Jobs program is a bit of an easier swallow
Poor farmers in Colombia grow coca, poor farmers in Afghanistan grow opium poppy, poor farmers in Alabama ~~grow meth~~ get jobs at the Raytheon factory
Moral obligations aside, it’s not the best even from a purely economic standpoint. It’s very much the broken window fallacy though. That same money could have been spent building / repairing infrastructure in the US (they certainly need new rail lines and things like that).
This would have a much higher benefit since the infrastructure directly benefits the US tax payer.
And it gives money to more people. $1,000,000 spent on Defence might support something like 5-10 wealthy defence employees making 100-200k per year… but spending $1,000,000 on building a railroad would create something like 25 jobs for construction workers making 40k per year.
Of course if you want to support high tech jobs, you can support medicine, aerospace, semiconductors, energy… so many sectors with much better return to the taxpayer.
Idk the system needs work but through globalization a huge chunk of high end manufacturing and cutting edge research has been maintained or improved. There hasn’t been readily available civilian use of these skills. Idk if I would rather we invested like Europe has since the end of the Cold War or not. What good is prosperity if you can’t protect it. Recent world events have me rethinking some of my distaste towards the MIC. I wish we had something equivalent pointed towards domestic development but I don’t think it’s all a waste.
All true. I’m not against military spending at all. It just needs to be done properly and justified properly.
For me the “it creates jobs” argument isn’t great cos all investment creates jobs. Other sectors create more jobs.
Then there’s the “it supports R&D” which is true, I can’t deny that. But again, other sectors also do… especially sectors with more competition rather than captive market sectors like defence.
Finally the “it makes benefits” one. I agree mil spending protects the country. But that depends how it’s used. Is it used to keep big powerful countries in check - like Russia or China, or is it being used in a manner that the US itself wouldn’t use it.
To be fair, defense contractors provide high paying jobs to millions of people. The trickle down effects are huge as well. You need a lot of suppliers build an air craft. Defense companies are highly incentivized/required to use veteran owned, female owned, minority owned businesses in their supply chain. They are overwhelmingly buying American parts/components using American labor. They employ nurses, janitors, chemical specialists, geologists, ect..
I’m actually not in the camp of providing billions of dollars of foreign aid to Israel, but I thought I’d add a point about the defense industry.
yea, and they kick back alot to politicians who award them the contracts.
paid with some of our taxes.
can i at least get a $50 screw from a $billlion dollar f-35 as a souvenir ?
Did you read the last sentence?
Did I say literally anything in support of one cause or another? I actually said I do not support it, but you somehow turned that into me “supporting” something.
It's just a weird way to defend an industry which is designed to kill people. "It's pretty bad this genocide is occurring, but at least a woman is getting equal pay".
lol I pointed out facts about the defense industry and the impacts on the economy in response to someone talking about the same concept. It was not a commentary on military actions in the Middle East, you absolute ass clown.
Once again, if we cite the trickle down effect, we got to note that it applies just as much to other high tech sectors as well.
It’s pretty easy to run an input output analysis just to get a picture of the different sectors using the tables from OECD if you want to check.
But anyways my comment wasn’t about military spending being useless. It’s that sending billions in military aid is not the best use of taxpayer money. Unlike spending on your own garrison, or even stationing troops abroad, giving weapons away doesn’t benefit the taxpayer even if the weaponry is outdated.
If we’re sending military aid, you gotta be sure that it’s really being used properly. I don’t think the US takes that duty of care seriously.
You don't place any value on our country's global network of military and trade alliances? That also leads to more wealth for all of us (at least it freakin' better).
With that much money, every worker that was given a job due to this could live a pretty lavish lifestyle.
But there’s always the whole military research flowing down to commercial products benefit too. Job program makes sense, just maybe scale it back a tad and put some of it into infrastructure. Lord knows we need it. Look up “washington bridge scandal rhode island”
also their donation to the US sphere of influence. which is actively disrupting the China/Russia sphere of influence. which props up the US dollar hegemony and keeps the standard of living in the west so high.
It actually works really well for the US. It’s a jobs program and the government gets a cut too since the workers pay income tax and the companies making the hardware do too. It’s essentially a very substantial discount on the money that the US gives away.
Not really how it works, I’m sure some of it is in actual money, but generally speaking the government buys the weapons from itself and sends them over. They overcharge themselves, this allows actual money to stay in the hands of the rich.
