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Posts Tagged ‘Military Aid’

Foreign Military Aid: $95.3 Billion Sounds Like a Lot of Money. So Does Your Cut.

Posted by M. C. on February 17, 2024

On February 13, the US Senate passed a bill including $95.3 billion in taxpayer handouts the Ukrainian, Israeli, and Taiwanese regimes.

Mediterranean property prices are sure to go up.

Foreign Military Aid: $95.3 Billion Sounds Like a Lot of Money. So Does Your Cut.

Thomas L. Knapp

On February 13, the US Senate passed a bill including $95.3 billion in taxpayer handouts the Ukrainian, Israeli, and Taiwanese regimes.

Inter-, intra-, and bi-partisan wrangling  in the Senate,  House, and Biden administration will likely change the exact size and composition of those handouts right up to the moment of final passage and presidential signature, but let’s accept that $95.3 billion as a starting point for how it’s going to get marketed to you and how much it’s going to lighten your wallet.

The answer to the latter question is: About $287 per American. Keep that in mind, because we’ll be coming back to it.

The marketing points will include items like “only 1.5% of what the federal government spent last year!” and “only 11.6% of last year’s US military spending!”

And, of course, the old perennial: “We’re not just giving them the money — they have to spend it in the US, creating jobs by buying weapons and ammunition from American military contractors! It’s like we’re giving it to ourselves!”

No, it’s not like we’re giving it to ourselves — it’s like politicians are giving it to politically connected corporations, minus an “administrative” rake-off for the various involved regimes, at our expense.

What could you do with $287 — or, if your family is average size (3.13 persons), what could you do with about $900?

See the rest here

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Ukraine Vs Israel: Can The West Arm Both?

Posted by M. C. on October 16, 2023

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Ukraine war was meant to be easier; the isolation and economic unraveling of its Russian adversary, was a cinch.

Like the man said, “the plan doesn’t last after the first shot is fired.” Was there a “plan”?

Like someone else recently said, “pretty soon the IRS will have a greater ammo stockpile than the military.” Likely true if you add in the USPS ammo stockpile.

We are arming the world and people on both sides are using US taxpayer supplied weapons.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-vs-israel-can-west-arm-both

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Saturday, Oct 14, 2023 – 09:00 PM

Authored by William Van Wagenen via The Cradle,

Just three days after the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented military offensive against Israeli military posts and settlements by land, sea, and air, Israeli officials began begging their US sponsors for additional weapons. Politico reported this week that according to a senior Pentagon official, “The Biden administration is surging weapons to Israel, rapidly sending air defenses and munitions in response to Israeli officials’ urgent requests for aid.”

“Planes have already taken off,” the senior official told reporters. Amidst this escalating crisis for the occupation state, it’s worth pondering a crucial question: Can the US sustain a commitment to two significant existential conflicts involving vital allies in separate geographies simultaneously? 

The answer is likely no. Washington has already devoted over $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine to fight Russia, while facing a national debt spiraling out of control and spiking inflation.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Ukraine war was meant to be easier; the isolation and economic unraveling of its Russian adversary, was a cinch. Instead, 18 months on, the US is struggling to support Ukraine in a bloody war of attrition. Worse yet, Kiev’s well-publicized spring offensive that was meant to flip those odds has come to naught in the face of Russia’s overwhelming advantage in artillery and advanced missiles. 

AFP/Getty Images

Little territory has changed hands since Russian forces withdrew from Kharkiv and Kherson in late 2022, but the Ukrainian army has since been decimated by Russian artillery in theatres such as Bakhmut. 

“We think that Ukrainians have lost somewhere between 300 to 350 thousand dead, maybe more, hundreds of thousands of wounded,” retired US Colonel Douglas Macgregor bluntly stated in August. “These attacks have utterly bled Ukraine white.”

This grim reality has given rise to what the BBC has described as “Ukraine’s army of amputees.” In the first half of this year alone, some 15,000 soldiers joined their ranks, surpassing the total amputees the UK produced over six years during World War II.

