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Obama gets it right: New arms deal with Israel

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Cohete Rojo, Sep 15, 2016.

  1. larsv8

    larsv8 Contributing Member

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    Don't like it. Don't mind supporting Israel, but they need to understand their place in this relationship.

    Netanyahu stood before congress and lectured us like an entitled d******d.

    I would have slashed that 30 billion to 15 billion, so they get the message.
     
  2. trustme

    trustme Member

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    This is ridiculous. There are people here in America who need that money way more. I pay taxes to help the less fortunate. Not further strengthen an already top 5 military in the world.
     
  3. Dubious

    Dubious Contributing Member

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    Roughly figured, you could buy 5000 Abrams tanks for 38 billion, or 1 tank every 180 feet along the border
     
  4. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Israel is today in a proxy war between Sunnis and the West. If they are instead engaged in a Shi'a-Sunni proxy war, it's worse only in that that conflict isn't so lopsided.

    Assuming Israel is crushed (though that's a big if -- Israel is pretty wealthy and highly professionalized with a very good army that punches above its weight; even without US aid, I have to think neighbors would think twice about rolling in), the new Muslim nation probably would be in no condition to engage in proxy wars elsewhere. More likely, they'd be a new hotspot for Iran-Saudi fighting. That's not good either, of course, but it's not like tiny, resource-poor Palestine would be any kind of third regional power without the Israelis in charge.

    So that's an argument, but I was hoping for something more like Israel's presence is a deterrent to a hot war directly between Iran and Saudi Arabia, or some other positive benefit (as opposed to simply reducing the acreage available for them to fight over).
     
  5. hlcc

    hlcc Member

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    Even without additional military aid, the Israeli military as it stands currently is already sufficiently powerful enough for self defense. I don't have a problem with providing military aid to make the Israeli military a credible self defensive force, but I fail to see the point of providing so much aid that we turned Israel, a tiny little country with small population, into a major regional military power capable of ass whooping most of it's neighbors.
     
  6. supdudes

    supdudes Member

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    Okay.

    What is the return on this investment?
     
  7. heypartner

    heypartner Contributing Member

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    You mean not counting the Defense Industry contractors who get to sell Israel their toys.

    It's a renewal of a previous 10yr, $30b aid package, so we should be able to measure cost/benefit over the last decade. Did we save $30b (or even $15b) by paying for help stabilizing the arena.

    Anyone want to take a shot at it? Maybe add Egypt's budget to the list. That's like $1b per year.
     
  8. Dei

    Dei Member

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    I'm just going to say that it's hilarious that, for all the liberals in this forum, anti-Semitism seems to be at least tolerated, particularly with regards to Israel. Hilarious.
     
  9. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    I love that the bar for 'antisemitism' for some posters here is disagreeing that we need to hand out 38 billion dollars to Israel. Imagine if the bar was that low to call someone an Islamaphobe'.
     
  10. Dei

    Dei Member

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    It's even lower considering closing the border on Mexico and people from the middle east is considered racist.
     
    1 person likes this.
  11. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    Yes, explcitly stating that we ought to ban an entire religious entity from immigrating into the country is bigoted. And... as if 'securing the border' is the only narrative that makes people question whether Trump supporters are racist/bigoted.

    No, assuming that someone illegally crossing the border are automatically rapists and only 'some' are not is racist. Your narrative would make sense if illegal border crossings were not at a 2 decade low.

    "Anti-Semitism" because some believe it isn't fiscally responsible to hand out billions to other countries when infrastructure at home is decaying? K... Go ahead buddy... Keep up with your **** accusations.
     
  12. TesseracT

    TesseracT Member

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    Obama loves spending money on anyone but America
     
  13. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    Is that the new narrative? When did it change from "Obama hates Israel".
     
  14. TesseracT

    TesseracT Member

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    I never even said that
     
  15. Dei

    Dei Member

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    They're a security thread. Not gonna go into those particular topics considering we've already talked about them but, please, as if the racist allegations were limited to those. We couldn't even call illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants" because it was considered offensive even though the argument are in the same vein of economics as this thing with Israel.
     
  16. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Government is a big money laudering scheme
    Take money from the poor in the form of taxes
    and then use things like this to give it to the rich

    Rocket River
     
  17. hlcc

    hlcc Member

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    From Pew Research

    "In 2014, people with adjusted gross income, or AGI, above $250,000 paid just over half (51.6%) of all individual income taxes, though they accounted for only 2.7% of all returns filed, according to our analysis of preliminary IRS data. Their average tax rate (total taxes paid divided by cumulative AGI) was 25.7%. By contrast, people with incomes of less than $50,000 accounted for 62.3% of all individual returns filed, but they paid just 5.7% of total taxes. Their average tax rate was 4.3%."
     
  18. Buck Turgidson

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    We don't sell Israel anything too sensitive, they steal that stuff on their own.
     
  19. calurker

    calurker Contributing Member

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    I sometimes do wish we had a figure like Israel in the Far East that'd take out Kim Jong-un's nuclear reactors whenever he tries to put them up. Japan is a bad proxy for this for a whole host of reasons.
     
  20. AroundTheWorld

    AroundTheWorld Insufferable 98er
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    Please don't let facts get into the way of Rocket River's bull**** ;-).
     

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