Tale of Two Plans 06.17.2003


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Other contributions by Jan Qarabaghi: Not In the Name of My God, Not in the Name of My Freedom G8 Summit: It Takes Two to Tango The Threat of B52 and the Palliative Effect of Kleptomania "Grand Assembly" or Grand Deceit?	The Tale of the Two Plans: The Marshall Plan and the ‘Peanut’ Plan ~ Jan Qarabaghi ~ June 17, 2004 In April 2002, almost seven months after the first American bombs littered the Afghan soil, and a few hours before the ailing former King of Afghanistan, at the insistence and persuasion of American and other world diplomats, landed at the bombed-out Kabul airport, President George W. Bush announced a major U.S. role in rebuilding Afghanistan, calling for a plan he compared to the one General George Marshall devised for Europe after World War II. Mr. Bush was talking in front cadets at the Virginia Military Institute from which General Marshall had graduated in 1901. (Marshall served as Harry Truman’s secretary of state after World War II.) In his speech to the American cadets, Mr. Bush said the following: “We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations.” “Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government. Peace will be achieved through an education system for boys and girls that works.” “By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil [terrorism] and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall, Marshal knew that our military victory in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings.” As someone initially forced out of Afghanistan by the tyranny of the communist regime, and later kept in exile by the crimes of the religious zealots, when I first read Mr. Bush’s statements, tears came to my eyes and thought perhaps God has ultimately taken heed of to my daily prayers in which, for the past 26 years, I kept asking Him to restore peace in Afghanistan. Reading Mr. Bush’s statements, I thought this the man who is truly committed to make good on past betrayals and will never go back on his word. I thought the idea of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan was invoked by the right man, and had happened for the right reason at the right time. Today (June 15, 2004), I read the text of remarks made by President Bush at a Press Availability event, in which he and Hamid Karzai, the nominal president of Afghanistan, took part at the Rose Garden. In his remarks, Mr. Bush announced the following initiatives for the down-trodden people of Afghanistan: “My government reaffirms its iron-clad commitment to help Afghanistan succeed and prosper….” “The United States is also joining with Afghanistan to announce five new initiatives that will help the Afghan people achieve the peace, stability, and prosperity they deserve. First, the United States pledges its full support as Afghans continue to build the institutions of democracy. America will launch an ambitious training program for newly-elected politicians and help newly-elected assembly members better serve those who elected them.” “Second, Afghanistan and America are working together to print millions of new textbooks and build modern schools in every Afghan province. Girls, as well as boys, are going to school, and they are studying under a new curriculum that promotes religious and ethnic tolerance. We pledge to continue this progress through a new $4-million women’s teacher training institute in Kabul. Graduates of this innovative program will return to their provinces and rural districts to train other teachers in the crusade against illiteracy.” “[Third,] Education can be nurtured in other ways, as well. Cultural exchange programs help foster understanding and respect, as well as accelerate progress. Last year close to 100 Afghans studied here in various training programs. More want to come to learn and to share their experiences, so our third initiative will expand these opportunities to include more than 250 qualified Afghans who will participate in Humphrey, Fulbright, Cochran and other exchange programs. “Fourth, to promote bilateral economic ties, the United States and Afghanistan announced our intent to pursue a bilateral trade and investment framework agreement….” “And, finally, we pledge to continue our efforts to create opportunities for women. The United Sates in dedicating $5 million to fund training programs and grants for small businesses [for women].” (Words italicized by the writer.) No matter how excited Mr. Bush may sound about his five new initiatives, and no matter how important these initiatives may turn out to be for certain individuals or groups of the Afghan society, they hardly add to what can be characterized as a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. ($5.9 million of the new initiatives go to the development of the Afghan Chamber of Commerce that, according to rumors circulating among Afghans, will be headed either by Karazi’a younger brother or one of his surrogates.) Even if one adds all the money spent by the U.S. in Afghanistan during the last 2½ years (circa $1.4 billion, excluding costs of Operation Enduring Freedom, which, as reported, has been about $50 billion) and the paltry results achieved so far, there is no sight of the effects of a Marshall Plan in Afghanistan. The original Marshall Plan cost over $90 billion in today’s dollars and assisted large masses of people in the seventeen Western European countries that benefited from it. The Marshall Plan helped European nations to overcome the devastation of the Second World War. As a direct or indirect result of this plan, thousands of miles of roads and rail tracks were built or repaired, thousands of factories were retooled and put into operation, hundreds of ports, dams, hospitals, schools, and public parks and installations were repaired or built anew, and last but not least, thousands of people who had lost their businesses and houses to the war or to the Nazis were assisted to regain their source of income and rebuild their livelihoods. Nothing of the sort has happened in Afghanistan so far. The country is still living in the same devastated, appalling conditions as three years ago. It is not difficult to imagine how a genuine Marshall Plan for Afghanistan would look like. Afghanistan has about 20,000 villages. Each village needs six items if it is to serve as a peaceful and pleasant habitat for its people: Electricity, clean water, a clinic, a school, a mosque, and a decent road to the next village. If providing each village with these items cost about $2 million, the total cost of rebuilding all of the villages of Afghanistan will be about $40 billion. If each year 2000 villages are rebuilt, it will take about ten years for all villages of Afghanistan to regain life. The yearly cost of this rebuilding crusade will be about $4 billion. If such a Marshall Plan had been in place in the last 2½ years, to this date, some 6000 Afghan villages would have began to live in peace, would have been empowered to deny shelter to those who monger war, and would have declined to strengthen and sustain the drug Mafia that has taken over the country and its government. In such a case, the cost of the Afghan Marshal Plan would have been about $40 billion, i.e., $10 billion less than the cost of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan during the last 2½ years. This cost-savings and the direct and indirect advantages of this simple, commonsensical plan would have been enormous for both the United States and Afghanistan. Having these simple, basic points in mind, when I read about the five Afghanistan initiatives touted by President Bush at his press conference with Karzai, I was instantly reminded of the term used by the late Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq who described the aid offered to his country by President Carter in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as “Peanut”. I am wondering how and why the Marshall Plan promised Afghans and Afghanistan only two short years ago so quickly metamorphosed into the “Peanut Plan” that we heard of at the Rose Garden. © Qarabaghi/Afghan Observer 2004.

