>This same line of reasoning could be applied to the US - we're a little bit better at disguising it, but we've been responsible for terrorism abroad (and domestically!) for decades.<
I'm going to have to argue with your moral relativism here.
I would challenge you to provide examples of US gov't supported terrorist actions. Note, I'll ask you stick to the commonly held definition of terrorism which is the intentional targeting of innocent civilians in order to incite terror.
I would challenge you to provide examples of US gov't supported terrorist actions. Note, I'll ask you stick to the commonly held definition of terrorism which is the intentional targeting of innocent civilians in order to incite terror.
I think this hinges somewhat on the meaning of the word "innocent". What I think you mean is innocent in the sense of "uninvolved", rather than in the moral sense.
It's no secret that the CIA (among other US agencies) captures, kills, and torturers people in other countries. But it's my understanding, at least, that the US does not purposefully do so to "uninvolved" citizens of those countries. These actions are done against violent members of the ruling class actively opposing US interests, and their allies. None of these people are "uninvolved" in the sense that charges of "terrorism" would require.
To put it more bluntly: the US does not attempt to incite "terror" in uninvolved citizens in any country, ever. It just not how our government works to achieve US goals abroad.
Whether the US policy of intervention abroad is good or bad is certainly open to debate, and the reality of "collateral damage" is ever present. But I don't think that US intervention abroad counts as "terrorism", under the standard definition of the word, which is why arguments that try and equate the two tend to fall on deaf ears.
There is some evidence that terrorist activity has been a CIA modus operandi since its inception. Operation Gladio was a post-war communist resistance network composed of 'stay-behind' fascists in various European countries. The CIA was formed in part to manage the operation, which according to some of its members went on to orchestrate false flag terrorist attacks across Western Europe in the decades that followed. The stated aim was to drive voters into the arms of more authoritarian, neo-fascist governments. See below for a fascinating BBC documentary from 1992.
Similar stories emerge from Latin America in the 1980s. And the notorious Operation Northwoods proposal from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 suggested domestic false flag attacks to drive support for an invasion of Cuba. An argument can be made that the CIA is the primary terrorist organisation of the post WWII era.
I don't argue that it doesn't happen, but "if it quacks like a duck"?
Intent is usually a huge factor in determining the seriousness of a crime. If someone shoots and kills someone who is attempting to murder them, that's ok. If, while attempting to shoot and kill that person, they kill an innocent bystander, that's not OK and usually punishable (manslaughter).
Am I right to infer that your argument is that those two situations are morally identical?
To the village that lost 50 people to the omnipresent invaders, it may just be morally identical. "Oh, hey, we thought you were terrorists - our bad" probably won't cut it as 'understandable', given that 40 of the victims were women and children, which aren't generally part of the insurgent personnel in Afghanistan. Keep in mind that this wasn't a wayward bomb - the innocent bystander in your story - but a target hit three times across several minutes.
I think I-C was a proxy war. In any given war there are acts of terrorism in that either side in this case (the local proxies of the US) and the adversarial proxy (in the case Cuban/soviet) engaged in some terrorism against the people either side saw as supporters of the opposition. The contras were a coalition of both deposed affiliates and disaffected revolutionaries who switched sides.
I knew someone who was once an optimistic 'internationalist', as they called themselves.
Anyhow, I suppose you could argue that all the soviet-US proxy wars resulted in some terrorism by the local proxies. But we could go further and say that most major wars involved some form of terrorism.
I'm going to have to argue with your moral relativism here.
I would challenge you to provide examples of US gov't supported terrorist actions. Note, I'll ask you stick to the commonly held definition of terrorism which is the intentional targeting of innocent civilians in order to incite terror.