While Ukraine faces a severe manpower shortage, western powers find themselves faced with a dearth of available weaponry to send to Kiev. Admiral Rob Bauer, NATO’s highest-ranking military official, candidly admitted on October 3rd, “The bottom of the barrel is now visible” concerning the west’s ammunition stockpile.

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Biden Tells Netanyahu More Military Aid Is on Its Way

Posted by M. C. on October 10, 2023

The US will be providing Israel with munitions and other equipment

“Israel already receives $3.8 billion in military aid each year from the US. It’s unclear how the US will be funding the new arms it’s sending to Israel, which will likely be pulled from US military stockpiles.”

Wondering Why? Israel runs the show on Capital Hill. https://www.newsweek.com/israel-wont-stop-spying-us-249757

Arming the world.

antiwar.com

President Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday for the second time since Hamas launched an operation in southern Israel and said that more US military aid is on its way.

According to the White House, President Biden “conveyed that additional assistance for the Israeli Defense Forces is now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the US “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions. The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days.”

Israel already receives $3.8 billion in military aid each year from the US. It’s unclear how the US will be funding the new arms it’s sending to Israel, which will likely be pulled from US military stockpiles.

See the rest here

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EconomicPolicyJournal.com: The Absolutely Crazy Details of the COVID-19 “Stimulus” Bill Are Starting to Emerge

Posted by M. C. on December 25, 2020

The  bill creates a commission tasked with educating “consumers about the dangers associated with using or storing portable fuel containers for flammable liquids near an open flame.”

Representative Thomas Massie reports that $10 million is designated for gender programs in Pakistan.

The bill mandates new hiring measures to ensure diversity in the intelligence community.

The bill decriminalizes unauthorized use of the Swiss Coat of Arms or Smokey the Bear

There’s $5 billion in military aid to Israel.

https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/12/the-absolutely-crazy-details-of-covid.html

The COVID-19 stimulus bill agreed on Sunday by Republican and Democratic leadership is part of a larger 2021 government continuing resolution spending program. In total, it is a spending bill of $2.4 trillion.

The entire bill is 5,593 pages. 

Here is what the bill looks like:

Who the hell in Congress is going to read that?

What is worse is the House has a rule to give everyone 72 hours to read bills. Democrats in the House voted to suspend the rule for this package. That is each congressman will have around 8 hours to read the entire 5,593 pages before voting on the bill. 

The bill has 544 pages for coronavirus relief, 1,915 pages for appropriations, and 3,126 pages for extensions and corrections.

Even AOC understands the madness (UPDATE: But she voted for it):

Think about this. The COVID-19 stimulus part of the bill has a price tag of $900 billion but only $600 per person is going to individual Americans.

There are exceptions, but even if we assume every American gets $600 that is only $198 billion. Where is the other $702 billion going?

This bill is an early Christmas gift for global leaders who bow when the Empire says to bow, lobbyists, cronies and those who appreciate absurdity.

Here are some early outrages and absurdities spotted in the bill.

There’s $5 billion in military aid to Israel.

Here is aid other countries are getting for various projects:

Egypt = $1,300,000,000

Sudan = $700,000,000

Ukraine = $453,000,000

Israel = $500,000,000

Burma = $135,000,000

Nepal = $130,000,000

Cambodia = $85,500,000

There’s $1.4 billion for “Asia Reassurance Initiative Act”

The bill will establish a new Smithsonian  American Women’s History Museum and a Smithsonian  National Museum of the American Latino.

The  bill creates a commission tasked with educating “consumers about the dangers associated with using or storing portable fuel containers for flammable liquids near an open flame.”

Representative Thomas Massie reports that $10 million is designated for gender programs in Pakistan.

The bill mandates new hiring measures to ensure diversity in the intelligence community.

