Time To End Foreign Aid To Israel? Rand Paul's Thoughts.

There is nothing I despise more than the tea party "movement", but this Rand Paul is one great guy. It runs in the family apparently, seeing as how his father, Ron, is probably the single most trustworthy, straight shooting person I've ever seen.

Bottom line is, I would rather have the Paul family's pet poodle as president before any of those crooked politicians that we have running, both republican and democrat. I hope to god Rand or Ron run for president, because I really think they can get support both from the crazy ass tea partiers AND the rest of us sane middle class people who have a clue of what's going on.

Can we say Paul/Paul 2012?

 

I think you underestimate the power of monetary, intellectual, and material aid (regardless of %) to Israel and how it allows Israel to ignore a real and balanced solution to the Palestinian issue.

Ironically, some posters here have commented on how the country is not as dependent on the US anymore which is true, but it's hilarious considering it's increased independence is mostly a result of US taxpayer money and resources.

I also want to throw in the favorite tactic used by AIPAC, ADL, AJC, and other related special interest groups of muzzling any criticism of Israel with claims the critics are guilty of antisemitism.

I've mentioned this book in the past, and I cannot stress how important it is for anyone wondering how peace can be attained in the region and the challenges involved.

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I know the issue at hand is controlling the budget, but the Israeli-Palestinian issue is one of the reason why our defense budget is so enormous (fighting wars against opponents that justifiably/unjustifiably use it as a rallying point).

If our defense budget weren't so enormous, maybe we'd spend more on education. Smarter Americans might've voted against supply side economic policies like extending the tax cuts for the rich (saving about $900 billion), legalizing mar1juana to cut out middle men in Latin America and reduce our prison population, or even showing up to the polls so as to avoid a negative feedback cycle in politics. An America with a better education system could be an entirely different country. That's the power of chaos theory.

This policy requires us to think less like narrow-minded accountants only seeing numbers on a page and more like people who can holistically analyze how this is intertwined with so many other issues that might not seem related at first.

 

I'm not sure why you think that. Go look at my posts from 10 years ago. I was saying the same.

If you are American, you have two options for grand poobah of the boogieman. Either all the world's problems can be blamed on mad mullahs in Iran scheming behind thick beards and gigantic turbans in order to cause chaos the world over so they have a chance to cackle maniacally or Israel and the nefarious US-Jewish fifth column controlling the country like a puppet master is scheming to implement "Greater Israel".

It seems that everybody has to choose one or the other, unless you are one of the crazies who think they are both working for the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergers. I think people are more comfortable when their stories are like Westerns, with the pure as the driven snow smiling blue-eyed good guys in the white cowboy hat and the nasty, foul, never did a good thing in their lives bad guys in the black. Everybody seems to have to pick who they want to put the black had on at some point.

Again, I've been posting more or less the same since I started posting in 2000.

Edit:

As an example, I've seen sources blame the unrest in Egypt on secret puppet masters from either Israel or Iran, both of which are absurd. Why can't the Egyptians have their own damn protest without it being a Zionist or Iranian plot? Maybe Egyptians dislike Mubarak without having to be told to do so by some secret cabal in some other country? But depending on your chosen bogyman, you will find it easy to believe unfounded innuendo and unsupported accusations that one or the other is to blame.

 

That was the point -- I was trying to imitate Deckard. I guess you missed that.

 

I was speaking to Rand Paul's call to end all foreign aid. And yes I agree we should end foreign aid to Israel but that's also not a reason to end funding for AIDS prevention in Africa.

 

Our foreign aid to Israel allows us to support a nation with (more or less) similar values to our own. The threat of removing that aid gives us a lever with which to exercise a degree of influence over their actions. For a friction-point country in one of the most volatile and strategically critical regions in the world, I'd call that 2.5 billion a bargain.

We need serious budget cuts, but our already-microscopic foreign aid budget isn't a great place to begin.

 

How many more guns do they need? And aren't they the most highly trained army in the world? They should be sending us military aid. Would love to have my own Ziva.

 

Unfortunately, several past presidents who have had "their noses tweaked" by Israel and might have considered hitting them over the head with their dependence on our largess, have backed off because of domestic political concerns.

 

Can anyone even list 3 practical reasons why we even give Israel any aid?

Keeping terrorist propaganda down doesn't count since you can make that excuse for every country.

 

They have the best propaganda in the world. As a conscripted army with no professional NCO's, they are a decidedly substandard fighting army.

 

One that has nukes, more advanced weaponry than its potential adversaries, and has also beaten its adversaries multiple times along with occupying for decades swaths of its adversaries' territory.

Plus they got this guy.
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To follow on Deckard's post that influence over them is practically nonexistant when we have never made any serious efforts or even threats to remove that aid.

I will repeat again too that in many ways our aid to Israel actually makes things harder for us in the Middle East given that it feeds anti-US propaganda in the region and is a sore point among our Arab allies.

In regard to values I can tell you from this from both first hand experience and other research that while most Israelis have similar values to us many of them don't. Extremists in Israel don't respect religious or ethnic diversity. While there are a lot of Americans who don't either the difference in Israel is that they actually wield power in the government.

 

I think that is a very simplistic view of things and I don't think that does justice to many of us who have taken positions of Israel. I don't see it as a choice between fear of Islamic turbaned radicals or being an anti-semite afraid of a Jewish fifth column. I think Israel deserves to exist in peace and I think Israel has done many impressive things but I also think that many of the things they are doing are not in the US interests and do not foster peace.

I understand to a certain extent you are playing devils advocate but the argument you have laid out here doesn't do justice to the debate.

 

You know what is ironic, Sishir? That President you've given me such grief for supporting, Jack Kennedy, was probably the last American President to stand up to Israel. He was furious with their nuclear weapons program at Dimona. Israel denied it, contructing fake facilities and mothballing parts of it when Amercans came to check it out under Kennedy's orders (after Israel refused inspections by the IAEA), claiming that the plant was built to provide power for "desalinization." Jack Kennedy was killed a few months later. The man who came after Kennedy, LBJ, was an ardent supporter of Israel. At this time, Israel had yet to build and test an atomic weapon, although they were working furiously to do so, and would within a few years. Some think that Johnson may have even actively assisted them in the effort, although I've never seen the proof. What is true is that he supported their program privately and did nothing to stop it.

You should be ashamed! ;-)-

 

Jack Hunter sums it all up perfectly

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http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2059/why-fixing-budget-hopeless

 

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
I'm still waiting, I'm still waiting, I'm still waiting, I'm still waiting

 

1) Jesus
2) H.
3) Christ

 

Forcing Israel to rely more on its strategic nuclear capabilities by withdrawing aid for conventional forces is a dangerous proposition. I do agree that our military aid to Israel is problematic, but that aid hedges against Israeli first strike scenarios. You don't want a situation like in North Korea, where the nuclear/conventional force imbalance increases the risk of miscalculation and undermines nonproliferation incentives.

 

I wonder what the charts would look like if we do it for all discretionary spending. My guess is that your average American would severely overestimate on everything but defense, which they'd severely underestimate.