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The Washington Times 9 April 2008 Letters to the editor Nation building I just had to comment on the article "Bush a convert to nation building" (Page 1, Monday), which discusses the Bush administration's adoption of the "humanitarian" intervention concept as a tool/excuse for illegally interfering and "building" new nations. This sounds a lot like the "white man's burden" of the 19th century, which was used as a justification to create the British Empire and concomitant conflicts from which many nations and peoples are still suffering to this day. The problems associated with our nation "building" can be summarized as such: 1) We have created nations (Kosovo, Bosnia) that have no historical experience to govern themselves. 2) In creating these nations, we illegally intervened in civil wars, chose sides and forced "victor's justice" on the defeated side. Much of human history shows that long-lasting peace was rarely obtained via force. This merely sets the stage for more brutal conflict and instability in the future. 3) We rarely respect international laws in creating these states and, therefore, set a horrible precedent for new nations to do the same. 4) We have created nations that are not democratic, but rather ethnically and religiously "pure," terrorist-supporting states (e.g. Yugoslavia). Is it really any wonder why all of our nation-building efforts have failed? And at what cost of American lives and capital? I would like to make a suggestion to our misguided, quixotic leaders to focus on rebuilding our own broken, collapsing nation instead of worrying about fixing and further breaking other nations at the American taxpayer's expense. The money would be far better spent, and we might find, miraculously, that we are far less hated throughout the world. MICHAEL PRAVICA Henderson, Nev.
