For a person so versed in details, you resort to the most silly measure one could invent. What was the price per acre of beech in Normandy? It's stupid to think in these terms: that beech allowed as to defeat the enemy.
Why don't you apply the same reasoning to our other friends? How much did we spend on the bases in Germany (per acre, please)? Korea? Japan? We don't "own them" either. And we don't even get much thanks there: witness all the demonstrations in Europe, when Reagan tried to install Pershing rockets; in Japan, whence we are forced to move some troops to Guam; and Korea, where anti-American demonstrations flare up all the time. There we spend not only money but put our soldiers' lives on the line --- and what ingratitude!
Does anyone remember a single anti-American demonstration in Israel? Are you even aware that Israel votes with us in UN 98% of the time --- more than any other country, including our "special friend" Britain, and NATO allies such as Germany and Italy? There would be no Desert Storm if Israel did not bomb Iraqi nuclear facilities a decade earlier --- Schwarzkopf has explicitly stated this at the time. What would we do with nuclear Syria, whose facilities Israel also bombed a few years back. Israel has spared us great many grievances over the decades of its existence.
We routinely help with the resettlement of refugees and offer other jumanitarian aid. Did you miss the recent events in Haiti? I don't recall your being upset with our help there while our troops where ordered not to fly the American flag --- that's how much we are liked in that country. Did you miss $15B Bush spent on AIDs in Africa, where they refer to us only as "imperialists" and "infidels?" But you are somehow bothered with the aid for resettlement of Russian Jews in Israel, as if it were somehow unusual.
People of your ilk do not rage about our help to Egypt, roughly equal that to Israel. What but hatred did we get from the Egyptians. We just spent over $7B on Pakistan, whose people cannot wait to cut our throats. The alternative would be even more expensive.
People of your ilk are not bothered with any of the above; they are concerned only when Jooos are involved. Why can't those pesky Jooos just go away, right?
Not only does this ilk rail against support of Israel, but they are totally incapable of digesting proof, as evidenced in this presentation, that American support of Israel accrues back to America’s benefit in too many ways to count.
Unlike other places where we shed blood and treasure and receive scorn and vitriol and nothing of value in return.
Why would I talk about AIDS in Africa (which is something I oppose our funding as well) in response to this posted article?