Tom the Exterminator on the Middle East

[Seth Ackerman]

Brad DeLong wrote:

> But Japan and West Germany--with what appeared to be a much larger
> share of their social capital destroyed by bombing--grew very, very
> rapidly indeed after the end of World War II. Blaming post-1975
> Vietnamese poverty on the U.S. Air Force rather than on really
> existing socialism seems, to me at least, a *real* stretch...

Um, the US occupied Japan and Germany, spent billions on the Marshall Plan
and the Korean War, made swift reconstruction the major focus of its
policies - often to the consternation of allies. Whereas the US deliberately
tried to block reconstruction in Vietnam with sanctions and support for
Chinese military attacks.

Seth