Posted on 09/19/2016 7:00:04 AM PDT by VitacoreVision
Last week’s announcement of a record-breaking US aid package for Israel underscores how dangerously foolish and out-of-touch is our interventionist foreign policy. Over the next ten years, the US taxpayer will be forced to give Israel some $38 billion dollars in military aid. It is money we cannot afford going to a country that needs no assistance to maintain its status as the most powerful military in the Middle East.
All US foreign aid is immoral and counterproductive. As I have often said, it is money taken from poor people in the US and sent to rich people overseas. That is because US assistance money goes to foreign governments to hand out as they see fit. Often that assistance is stolen outright or it goes to the politically connected in the recipient country.
Just as bad is the fact that much of what we call “foreign aid” is actually welfare for the wealthy here at home. The aid package to Israel is a very good example. According to the agreement, this $38 billion will all go to US weapons manufacturers. So the real beneficiaries are not the American people, and not even Israeli citizens. The real beneficiaries are the US military-industrial complex. Perhaps the money won’t even leave Washington – it may simply go across town, from the Fed to the Beltway bomb-makers.
While even US government aid to desperately poor countries should be opposed on moral and practical grounds, it is even harder to understand US aid to relatively rich countries. At a nominal per capita GDP of over $35,000, Israel is richer than Japan, Italy, and South Korea. Not long ago Business Insider published a report by the Institute for the Study of War showing that the Israel is the most powerful military force in the Middle East. We know they have hundreds of nuclear weapons, a sophisticated air force, drones, and even nuclear weapons-equipped submarines.
So why is the US giving a rich and incredibly well-armed country a record amount of military aid? Part of it is that the US government believes it can coerce Israel to do Washington’s bidding in the Middle East. History shows that this is a foolish pipe dream. If anything, US aid subsidizes Israeli human rights abuses in Gaza and elsewhere.
Another reason is a very powerful lobby in Washington, AIPAC, that pressures Members of Congress to focus on Israel’s interests instead of US interests. Members of Congress should look at our economy, with effectively zero interest rates, an anemic non-recovery from the 2008 crash, historically low participation in the work force, and inflation eroding the value of the dollar and conclude that this might not be the best time to start handing out billions of dollars in foreign aid. Unfortunately most Members of Congress find it impossible to say no to special interest groups like AIPAC.
Here’s a better aid package for Israel: free trade, travel, friendly relations, and no entangling alliances. Israel should be free to pursue its national interests and we should be free to pursue ours. If individual Americans feel compelled to provide assistance to Israel or any other country or cause overseas they should be allowed. But the rest of us should not be forced to do so. Trade, not aid.
To make it equal after the billions we send to Arab countries?
Time for Ron Paul to just go away, and take hs son with him!
Israel is the only western-oriented democracy in the Mid-east, but I agree with you.
They are already a strong nation because they are educated, civilized and technically advanced. They can survive without our money. Besides, what will they do when Fed.gov ultimately goes bankrupt?
Ron Paul should know it’s not real money anyway. Just manipulations of a fiat currency. Just like QE. It’s a Madoff-Ponzi financialized economy and all the money given to Europe (NATO), Japan, South Korea, et al., are just bills inherited by future generations who will not pay them.
because when the World finds out what Obama really gave Iran it will FREAK-OUT and he thinks this makes everything OK
Ron Paul relies upon the fact that he’s a celebrity, and no one will ever look up what his role is at the Treasury - or how the Treasury interacts with the Fed to create what we know as the economy.
And 38 billion dollars is about $100 from every US citizen.... Which makes no sense at all.
Modern economy is nothing of what you were taught. The 38 billion isn’t in actual money. But People like Ron Paul (And Ron Paul specifically) survive on you thinking that this is actual money like you and I use to buy groceries.
It’s a shell game. It’s not real money. It’s just numbers on a paper that are literally worth nothing.
One of the things you never hear about is that this money has a lot of strings attached to it, and there are vocal factions in these countries who claim that the U.S. money has completely corrupted their governments.
I can't say I disagree with that, either -- when I see how corrupt our own country has become.
Because for some thing, Ron, the national debt doesn’t matter.
Shut up Ron
I agree....US policies that may have worked during the Cold War don’t work today. Until curmudgeons are rooted out of government we will still be providing “aid” to countries both friend and hostile. Until we have our own fiscal house in order not a single dime should go overseas.
Someone give a Bible to Mr. Paul - he’s got some readin’ to do.
that money is spent mostly in the US to employ US persons making defense articles or in Israel making defense articles in which the US has a technology sharing interest.
The various congressional delegations have interest in keeping the F35, F15, and F16 lines going, and we certainly benefit by having access to Iron Dome technology. Its not
all one way..
YUP. The ONLY reliable ally in the Middle East and the ONLY island of sanity over there.
Ron Paul must be working as a lobbiest the for some Arab country. Yemen? Syria? Such a bug up his butt against the Joooooos.
It's one of the most expensive development projects and needs to be paid for somehow.
Plus, it has propaganda value.
Relax, Ron. It’s just a Jew tax on the $380 billion the USA will send to hostile Muslim countries over the same period of time. Just think of it as bribing Israel not to take out the religious leadership of Iran and Saudi Arabia, thereby making the world safer for America’s conquerors.
Israel is our ‘footprint’ in the Middle East which has prevented the Islamic push from taking over Europe......although with Merkel’s refugee flow there’s no barrier preventing them now. They are indeed invading successfully and paid well by Saudi and other Muslim countries to get their people throughout the world. Jihad is alive, well and on the move......
Unlike the 150 billion we sent to Iran the money for Israel is a transfer payment to USA arms and aerospace manufactures.
While Iran is spending none of their money 5x that given to Israel over 10 years in the USA.
Every cent of Israeli aide is going for American arms industry jobs.
Israel is also working with our country on the next generation of missile defense. Just like the present generation was a cooperative Israeli American success.
Interestingly the missile defense system is designed to stop Iranian missiles the 150 billion is paying for.
Ron, you’re chasing the wrong issue here. Why don’t you ask why we have given over $100 billion to the Iranians?!
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