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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Myth: Israel Is the Largest Beneficiary of US Military Aid |
| 2019-06-21 |
| [BesaCenter] Countless articles discrediting Israel (as well as many other better-intentioned articles) ask how it is that a country as small as Israel receives the bulk of US military aid. Israel receives 55%, or $US3.1 billion per year, followed by Egypt, which receives 23%. This largesse comes at the expense, so it is claimed, of other equal or more important allies, such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea. The complaint conjures the specter of an all-powerful Israel lobby that has turned the US Congress into its pawn. The response to the charge is simple: Israel is not even a major beneficiary of American military aid. The numerical figure reflects official direct US military aid, but is almost meaningless compared to the real costs and benefits of US military aid ‐ which include, above all, American boots on the ground in the host states. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #15 Back when I lived in People Town, I met survivors who would throat punch a person who said this to their face. I also met people who make these same time travel left handed cigarette theories. What if, man, if the Romans had just not got involved with the Etruscans' business, then the Mongols would never had come from the Steppes therefore peace. Or that wars in the Middle East had been going on since before the first laws were chiseled into clay. Fact is we have been meddling in the affairs of others since before we were a gleam in Paul Revere's eye. Even the 'Isolationist Years' leading to our entry into WWI, the USA was conducting trade with both blocs to the point that the winners would have had legitimate grievances with the USA. Thing is, there are plenty of people like me who for various reasons would prefer to be as isolationist as realistically possible who consider arguments like Herb's to be false flags in their own sense, with their garbage macros and false thinking these lazy Emersons blow chaff in the eyes of those who would listen and cause us to check our math. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2019-06-21 21:46 |
| #14 Nice try. Nobody's fooled. Foreign IP. Wait, are you saying Herb is a false flag op? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2019-06-21 21:37 |
| #13 Busted, Herb. The we-created-Osama conspiracy hoax gave away the game. Fwiw, I don't support endless wars, either. But I don't buy the notion that we're "meddling" in the Middle East. We're the sole responsible superpower on the planet. Exit the Middle East, and kiss goodbye any hope of global stability. Also, to Dron's point: We are literally flying blind in the Middle East now, and have been at least since the time of COA Chief Buckley's murder by Hezbollah in the '80s. We cannot have any chance of being effective there without a close alliance with Israel, and without cooperation with the Magic Kingdom as well. Your fond hope is that we can somehow, as the old Puritans had it, be "in the world but not of it." Wrong. We are in the world to be of the world. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-06-21 21:12 |
| #12 You're right. You aren't a leftist, Islamist, anti-Israel or any other alliance. You're just a "Anti-NeoCon" questioning, right? Nice try. Nobody's fooled. Foreign IP. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2019-06-21 20:47 |
| #11 America didn't prevent the overthrow of the Shah. They actively participated in it. Hey, quick question, why did Osama bin Laden make war on us? Was it due to meddling? Just imagine, no Osama, no 9/11, and we'd have our six trillion dollars back, to spend on nice things for ourselves. What a horrible dystopia that would be! |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-06-21 20:38 |
| #10 We stopped minding our own business when President Jefferson sent the Marines to Tripoli in 1801, Herb, because he had realized that the nasties of the world don’t care that we want to remain pure and unencumbered by foreign entanglements. Like the scorpion, they will sting us anyway. Suppose we were to pull completely out of the Middle East. We would still have to deal with IRGC, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda entanglements with various drug gangs throughout the Americas, including their United States subsidiaries. We would have to deal with Al Shabaab among our Somali immigrants, Iranian agents among our Iranian immigrants, the Moslem Brotherhood in its various forms among our Moslem Arab immigrants and Moslem university students, Al Qaeda and allies among our Pakistani immigrants, ISIS among those who spend time on the internet... How on earth did you imagine we were able to ensure that almost all the wannabe jihadis in this country end up plotting with FBI informants, Herb? For that matter, how do you think America could have prevented the overthrow of the Shah of Iran during the presidency of the odious Jimmy Carter? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2019-06-21 19:37 |
| #9 So the USA government and business entities should cease using the Suez Canal? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2019-06-21 17:49 |
| #8 If we didn't meddle in the middle east, we wouldn't need any intelligence. I'm not a leftist. STFU about that. I believe we need to mind our own goddamned business and stop bombing other countries. Something that was non controversial until I guess recently? Endless war, endless cost, and the American people pick up the ruinous cost. If we quit starting new wars, the problem would fix itself. Did you know we created the Islamic Republic of Iran? Who here doesn't know? |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-06-21 16:33 |
| #7 Not to be an OPSEC nazi, but #3 may be cutting it a little close. We have... shall I say, a rather diverse readership. Thanks for your insights and all you post Dron. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2019-06-21 16:04 |
| #6 "This largesse comes at the expense, so it is claimed, of other equal or more important allies, such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea." These days, I don't know if I would include Germany as an ally. Japan is probably strong enough to stand on its own. South Korea has quite a number of troops on the ground. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2019-06-21 14:21 |
| #5 Why? Because Israel can project more advanced R&D without leftist (you) scrutiny and US Congressional infighting impeding advancement. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2019-06-21 14:14 |
| #4 But Herb has a subtext: the Juice are even ickier than our other Military-Industrial Cabal partners |
| Posted by: Frank G 2019-06-21 14:03 |
| #3 Because the CIA's 'A's are not better than the Mossad's 'B's. One of the most significant contributions Israel has made to U.S. security has been shared intelligence. In post-revolutionary Iran, the CIA no longer had a presence and the CIA's Lebanon station was virtually wiped out in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut. The United States relies on the Mossad and other Israeli agencies for information about terrorism, radical Islamic movements, weapons proliferation and other Middle East-related events. For many years, Israel played a key role in assisting U.S. intelligence through the capture and transfer of Soviet weapons systems. For example, Israel supplied the United States with valuable intelligence about Soviet fighters and their avionics. Remember Russkie Metrojet 9268 ? Israel provided the intel on the bomb. Democrat senators in 2014 themselves reported that Israel has been assisting in the fight against ISIS by providing the US with intel, including lists of Americans and Brits who have joined ISIS. Israel has also provided vital intelligence support in the form of drones flying over ISIS territory. NATO expenses in 2017 cost the US some $680Bn. An organization to which the other countries contribute nothing. US aid to Israel for '17-'18 cost $35Bn, and renewed a robust intel sharing partnership with fair and mutually beneficial contracts with Elbit and other companies. |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2019-06-21 13:59 |
| #2 So it's true then. Why are we giving aid payments to a developed first world nation? They are well capable of paying for themselves. |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-06-21 12:54 |
| #1 ...which include, above all, American boots on the ground in the host states. I will take a bet that the on the ground cost are simply their salaries not the total costs that range from dependent support to retirement. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-06-21 10:53 |