Nation Building and Morality

VDH

Arguments against our efforts have already evolved precisely because of the moral nature of our enterprise. Two years ago, American leftists and most Europeans alleged that America was after oil, or sought global hegemony in its plans to take out the havens of terror. Now those same voices — more strident than ever — are cynical and coldly rational: We are spending too much money, too many Americans are dying, the mythical “Afghanistan pipeline” and “Iraqi oil” won’t pay for the costs after all, such countries can never adopt democracies, and so on.