Letters to the editor

OPINION:

No more nation building

Proponents of U.S. military occupations to do “nation building” should consider the history of military intervention in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq (“Bush a convert to nation building,” Page 1, Monday). The U.S.-backed Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia has led U.N. officials to declare Somalia the most dangerous place on Earth. The proxy war between the U.S.-backed mujahedeen and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan left a security vacuum for radical extremists. Finally, the U.S.-led war in Iraq has increased terrorism and created a refugee crisis.

Sept. 11 proved both that weak and failing states undermine U.S. security and that military responses are increasingly inappropriate to counter nonstate security threats. Nation building is a task for diplomats, aid workers, a civilian reconstruction corps and peacekeepers. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen and retired Gen. Anthony Zinni have endorsed spending to bolster civilian capabilities. If the past eight years have taught us anything, it is the value of these nonmilitary tools.

TREVOR KECK

Legislative assistant

Friends Committee on National

Legislation (Quakers)

Washington

Medicinal heroin?

The opium problem in Afghanistan is being addressed in a careless and destructive way, resulting in more harm than good (“Fixing Afghanistan,” Op-Ed, Friday).

The United States is trying to get rid of the opium problem by poppy-crop eradication. This method of simply destroying the opium at its source is far from being an ideal solution, and the children of families left with no livelihoods are the next generation of insurgents.

Aggressive counternarcotics policies, such as eradication, only make enemies of the very people the military is working so hard to protect. Moreover, the fact that poppy cultivation hit record levels in 2007 demonstrates the abject failure of current policy.

The “Poppy for Medicine” pilot program proposed by the Senlis Council proffers a hopeful solution. Eighty percent of the world’s population does not have access to affordable morphine, while tons of Afghan opium goes to waste.

Under the pilot program, opium would be made into morphine locally and sold internationally. As the world’s biggest opium producer, Afghanistan has great potential to contribute to the international pharmaceutical market. Profits would be taxed in Kabul, bringing the country’s main export into the formal economy at last.

Development policy of this kind would certainly help to convince the Afghan people that we are on their side.

While the military expends effort to win hearts and minds, its success is being destroyed by inflammatory and ineffective counternarcotics policies. Unless harsh, unrealistic policies are overhauled, Afghanistan will be a country at war with an economy pegged to the value of heroin for the foreseeable future.

PAUL BURTON

Director of policy analysis

The Senlis Council

London

The yuan effect

James Dorn in “China trade crosscurrents” (Commentary, yesterday) asserts that the shortage of savings in the United States, and not Chinese currency market intervention and the undervalued yuan, is the primary cause of the U.S. current account deficit. He is confusing causes with effects.

Were China and other currency manipulators to stop intervening in foreign exchange markets and permit their currencies to rise in value, American exports would increase and imports would decrease. In the process, U.S. incomes would rise more than consumption and savings would rise. The current account deficit would shrink also.

Currency manipulation, through foreign government purchases of U.S. dollars and debt, pushes down long-term interest rates and encourages over-consumption and discourages savings in the United States. Ending foreign government purchases of U.S. debt would cause reverse adjustment in household consumption and savings patterns.

PETER MORICI

Professor

Robert H. Smith School of Business

University of Maryland

College Park

Preserve church conservatism

According to The Washington Times, a Virginia judge has awarded property rights to 11 conservative parishes that have broken away from the Episcopal Church (“Church: Ruling violates our rights,” Nation, Saturday). The ruling, from an 1867 “division statute,” is good news for conservatives, many of whom contend with the radical social agenda of the mainstream denomination.

If the church were truly concerned about averting the widespread schisms over biblical authority and sexuality the facts do not show that this is the case the leadership of the church would hardly have consented to the consecration of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson in 2003. The Episcopal Church is paying an exorbitant price for preaching what many call “another gospel.” The Virginia diocese is a case in point.

BRIAN STUCKEY

Denver, Colo.

An addictive faith

In “Faith in Doubts” (Culture, et cetera, Tuesday), the Rev. Timothy Keller indicates to interviewer Shelley Widhalm that a big part of his book is about how building our lives on anything other than God causes those things to become enslaving addictions.

Miss Widhalm indicates that in Mr. Keller’s book “He also gives believers tools to defend their faith.”

Mr. Keller’s tools or anyone else’s tools for defending one’s faith helps continue the enslavement of people to the divisive and addictive dance of needing others to either understand and/or accept one’s personal religious beliefs. If people choose to transcend the need to defend their faith, the addiction of being self-righteous about one’s religious beliefs may also mercifully end.

GISELLE M. MASSI

Arlington

A worthy character flaw

Sen. John McCain’s self-effacing comments and his apologies for youthful indiscretions and errors in judgment were likely designed to subtly distinguish him from his less worldly-wise adversary, the youthful but often unapologetic Sen. Barack Obama (“Self-effacing McCain gets frank with voters,” Page 1, Monday). After eight years with a president who almost never admits errors, and faced with an opponent who will not admit he exercised poor judgment with respect to his controversial church affiliation, Mr. McCain is smart to emphasize the wisdom gained from hard experience and exhibit the humility that a strong leader must have.

BROOKS TUCKER

Annapolis