The Tale of the Two Plans:

The Marshall Plan and the ‘Peanut’ Plan

June 17, 2004

In April 2002, almost seven months after the first American bombs littered the Afghan soil, and a few hours before the ailing former King of Afghanistan, at the insistence and persuasion of American and other world diplomats, landed at the bombed-out Kabul airport, President George W. Bush announced a major U.S. role in rebuilding Afghanistan, calling for a plan he compared to the one General George Marshall devised for Europe after World War II. Mr. Bush was talking in front cadets at the Virginia Military Institute from which General Marshall had graduated in 1901. (Marshall served as Harry Truman’s secretary of state after World War II.)

In his speech to the American cadets, Mr. Bush said the following:

“We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations.”

“Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government. Peace will be achieved through an education system for boys and girls that works.”

“By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil [terrorism] and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall, Marshal knew that our military victory in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings.”

As someone initially forced out of Afghanistan by the tyranny of the communist regime, and later kept in exile by the crimes of the religious zealots, when I first read Mr. Bush’s statements, tears came to my eyes and thought perhaps God has ultimately taken heed of to my daily prayers in which, for the past 26 years, I kept asking Him to restore peace in Afghanistan. Reading Mr. Bush’s statements, I thought this the man who is truly committed to make good on past betrayals and will never go back on his word. I thought the idea of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan was invoked by the right man, and had happened for the right reason at the right time.

Today (June 15, 2004), I read the text of remarks made by President Bush at a Press Availability event, in which he and Hamid Karzai, the nominal president of Afghanistan, took part at the Rose Garden. In his remarks, Mr. Bush announced the following initiatives for the down-trodden people of Afghanistan:

“My government reaffirms its iron-clad commitment to help Afghanistan succeed and prosper….”