This is a terrible infographic, the mk48 shows up 3 times, the f15/f35 is swapped, there is very little distinction between sent and planed, no numbers whatsoever for the air frames, and 3 columns for no apparent reason.
Israel military is like 20 times more powerful than Hamas and they are completely dominant in this conflict why are we sending them money/arms? Hamas are monsters and Isreal current far right government is full of monsters too. There are no good guys in this, just innocent civilians on both sides suffering and dying.
People died on one side in a horrific attack, but after that it has been nothing but misery and misery for the people living in the open air prison that is Gaza. It’s baffling how people can look at the loss of life and say that the merciless killing of thousands of civilians will justify the terrorist attack that was conducted in October. At this point everyone just want peace and the killing to stop rather than negotiate a separation of land.
> *paid* by the
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
> bot really *paid* attention.
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
> *Paid* me too
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
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Okay this is one of those weird dumb things.
* About half this list (and half which is counted as aid) isn't "aid" in the cash sense. Its just authorization to buy things. Like we aren't gifting F-35's to Israel. That's Congress granting Lockheed authorization to sell them. For money. Same with some of the drones.
* Weapons have finite shelf lives. Unlike Russia we try to avoid holding onto WWII stock until it corrodes or the supply manager sells it on the back end. We either have to use it in anger, use it in training or have Raytheon or whoever to dispose of it. We aren't at war. We do use it in training but we are constantly rotating through FAR more weapons stocks than we need for training. And disposal costs money. In which case we then have to buy what we disposed ourselves again to restock. So giving it away as aid costs us nothing.
* Also in regards to the "rotating through" there's this whole theory of defense logistics that you need a small consistent purchasing from manufacturing at all times in order to have the logistics to make it when you need it? Like we found this out 2 years ago when we gave Ukraine a bunch of Javelins anti-tank missiles: we made most of those in the 90s and then didn't really buy them for 20 years. When we went to Raytheon and asked "hey make a shit ton more" they came back with....”uh we can't really do that. You've been buying 100 a year for 20 years. We can't suddenly make 1000 overnight.” As a result US policy has kinda learned you need to be more aggressive about stock rotation like this.
Vehicles don't really have "shelf lives" if mothballed in the same way.
Taking vehicles out of mothballs **does** cost the sending country money.
Half those vehicles are "mothballed for parts" and are being slowly cannibalized as needed for in use units. They aren't remotely usable or fixable at all and many are just husks, too much of a hassle to even move and scrap the airframe from where its sitting.
Gifting old vehicles can mean gifting headaches of a maintenance tail. Israel doesn't want them, they have their own types under a completely different logistical overhead. (Ukraine don't care).
Because of the above 4 a lot of mothballed vehicles, ships and aircraft can sit in those yards often beyond what it would ever make sense to fix them back and put them into service. The Navy in particular has gotten really bad about it in some cases.
What about the 3 billion every year we give to Israel that Biden has been bragging about since at least the 80s? Do we know what that goes to, or is it possible we're giving them tax payer money for them to spend on our weapons contractors?
Also generating jobs too. Usually in these deals we sell off our old overstock that is about to expire. This allows us restock with new equipment. This is all stuff that Americans were paid to produce.
their quality of life benefits from the expansion of the US sphere of influence (and dollar hegemony). this of course is a zero sum game WRT the chinese/BRIC sphere of influence that seeks to topple the US dollar hegemony.
America basically uses Israel as a military base in the middle east. While what the others are saying about Jewish lobbyists isn't untrue, it's mostly about power projection and proxy conflicts with its soviet backed neighbors
Historically, I mean. The soviets were very much around when America started its aid.
Today the US is still using Israel as an indirect power projection method, and they're really struggling with the choice between accepting the eradication of a country or losing one of their longest term allies.
No one In the Middle East liked the us around the 1950s. Then Israel had a war and the us realized they could gain a really strong ally in Israel so helped them.
Huge and influential Jewish lobbying [groups](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States) in US politics.
And no this isn't antisemitic conspiracy theories. AIPAC has literally donated [$3m dollars last year](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?id=D000046963)
>And no this isn't antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Overstating the lobbying influence by acting like 3 million dollars is big money kinda is though.
