There’s a slight chance I might die in Bolivia this summer.

I’m traveling there to study for five weeks in June, and before I go, I must get about ten immunizations, due to the massive differences in national health care. My immunization for yellow fever will carry a “kick,” as Health Services described it. Also, should I be bitten by a rabid animal, I will need an airlift; Bolivia does not have the ability to treat rabies.

You probably never heard this before; most foreign policy debate revolves around the axis of democracy and terror, as we are supposed to be the main exporter of model democracy for the world. Yet, our democracy will not cure TB in Haiti, or purify poisoned wells in Burma. Democracy is not a solution for a lack of government resources.

For NIU students lucky enough to catch last month’s showings of the documentary “Invisible Children,” you know about warehouses full of hundreds of Ugandan children hiding from rebel armies who want to steal them and conscript them. They take the children and desensitize them to violence, raise them at gunpoint and create soldiers with family-like bonds.

If rebel groups can continue to thrive, then this shows a fundamental problem of governance. While we may get upset, probably from a desire to sleep more than anything else, that NIU does not close school for one day, imagine living where public education, sanitation, police and health care are impossible.

Here, we worry about the future of the job market, but imagine not having a job market because the most legitimate government regulating the economy is the barrel of an Uzi pointed at your throat. This is the definition of the term “failed state.” There are 20 other countries in the world in worse circumstances than Uganda, according to the magazine Foreign Policy, who, together with the Fund for Peace, produces an annual list of failed states.

Meanwhile, Iraq and Iran are at the top of our government’s agenda in the war on terror. Although Iran is a tight theocracy, it is better off on the failed states list than Russia, and just below China, Bolivia, Israel and the Philippines. This means the government has a form of legitimate control. Iran’s voting system is different from the ideal definition of democracy, but so is ours, as was seen in the 2000 presidential election.

However, in a failed state, there are no votes that count, no recall elections or impeachments. There is no fair trial, nor legislation with real authority. There is no democracy, and certainly a lot less democracy than Iraq or Iran have ever had.

One of the main arguments for the war in Iraq is to plant the seeds of democracy in a region that needs it. Where is the United States with Sudan, the Congo and the Cote d’Ivoire, the three states that precede Iraq on the failed states list? These states are not much different than they were in 2003, the year the American government began to bring Iraq to its current position on the list. Our presence has created a failed state, just as it did in Afghanistan, a place where reports by “liberal media” such as Link TV revealed in 2006 that the current government in Kabul barely controls the city, much less the entire country.

I do not buy the argument that we are planting democracy in these regions. If this were true, we would be involved in helping states to stabilize, not crumble. This is part of why I am heading to Bolivia, to help people in America understand that the rest of the world needs real help, not an infusion of red, white and blue policies.

I certainly hope the next president we choose to elect will be able to understand this.

Colin Leicht is a columnist for the Northern Star and host of “The International Hour” on NS*Radio.