Tag: Afghanistan

Our latest volunteer, Jenny, is a lover of the arts, especially music, a hopeless liberal, existentialist, wife and Mom. Here’s her take on rebuilding the Middle East, in the spirit of the post WWII era.

Will there be a Marshall Plan for the Middle East? The Second World War destroyed much of Europe leaving its historic cities in ruin. Thanks to the vision of General George C. Marshall and Democratic President Harry S. Thruman the United States infused 12 Billion Dollars in the European Recovery Program to rebuild the architectural wonders of cathedrals and other historical structures reproducing cities that were left in annihilation. In addition, modern transportation systems were constructed and financial aid was used to help struggling economies work their way  back into healthy thriving democracies.

Today those same democratic nations are threatened by an unparalleled influx of desperate refugees fleeing from man’s latest devastation. The Iraq War waged on a false premise by Republican Neo-Cons has led to the utter destruction of many ancient mid-eastern cities and the surrounding countryside, loss of thousands of innocent lives of men, women and children and the end of an ancient cultural world.  A larger US military budget and an increase in the threat of warfare which is now being proposed will never be the final solution.

Who then will suggest a Marshall Plan to restore the countries and peoples of the Middle East? Certainly not the President Trump Presidency with its strident slogan of “America  First”! The demonizing of government service and government programs over the last three decades by American conservatives offers no real hope of opportunity for the poor and middle class of our land, but even less hope for relieving the misery of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Syria, Sudan and Yeman. With what ease modern nations can use technology to destroy one another, but what nation will rise up to support a new Marshall Plan to restore the nations of the Middle East and stop the need for mass migrations of war-weary peoples?

 

Photo: See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons