[A. Pole]

The training, done by "provincial reconstruction teams" of soldiers, aid workers, and diplomats, is meant to coach local authorities in Iraq on how to deliver basic services to their municipalities

There is something insane and creepy in this nation building. Imagine if the foreign soldiers from very different culture and who do not know English were "coaching" Americans how to rule themselves.

[MNJohnnie]

Go read what Green Berets are trained to do. This is EXACTLY the mission the US Army spends an awful lot of time and money training their Special Forces to do.

[reformedliberal]

The difference is that Americans can govern, as opposed to *rule*, themselves. We have been doing so since the founding of this nation. Sometimes, like recently, we have to convince our elected Representatives that they are not our *rulers*. I think a case can be made that the United States invented the concept of self rule and we have been refining it, domestically, since we declared independence from Britain. We have had one Civil War in the interim and even then, we managed a transfer of power via elections, during war time.

People who think we can just go our merry way inside our own borders with no thought to the future of the globe are deceiving themselves. We are helping/coaching an infant sovereign nation in processes we own and which they need. These processes work, regardless of language.

Nation-building beats occupation, partition, or nuking them all back to the Stone Age, IMO. YMMV.