According to Marshall Plan 1947-1997 A German View by Susan Stern, many Germans still believe that Germany was the exclusive beneficiary of the plan, that it consisted of a free gift of vast sums of money, and that it was solely responsible for the German economic recovery in the 1950s . In the end, this plan gave over 13 billion dollars of economic and technical support to recovering European nations. The only condition that the US gave for a country receiving this support was to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which was formed in 1948 to accommodate the Marshall Plan. This would guarantee that in the long run, if something were to happen there would always be support for the nation. By the end of the four years it was enacted for, the economy of every participant country had grown above its pre-war levels, with the exception of Germany . Before the surrender of Germany , another plan was being talked about between the Allied nations: the Morgenthau Plan proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury at the time Henry Morgenthau. This radical plan proposed splitting Germany into two separate nations, one side controlled by Russia , the other by the Allied nations. It also called for the entire industrial disarmament and demilitarization of Germany and repartitions to be paid. When the American people heard about his plan of action, many went against it. Just look at some of the TIME magazine article titles of that time concerning this plan: “Take it Away” (on July 30, 1945), “Dismember or Dismantle?” (on February 21, 1944), and “Vengeance vs. Vision” (on September 22, 1967).

In the transcript of a CNN program featuring Anderson Cooper, Cooper says, “President Bush calling on U.S. allies to join in rebuilding Iraq . The place, Fort Stewart , Georgia , the president welcoming home troops of the 3rd Infantry Division from Iraq . It's a fight between civilization and chaos. That's how the president described it. A fight where no free nation can be neutral.” The show goes on to show a clip of the president, George W. Bush, saying, “This undertaking is difficult, and it is costly. Yet it is worthy of our country and it is critical to our security.” The Iraqi people also believe that America will stay and help them. In a recent poll conducted by ABC News, 56% of the population thinks that things are going better now than a year ago. Look at the two charts below. The first one shows the overall ratings of different public services.

Notice the column showing the expectations the Iraqi people have for the next year. All of these services are expected to improve. This has a direct relationship to the American troops stationed in Iraq . The second chart shows the priorities of the Iraqi people.

Many of these have to do with the services that are expected to improve. The number one priority, regaining public security, is a service expected to improve by 75% with America's help. Our position in Iraq is locked in, for now. But, once we are done helping rebuild the Iraqi nation, it is time for our third phase “Prevent”.

On April 25, 1945 the UN Conference on International Organizations began in San Francisco . 50 member nations and many non-governmental organizations (or NGOs) were invited to help draft a charter. The charter, which consisted of 19 chapters, explained the primary aim of United Nations. The Preamble to the charter states, “WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war , which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights , in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained , and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,”

The chapters afterward go on to explain the division of the different organs in the United Nations and how the charter will work. Two months later, on June 26, 1945, the finished product was open for signatures. The US , China , France , the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom ratified the charter while a majority of the other signatories agreed to it. The United Nations came to be on October 24, 1945.

UN Members (1945)

Today there are over 192 signatories of this document and the United Nations, itself, has become one of the most respected and trusted organizations around the world.

UN Members (Today)

It would be illogical to apply the formation of an organization like the United Nations to the aftermath of the Iraqi War. Instead, the United States should enlist the help of the UN to watch over the new nation of Iraq once the “rebuilding” is over. Alexander Downer, foreign minister from Australia , explores the UN role in the Iraqi aftermath with reporter Tony Jones on February 4, 2003. Downer says, “ If you want to get maximum international support for Iraq after the war, and that includes the involvement of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, then there will have to be some UN involvement and UN endorsement, which will come through a Security Council resolution.” So far, the Security Council has made 19 resolutions on Iraq , so a future one would not be out of the question. The Iraqi people also have faith in the United Nations. Although the percentage isn't over half or even among the top few trustworthy in the Iraqi people's minds, it is above the United States and the United Kingdom's troops, which should tell us that we should get out of Iraq ASAP.

That's why, when it comes to “preventing”, letting the United Nations handle the situation instead of America may be the smartest idea. The chances of another Saddam Hussein or terrorism are very unlikely, also, so America does not need to keep troops there longer (see chart and picture below).

In Baghdad

So, let's take a lesson from the past:

REACT : get our troops out of Iraq

REBUILD: help the Iraqi government get back on its feet

PREVENT: let the United Nations handle the situation from here.

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Education of the Children

Immediately after the German surrender in World War II, the Allied forces discovered the concentration camps that they never knew existed. Auschwitz. Buchenwald. Dachau. Bergen Belsen. Below is a list of all the concentration camps in Europe at the time and the estimated number of people who died there. Some don't even have an estimated number.

 

The atrocities seen in these camps both disgusted and humbled them.