The bill decriminalizes unauthorized use of the Swiss Coat of Arms or Smokey the Bear

The bill spends five pages laying out the process for determining who will be recognized as the next reincarnation of the Dalia Lama.

The bill outlays funds to address gender inequality amongst statues.

The Covid relief bill stipulates funds can’t be used for accessing pornographic websites unless it’s “official business”

Here is the entire bill, please leave in the comments any outrages or absurdities you spot in the bill.

And this, from Don Boudreaux, sets the scene for the part of the COVID-19 package that isn’t crony:

Can Anyone Tell Me… 

… why we should take seriously politicians who think that concocting increases in nominal spending power will keep the economy secure in the face of (1) government lockdowns that forcibly prevent a great deal of production from taking place, and (2) government- and media-stirred popular derangement that further dampens actual productive activity?

We are “governed” – a more appropriate term is “lorded over” – by people who, if we judge them by their publicly spoken words, are imbeciles. And these imbeciles, sadly, are cheered on by most intellectuals (some of whom even boast advanced degrees in economics).I would simply add that “nominal spending power” is never a good idea, just bad Keynesian economics.
–RW
UPDATE
The House has passed the bill.
UPDATE 2
The Senate has passed the bill.
UPDATE 3
The bill passed in the Senate 92-6.
Voting “NO” were: BlackburnCruzJohnsonLeePaul Scott (FL)

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Israel Demands F-35s As Part Of $8 Billion Military Aid Package | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on September 20, 2020

Israel DEMANDS!

Flooding the ME with weaponry.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/israel-demands-f-35s-as-part-of-8-billion-military-aid-package/

by

With the United States set to use the peace treaty as a chance to sell F-35 warplanes to the United Arab Emirates, Israel has been pushing for a bunch of free U.S. equipment based on pledges for a region-wide qualitative edge. On Wednesday, Israel offered its first list of demands.

The way Israel envisions this going down, they’ll get some $8 billion in equipment, mostly advanced U.S.-made aircraft. This would include an entire squadron of F-35s, the very plane that was supposedly the cause of all this.

While Israel was previously objecting to the sales to the UAE as threatening their military edge, officials are now revising it, based on the reality that they’re not going to get their way on blocking sales.

Now, Israeli officials say that the F-35 sales are expected to start a new region-wide arms race, and it is the arms race for while they need all these new arms. They did not elaborate on this, but also said that they expect leadership changes in some Gulf countries.

Israel offered nothing publicly on why they would expect an arms race, or who would be involved. The reality is that the UAE doesn’t have a lot of military rivals, especially not the sort that would be able to afford an arms race. Though Iran is the catch-all excuse, Iran would never be able to afford a slew of advanced warplanes to counter the F-35s, nor would they be likely to try, given their military doctrine is based on deterrence and retaliatory capabilities.

This article was originally featured at Antiwar.com .

About Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is the News Editor for Antiwar.com, your best source for antiwar news, viewpoints and activities. He has 10 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times and the Detroit Free Press.

 

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Let the People Decide Trump’s Fate – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 23, 2019

But how is it bribery for a president, responsible for seeing that the laws are faithfully executed, to insist that a regime dependent on U.S. aid investigate a conflict of interest and potential corruption when the enriched beneficiary is the son of the vice president of the USA?

Bottom line: If this country is not to be torn apart for a decade, the decision to retain or remove President Trump should be made by those who put him in the White House and not by rabid partisans like Adam Schiff.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/patrick-j-buchanan/let-the-people-decide-trumps-fate/

By

Was there linkage between the withholding of U.S. military aid and the U.S. demand for a Ukrainian state investigation of the Bidens?

“Was there a quid pro quo?”

This question has bedeviled this city for months now. “The answer is yes,” said U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland in sworn testimony on Wednesday.

Sondland added that President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, national security adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence were all wired in to what was up:

“They knew what we were doing and why. … Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.”

And so where are we headed now?

The House intel and judiciary committees will advance one or more articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the House floor, where they will be agreed upon in party-line votes and sent to the Senate for trial.

