Sure, but theft is a subset of the crime in this case. Counterfeiting is a form of theft that literally destabilizes a regime. As jessaustin pointed out far more eloquently, my view is not novel. The fact that we have an organization within our government (the Secret Service) with a primary mandate of "defending the currency" should be enough for you to connect the dots and realize the counterfeiting is more than theft in the context of a nation.

* Steal a radio, you're stealing from a person.

* Run a Ponzi scheme, you're stealing from a group of people.

* Counterfeit a nation's currency, you are stealing from the people of that country.

So, to answer your question: Sure, counterfeiting is just theft.

And Hitler was just a killer.

Scale matters.