Captain J. D. Fletcher recounts his experiences, "As we entered the camp, the living skeletons still able to walk crowded around us and, though we wanted to drive farther into the place, the milling, pressing crowd would not let us. It is not an exaggeration to say that almost every inmate was insane with hunger. Just the sight of an American brought cheers, groans and shrieks. People crowded around to touch an American, to touch the jeep, to kiss our arms--perhaps just to make sure that it was true. The people who couldn't walk crawled out toward our jeep. Those who couldn't even crawl propped themselves up on an elbow, and somehow, through all their pain and suffering, revealed through their eyes the gratitude, the joy they felt at the arrival of Americans.”

Not all camps had such exuberant welcomes. Lewis H. Weinstein, Lieutenant Colonel and chief of the liaison section of General Eisenhower's staff, describes, “I saw Eisenhower go to the opposite end of the road and vomit. From a distance I saw Patton bend over, holding his head with one hand and his abdomen with the other. And I soon became ill. I suggested to General Eisenhower that cables be sent immediately to President Roosevelt, Churchill, DeGaulle, urging people to come and see for themselves. The general nodded .”

In a letter to Chief of Staff George Marshall on April 12, 1945, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower writes, “I have never felt able to describe my emotional reaction when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency...I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.”

After this, there have also been accounts of when Eisenhower, himself, ordered German civilians to clean up the camps. This was to ensure that no posterity would deny what had happened in the concentration camps. In a letter to his daughter, Susan, Glenn Edward Belcher stresses the importance of remembering the Holocaust, “Dachau was too much - all we were capable of doing was staring and being immobilized. The Jewish people and all the rest of us should continue to try to encourage all of us to remember places like Dachau - despite my own constant push to repress that which is so horrible, I too would like to forget but I can't quite cut it.” This letter was written almost forty years after the Holocaust, but Belcher could still remember the emotions and how they felt. This kind of human atrocity must be remembered for future generations to come. Chuck Ferree, Holocaust witness and liberator, says, “ H olocaust revisionists and deniers claim that the "Survivors Recollections Are Unreliable.” This statement used often by those who would deny proven historical facts, overlooks the Testimony of thousands of Soldiers: Americans, British, Russians, and others who liberated hundreds of the gruesome Nazi concentration camps, all over Europe .”

So, why do we remember the Holocaust? Why is it required for all students to cover?

The Most Reverend Archbishop Emeritus Desmond M. Tutu says, “ The compelling reason why we should learn about the Holocaust, and the genocides committed against other peoples as well, is so that we might be filled with a revulsion at what took place and thus be inspired, indeed galvanized, to commit ourselves to ensure that such atrocities should never happen again… we can be more human, more gentle, more caring, more compassionate, valuing every person as being of infinite worth, so precious that we know that such atrocities will never happen again, and that the world will be a more humane place that is hostile to such horrendous occurrences. We will remember them so that we are not doomed to repeat them.”Mr. Greenberg's and Ms. Lisiak's 6 th grade class wrote that, “ We should study the Holocaust so that people at a young age can learn and not repeat the mistakes of the past when they grow up.”

Yet, today, there are still genocides. In an article published in the New York Times on December 31, 1994, when Muslims were being targeted by the Serbs. “Conditions at the camp, where a former Serbian guard has said up to 3,000 Muslims were killed over four months, were appalling. Mrs. Sestovic is particularly haunted by the memory of seeing two men--Durmo Handzic and Izmet Dedic--beaten to death, by recurrent nightmares about another Muslim whose ear was progressively sliced off on four consecutive nights by Serbian guards and by the recollection of the commander of the camp, Dragan Nikolic, holding up a cigarette butt and saying, "This is now worth more than all of your Muslim lives put together.""

Something more recent and ongoing: the Janjaweed attacks on the Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit ethnic groups in the Darfur region of Sudan .

This “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” has been going on since July of 2003. As of now, over 21 notable individuals and organizations around the world have recognized this as“genocide”. Most notably, the Jewish World Watch on September 16, 2004.

Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis notes with passion in his sermon, “Dear friends, they are killing people every day in Darfur, in the Sudan . They are raping girls and women. They have already forcibly displaced a million human beings--200,000 refugees with nowhere to go. Men, women and children die of starvation--30,000 dead in only 18 months. The janjaweed militia of Sudan continues to destroy, pillage, torture. "Janjaweed" is an Arabic term that is translated, "A devil on horseback with a gun." It brought to mind the Cossacks and the pogroms, "Chmielnicki". I say: "Never again!" Was this vow only to protect Jews from genocide? Don't I remember what you and I said, and preached, and taught and heard: "Where are the nations of the world? Where are the churches of the world? Where are the priests, pastors, the bishops and the Pope? And will my children and grandchildren ask of me, "And where was the Synagogue, where were the rabbis, and where you during Rwanda , when genocide took place in 1994?" Or the slaughter of the Tutsis by the Huti?” The time to act is now. Education and Prevention should be the course of actions taken like it was after the Holocaust. Jewish people are no longer singled out, but other ethnicities, religions and races are. When does it stop? As George Santayana would answer in return,

“Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

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