[dirtboy]

How can you possibly say that, when the Marshal Plan targeted some of the most industrially-developed countries on earth at the time?

By the time we were done bombing Japan and Europe, there wasn't much left of their industrial development. I have mixed feelings about an Afghani version of the Marshall Plan - but not because of the ability of America to carry out such a program, but because of my concerns about the willingness of the Afghani tribes to adapt to such a program. Pundits talk about twenty years of war in Afghanistan, but war has been part of Afghanistan since time immemorial. It's just a matter of who they're shooting at - outsiders or each other - and any economic development aid, under those circumstances, will accomplish little...

[Zviadist]

Pundits talk about twenty years of war in Afghanistan, but war has been part of Afghanistan since time immemorial. It's just a matter of who they're shooting at - outsiders or each other - and any economic development aid, under those circumstances, will accomplish little...

What better argument can be made for getting in, getting the guys who bombed us, and then getting the hell out?

[NewAmsterdam]

The point is not that there was no destruction of industry in Europe, of course there was. The point is that the US made money available to nations that knew how to rebuild their own country. By the way, I would not maintain that most of the industrial destruction of Europe was the result of US bombing, as you seem to suggest.