is either war or war crimes depending on what exactly happened.

There seems to be a trend of calling every terrifying event “terrorism.” People sometimes colloquially refer to even non-political mass shootings as terrorism.

I believe it’s important to separate different types of mass violence. For example a gang-related mass shooting might be de-escalated by a mediator engaging the belligerents, whereas a war crime should be sent to international criminal court and a terrorist should be dealt with in a manner to minimize the earned media attention.

>This is either war or war crimes depending on what exactly happened.

Huh. Do we call operation condor a war crime?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

> Do we have a word for "imperialist government uses violence against people to achieve political goals"?

Yes, we call this "war".

> Because "it's not terrorism because it's a state" is always gonna stink of trying to dodge the topic on a technicality.

No, it's not. Nobody is trying to dogde the bad aspects of the word, it's just that terrorism specifically is, by definition, not from a state.

What is the appropriate word to use for Iran blowing up a Jewish cultural center in Argentina? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing

Note that the word "terror" appears 34 times in that Wikipedia article.