"Colombia has been the most successful nation-building exercise by the United States in this century."
U.S. ambassador William Brownfield's declaration--delivered in an office adorned, incongruously given his Texas background, with a prominent Baltimore Orioles logo--becomes no less impressive once you realize that by "this century" he is referring to a century that is less than ten years old. This is the century, after all, of Afghanistan and Iraq--wars that have consumed far more resources than the low-key commitment to Colombia involving no U.S. combat troops. But Brownfield is being modest. The progress in Colombia, which this professional diplomat has overseen not only in the past two years as ambassador but also in previous stints at the State Department, has few rivals in the annals of 20th-century nation-building either.
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