Egypt May Not Need Fighter Jets, But The U.S. Keeps Sending Them Anyway (Why?)

Every year, the U.S. Congress appropriates more than $1 billion in military aid to Egypt. But that money never gets to Egypt. It goes to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then to a trust fund at the Treasury and, finally, out to U.S. military contractors that make the tanks and fighter jets that ultimately get sent to Egypt.

The U.S. started sending M1A1 Abrams tanks to Egypt in the late '80s. In all, the U.S. sent more than 1,000 tanks to Egypt since then — valued at some $3.9 billion — which Egypt maintains along with several thousand Soviet-era tanks.

"There's no conceivable scenario in which they'd need all those tanks short of an alien invasion," Shana Marshall of the Institute of Middle East Studies at George Washington University, told me.
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Every March for the past few years, Baron says, he and other small-business owners have gone to Capitol Hill at the invitation of General Dynamics, a big contractor. They visit their congressmen and "let them know of our support for these programs and also the impact that these programs have on employment," he says.

Former Republican congressman Jim Kolbe often received visits from military contractors like Baron. Before he retired in 2007, Kolbe was the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that approves the military aid we give to Egypt. But when I talked to Kolbe recently, he said that "legitimate questions need to be asked of the Egyptian military."

"What is the objective of of the military these days? What do you see as the real threat?" he said.http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/08/209878158/egypt-may-not-need-fighter-jets-but-u-s-keeps-sending-them-anyway

And it is ever thus.....