US to pour $2bn into Israeli military

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8209F45B-B3C1-4A60-96D0-9E92C4B49F60.htm

The United States will ask Congress to shell out $2.22 billion in military aid to Israel for the fiscal year of 2005.


This is $60 million more than in 2004, according to a US State Department statement on Monday.

The increase is in line with a 1990s agreement which reduces economic assistance to Israel by $120 million a year, while adding $60 million a year to the military component of the package, the largest Washington gives to any country.

The statement said the Bush administration was committed to enhancing Israeli security and “maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge over any combination of adversaries”.

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Why is this news all of a sudden? Why are they being so...overt?

I really hate this funding to Israel's military machine.

is being used to build the settlements?

we should say "no more until you return to your un sanctioned boundaries".

Every dollar we give to Israel's military is one more dollar they can use to oppress the Palestinians & protect those settlements.
So I would say 100% of that money is used to build settlements.

because Israel is the #1 terrorist nation in the world.

Saudi Arabia is.

But you don't seem to have a very open mind on the subject, Walt, so I don't think I'll engage any further.

Peace.

.

he "threatens his neighbors" and all that... but his neighbors don't do shit...


some threat, no?

Nope- Vietnam era flak jackets are good enough for our troops! Not one dime needed for them!

:puke:

Suzanne Werfelman is a mother and a teacher who has been shopping for individual body armor. This is not in response to threats from her elementary-class students in Sciota, Pa.; it's a desperate attempt to protect her son in Iraq.

Like many other U.S. service members in Iraq, her son was given a Vietnam-era flak jacket that cannot stop the type of weapons used today. It appears that parents across the country are now purchasers of body armor because of the failure of the military to supply soldiers with modern vests.

Werfelman's son, Army Spc. Richard Murphy, is a military policeman in Iraq. He was also one of my law students last year before being sent off for a 20-month stint. Upon their arrival, members of Murphy's unit were shocked to learn that they would be given the old Vietnam-era vests rather than the modern Interceptor vest. (They were also given unarmored Humvees, which are vulnerable to even small-arms fire.) Military officials admit that the standard flak jacket could not reliably stop a bullet, including AK-47 ammunition, used in Iraq and the most common ammunition in the world.

Developed in the late 1990s, the Interceptor vest is made of layered sheets of Kevlar with pockets in front and back for ceramic plates to protect vital organs. These vests - one-third lighter than the old ones - have stopped machine-gun bullets, shrapnel and other ordnance.

They can mean the difference between living and dying, which was made all too clear to Sgt. Zachariah Byrd, a soldier with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, who was shot four times with AK-47 bullets (twice in the chest and twice in his arms) when his unit was ambushed. The vest protected his chest and he survived. Byrd had been issued a standard flak jacket and, if he had been wearing it during the attack, he'd probably be dead. However, at the beginning of the patrol, his buddy who was driving that night gave his Interceptor vest to Byrd - a passing kindness that saved Byrd's life.

<snip>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/093003E.shtml

for such a small country...

"for such a small country..."

Yes it is but they have BIG ideas on ruling the world via their puppets in DC

Israel will need it very much...as their people are starving and the population is devestated by AIDS.....

eerrrr wait a sec....

Or $87 billion! God knows WE don't need it to feed the hungry, educate our young, house the homeless or treat the ill!

After all, deficits are irrelevant, right? And the only money spent badly is what's not spent killing somebody!

Get with the program, people!

A more level playing field would bring Israel to the peace table but as long as the weapons are so lopsided the Palestinians can only use suicide bombers...which is really ok by Israel--it gives them a visible issue and results in the fewest deaths of its citizens. They are like the US...they must be able to bomb and blast from afar or bulldoze with heavy equipment.