View Single Post
Old 01-10-2005, 03:13 PM   #10 (permalink)
Mephisto2
Junkie
 
It simply won't happen.

Why?

Whilst the Marshall Plan may have been bourne out by humanitarianism on a fundamental level, there was also a huge degree of geo-political drivers and pragmatism involved. After WWII there as a huge threat from the expansion of the Soviet Union and their puppet states. The Cold War had started even before WWII had finished. America knew it had to help stabalize the continent to prevent the spread of communism. The democratic West had just been shaken to the core and brought almost to its knees in fighting one flavour of totalitarianism; another was almost inexorably spreading west across all of Europe.

In Africa there is no such threat to "Western Civilization" or the politics of democracy.

The nearest thing we have in today's world is the massive aid programme for the countries affected by the recent tsunami. Even Colin Powell has admitted that it is in America's interest to help these countries as, without hope, without assistance, without food, water and security, the people there are in danger of falling under the influence of militant islamic organizations and politics.

Not so, or at least to a lesser degree, Africa. In other words, why spend money there when it can be "better spend" elsewhere?

Mr Mephisto
Mephisto2 is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360