Impeachment appears as inevitable as anything in politics today.

Some are pressing the House, after Sondland, to slow down, cast a wider net, and demand the sworn testimony of Pompeo, Mulvaney, Pence, Bolton and Giuliani. Others are urging the House to strike while the iron is hot, move impeachment swiftly, and get it all done before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

As the goal of the more rabid anti-Trumpers is to impeach, convict and remove the president, and then proceed with civil and criminal charges, this looks to be a fight to the death.

Mulvaney may have shown the White House the way to fight a month ago. Asked whether the withholding of aid to Ukraine until an investigation of the Bidens had been announced was not the definition of a “quid pro quo,” Mulvaney blurted out:

“We do that all the time. … No question about it… That’s why we held up the money. I have news for everybody. Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.” Welcome to the real world.

In return for meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump had a right to demand that Ukraine initiate an investigation into its most corrupt company, Burisma. Especially since the ne’er-do-well son of Vice President Joe Biden had been given a $50,000-a-month seat on Burisma’s board just days after Joe demanded and got the resignation of the state prosecutor and signed off on a billion-dollar loan guarantee for this third-most corrupt regime on earth.

We read often that allegations of corruption in the smelly deal that put Hunter Biden on Burisma’s board are “unfounded.”

Who did the investigating?

And what are we to make of the crocodile tears of Democrats that Ukrainian soldiers battling secessionists and Russians in the Donbass have died for lack of U.S. weapons held up by Trump?

Is this not manifest hypocrisy?

Most Ukrainian government officials were not even aware that the military aid for which Congress voted was being held up. And from 2014, when Vladimir Putin’s Russia seized Crimea and backed the secessionists in the Donbass, to 2017, President Barack Obama confined military aid to the Ukrainians to “sending blankets and meals,” as said the late Sen. John McCain.

If Trump imperiled “national security” by withholding for two months this latest tranche of military aid, did not Obama more gravely imperil our national security by denying Ukraine lethal aid for years?

Among the foreign service professionals who testified to Adam Schiff’s intel committee this week, none chose to associate himself with charges of “crimes” or “bribery” having been committed during that controversial phone call of July 25.

Indeed, the weakness of the Democratic case may be found in the endless escalation of the charges. First, Trump was guilty of a quid pro quo, and then an abuse of power, and then throwing fighting Ukrainian allies to the wolves. Next, it was bribery.

But how is it bribery for a president, responsible for seeing that the laws are faithfully executed, to insist that a regime dependent on U.S. aid investigate a conflict of interest and potential corruption when the enriched beneficiary is the son of the vice president of the USA?

Even before his first day in office, President Trump was in the gun sights of the “deep state” and its media auxiliaries.

And the origins of that “Get Trump!” conspiracy inside the “deep state” are now under investigation by the Inspector General of the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham.

The issue at hand: Criminal misconduct inside the U.S. government to determine the outcome of an election, and, failing that, to remove a president our government elite cannot abide.

Bottom line: If this country is not to be torn apart for a decade, the decision to retain or remove President Trump should be made by those who put him in the White House and not by rabid partisans like Adam Schiff.

Let the people decide the fate and future of the president of the United States. After all, they were the ones who hired him.

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The Question that Is Never Asked About U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 19, 2019

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/laurence-m-vance/the-question-that-is-never-asked-about-u-s-military-aid-to-ukraine/

…Typical is an article on Vox that calls Trump’s suspension of military aid to Ukraine his “latest and greatest scandal.” Twice in the article the question is asked: Exactly why did Trump withhold the military aid in the first place?

This is the wrong question.

Here is a much more important question: Should the United States be giving military aid to Ukraine?

For those of us who believe that a Jeffersonian foreign policy of “peace, commerce, honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none” is the best course for America to take, the answer is a simple one: Of course not…

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From Reagan to Obama: Secrecy and Covert Operations in the ...

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