In the wake of the horrific, coordinated attacks that took place in Paris on Friday, the discussion of how to prevent instances of terrorism is once again front and center in the United States.
In the American terrorism conversation, one can only reach two logical conclusions: either we do not mean what we say, or we cannot bring ourselves to say what we mean.
In the first case, we cannot possibly be serious about stopping terrorism while simultaneously being the largest sponsor of terrorism in world history, by any metric, and continue down that path as we speak.
Surely, the government cannot look itself in the mirror, remember Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba and so many others and conclude that we are not terrorists as well.
In the second example, that maybe we can’t bring ourselves to say what we mean, the case could be made that we know good and well what we have done, and justify it with the implicit understanding that our terrorism is good terrorism, while Islamic terrorism is the bad sort of terrorism. Their wars are a problem while ours are only ever a solution. They are the cause, and we the effect. This is more likely the scenario, and it fits perfectly into the narrative of American exceptionalism.
Their terrorism is inexcusable barbarism, while ours is the reluctant result of well-meaning people making tough decisions.
Compare the (just) reactions to the 9/11 attacks with the reactions of essentially every American politician towards a specific example, Cuba. In the wake of 9/11, the Bush Doctrine stated that a country who harbors terrorists is the same as the terrorists themselves. This policy taken towards Afghanistan justified an expansive, U.S.-led ground campaign aimed at much more than simply catching the perpetrators of the attacks.
Yet, if we apply these standards to ourselves, Cuba would have been completely justified in invading Florida at any point from 1959 onward. Cuba could have done this under the Bush Doctrine because it would’ve been in an effort to bring to justice those responsible for funding, training, harboring and deploying the terrorists who tried to overthrow the Cuban government through bombing raids and assassination attempts from 1959 through the 1990s.
Interestingly enough, the U.S. is the only country to ever be condemned for international terrorism (in Nicaragua in the 1980s) by the World Court. Assuming we had applied any sort of a reasonable standard to ourselves, the ruling would have been followed and Nicaragua would have received substantial reparations.
Instead, citing the World Court was lacking jurisdiction, the U.S. rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that states observe international law and international court rulings. This decision was made despite the fact that the entire UN General Assembly voted to enforce the resolution, with only Israel and El Salvador voting with the United States.
If other nations find it a bit rich that the US has been posturing itself as being on the forefront of trying to end terrorism, as it has been since the first “War on Terror” in the Reagan years, they are correct in feeling that way. Most of the world knows that it is actually very easy for the world’s greatest power to reduce terrorism, but for that to happen, the U.S. would have to stop participating in it.
Scott Schroder is a senior political science major from Houston.
