WW2 Debt to the US

[Cluesless]

Are we still paying if so how much - and if Bush wants our help why doesnt he write it off?

[WaldoMcFroog]

We're not still paying! The Marshall plan (drawn up as a post war scheme to regerate war torn Europe) was long ago completed. However, if we were still paying off our debts, why would Bush write off the debt? The same kinds of 'mechanisms' are used by the World Bank to ensure Third World countries adhere to US foriegn policy - If Third World debt were wiped out, then there would be no reason for those countries not to persue their own best interests rather than America's! Being tied to a debt, makes a nation more pliable to another's needs, and global capitalism requires people to exploit for it to work. It's sick, it's immoral and corrupt, but it's horrifically commonplace.

[Pinotage]

According to Hansard* the final repayment of Second World War debt to the United States Government will bein 2006. "the loan originally was �1,075 million, of which �244 million is outstanding. The basis of the loan is that interest is paid at 2 per cent."

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While the UK was desperate and unlikely to be able to continue fighting the Nazi's without the financial help of the USA and willingly accepted help from the US, it seems to me the US extracted complete advantage of a so-called ally. Not only in financial payments but in the transfer of British possessions and knowledge to the US. The US seems to have used WW2 to destroy the UKs dominance and empire in order to put itself in the UKs place.

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They took UK inventions such as atom research and UK scientists (yet refused to share later research), jet engine research, and cryptography and computer research (from Bletchley).

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This is not meant in anyway to denigrate the sacrifice made by ordinary men and women of the US armed services.

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*see http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/
pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds02/text/20708-03.htm