Rectification of names

Allow me a few moments to get this straight. A civilian scientist working on a project in the interests of the national security of his country is assassinated using a motorcycle bomb by an assailant who did not make himself or his political affiliation known beforehand. What would we call this if it were done within our borders? Terrorism, right? So why are our authorities not calling a spade a spade when it happens to another country, even if that country does not always see eye-to-eye (to say the very least) with us? And should we not be calling out the cheerleaders of such operations (and they are sadly not few) as giving aid and comfort to the terrorists responsible, whether they are part of Mossad or the Mojahedin-e Khalq?

Let’s be a little bit realistic for a moment. The United States will not always remain the world’s sole hegemon, and if we are going to manage our civilisation’s wane in status with anything resembling grace, we are going to have to pay some attention to the moral ground we occupy, because ultimately our nation’s virtue is the sole source of whatever ‘soft power’ we can effectively wield. This was Yan Xuetong’s view regarding China, if you will recall. Part of our behaving virtuously is condemning terrorism and murder of civilians not only when people we don’t like do it, but also when our allies do it. Otherwise, we only lend more moral ammunition to the likes of Iran’s leadership, and weaken our chances of building bridges on real issues of national security with powers such as Russia and China. The ghosts of Cold Wars past need not haunt either our present or our future… but they will, if we continue to behave in the way we are doing now, turning a blind eye to grievous injustices done to civilians of other nations, carried out by our allies.