SHOULD WE REBUILD AFGHANISTAN? | 2002-01-19
Afghanistan wants $45 billion in world aid over the next decade rebuild its economy.
Right After World War II America began its first peacetime foreign aid program, the Marshall Plan. We did it to keep a devastated Western Europe from going Communist.
The European countries we aided -- with the exception of socialist Britain -- responded to the Marshall Plan incredibly well. They quickly rebuilt a totally destroyed continent, though some British buildings remained down because planners couldn't agree. Then these countries soared beyond their pre-World War II level per capita income -- except for Britain.
Ever since the Marshall Plan, we have been trying to do for everybody else on earth what we did for Europe. One foreign aid plan after another has been developed by our "intellectuals" and one after another has failed.
The Marshall Plan was the only foreign aid plan that succeeded, first, because it was the only one our "intellectuals" didn't put together. The Marshall Plan was not put together by a bunch of Harvard economists. We were in a desperate situation and desperation makes you get real.