“The United States is also joining with Afghanistan to announce five new initiatives that will help the Afghan people achieve the peace, stability, and prosperity they deserve. First, the United States pledges its full support as Afghans continue to build the institutions of democracy. America will launch an ambitious training program for newly-elected politicians and help newly-elected assembly members better serve those who elected them.”

“Second, Afghanistan and America are working together to print millions of new textbooks and build modern schools in every Afghan province. Girls, as well as boys, are going to school, and they are studying under a new curriculum that promotes religious and ethnic tolerance. We pledge to continue this progress through a new $4-million women’s teacher training institute in Kabul. Graduates of this innovative program will return to their provinces and rural districts to train other teachers in the crusade against illiteracy.”

“[Third,] Education can be nurtured in other ways, as well. Cultural exchange programs help foster understanding and respect, as well as accelerate progress. Last year close to 100 Afghans studied here in various training programs. More want to come to learn and to share their experiences, so our third initiative will expand these opportunities to include more than 250 qualified Afghans who will participate in Humphrey, Fulbright, Cochran and other exchange programs.

“Fourth, to promote bilateral economic ties, the United States and Afghanistan announced our intent to pursue a bilateral trade and investment framework agreement….”

“And, finally, we pledge to continue our efforts to create opportunities for women. The United Sates in dedicating $5 million to fund training programs and grants for small businesses [for women].” (Words italicized by the writer.)

No matter how excited Mr. Bush may sound about his five new initiatives, and no matter how important these initiatives may turn out to be for certain individuals or groups of the Afghan society, they hardly add to what can be characterized as a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. ($5.9 million of the new initiatives go to the development of the Afghan Chamber of Commerce that, according to rumors circulating among Afghans, will be headed either by Karazi’a younger brother or one of his surrogates.) Even if one adds all the money spent by the U.S. in Afghanistan during the last 2½ years (circa $1.4 billion, excluding costs of Operation Enduring Freedom, which, as reported, has been about $50 billion) and the paltry results achieved so far, there is no sight of the effects of a Marshall Plan in Afghanistan.

The original Marshall Plan cost over $90 billion in today’s dollars and assisted large masses of people in the seventeen Western European countries that benefited from it. The Marshall Plan helped European nations to overcome the devastation of the Second World War. As a direct or indirect result of this plan, thousands of miles of roads and rail tracks were built or repaired, thousands of factories were retooled and put into operation, hundreds of ports, dams, hospitals, schools, and public parks and installations were repaired or built anew, and last but not least, thousands of people who had lost their businesses and houses to the war or to the Nazis were assisted to regain their source of income and rebuild their livelihoods. Nothing of the sort has happened in Afghanistan so far. The country is still living in the same devastated, appalling conditions as three years ago.

It is not difficult to imagine how a genuine Marshall Plan for Afghanistan would look like. Afghanistan has about 20,000 villages. Each village needs six items if it is to serve as a peaceful and pleasant habitat for its people: Electricity, clean water, a clinic, a school, a mosque, and a decent road to the next village. If providing each village with these items cost about $2 million, the total cost of rebuilding all of the villages of Afghanistan will be about $40 billion. If each year 2000 villages are rebuilt, it will take about ten years for all villages of Afghanistan to regain life. The yearly cost of this rebuilding crusade will be about $4 billion. If such a Marshall Plan had been in place in the last 2½ years, to this date, some 6000 Afghan villages would have began to live in peace, would have been empowered to deny shelter to those who monger war, and would have declined to strengthen and sustain the drug Mafia that has taken over the country and its government. In such a case, the cost of the Afghan Marshal Plan would have been about $40 billion, i.e., $10 billion less than the cost of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan during the last 2½ years. This cost-savings and the direct and indirect advantages of this simple, commonsensical plan would have been enormous for both the United States and Afghanistan.

Having these simple, basic points in mind, when I read about the five Afghanistan initiatives touted by President Bush at his press conference with Karzai, I was instantly reminded of the term used by the late Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq who described the aid offered to his country by President Carter in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as “Peanut”. I am wondering how and why the Marshall Plan promised Afghans and Afghanistan only two short years ago so quickly metamorphosed into the “Peanut Plan” that we heard of at the Rose Garden.
© Qarabaghi/Afghan Observer 2004.