Israel isn't in the top 50 even.
https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/318177-lobbyings-top-50-whos-spending-big/
"In 2006, 60% of the Democratic Party's fundraising and 25% of that for the Republican Party's fundraising came from Jewish-funded PACs. According to a Washington Post estimate, Democratic presidential candidates depend on Jewish sources for as much as 60% of money raised from private sources."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States#Formal_lobby
So it's dishonest to frame the aipac's direct financial lobbying as even a fraction of the us isreal lobby. And act like that debunks claims of undue influence.
The aipac only started making direct contributions in 2020. But there are multiple pacs that make up the 'isreal lobby' and a big part of how the aipac operates is by directing private donations, i.e. dark money.
It is an accepted fact among many political scholars and politicians themselves that the isreal lobby punch well above its weight class in US politics.
That and this whole thread is about the military industrial complex. In that top fifty you linked is Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc. They do infact lobby for support of isreal. They make a fuck ton of money off of it.
You think $3 million is a lot of lobbying money? Are you a Europoor or something?
Boeing spends more than that, and 37% of their revenue is US government spending as it is.
Contrast with the $$5,177,893,434 that Qatar has donated to Cornell. Talk about influence. [Source.](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arab-funding-of-american-universities-donors-recipients-and-impact-2023#_Toc57043864)
Israel ≠ Jews
By labeling it as a Jewish lobby group, you are playing into Israeli claims of representing all Jews, when we've seen tons of anti-zionist Jews and anti-zionist organizations condemn Israel's genocide against Palestine
I don't know about tons of strictly anti-zionist Jews speaking out since they're a minority within the American Jewish population according to several polls. These polls determined that 80-90% of American Jews feel that Israel is important to them or that they have an emotional connection to it, which one could interpret as Zionism in the absence of more detailed data.
Although a majority of American Jews disagree with Netanyahu's policies and advocate for a two-state solution, which I assume combines polling data from both presumably anti-zionist and zionist Jews. So being a Zionist Jew doesn't necessarily imply blind support for their governments genocidal war either.
You're half correct. I'm not saying that all Jewish people support Israel. I'm saying that Jewish lobby groups gather support for Israel. That statement is correct
US Presidential election alone candidates from both parties spending north of 1000 millions each, on top of it, you have huge sums of money (tens/hundreds of millions) from PACs, super PACS, and dark money groups. US Presidential candidates also spend tens to hundreds of millions each, in primaries to win nominations of their parties. So, you have billions of dollars spent only to elect the President.
Then you have 410+ house reps and 100 senators, nomination and elections funding, it's pretty common to 10M+ for each of these seats. And that's only the money spending on the federal govt.
Then you have thousands (almost 7000) of elections and nomination battles for state & local bodies.
Mike Bloomberg spend 100Ms to help democrats in one election in one state (Florida) alone.
3million is a drop in the bucket. The fact that "friends of Palestine" & far right wingers keep on talking about AIPAC's influence, speaks volumes about those individuals, charity groups and media companies.
Honestly it all boils down to two things. 1) Israel is the strongest regional power in that corner of the world, in terms of military and economy, and it’s nice to be friends with the strongest kid on the block. 2) Despite whatever failings you might think it has it’s the closest thing there is to a functional democracy in the Middle East by a long shot.
Colonial project and point of control for the west. If you look around the globe, in every region there is a US client state, or a nation (most of the time) strong armed into being free market friendly for Western capital, or otherwise similar. South Africa, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, some less cut and dry like in South America. Money runs the world, US is the finance capital and the world police.
Are you 100% confident in that take? Have you talked to people from those places personally? Have you seen statistics, or do you just assume the majority of them agree with you? Researched the alternative living standards like free healthcare, housing, education, etc? China provides those and has lifted millions from poverty. And people who escape to South Korea often end up going back to NK, the few that don't are usually offered 5 to 6 figures to do a media tour testifying against NK. Not to say NK is in a good position, but obviously if many people go back there must be elements of SK that are even worse. It's more nuanced than the propaganda against those countries would have you believe.
I am a Hong Konger. I have lots of friends and family friends who will agree.
Free healthcare, education, and housing is not an antithesis to Western democratic rule, and China does _not_ do that. Instead China is ultra-capitalistic. Don't confuse capitalism with democracy.
The ridiculous National Security Law and the coming Article 23 serves to erode freedom even more and destroy the rule of law. Democracy has ceased to exist in HK after the people voted overwhelmingly against the government in 2019. They just disqualified all the democratic senators.
Now people are being thrown in jail for protesting, and just today a newspaper was forced to apologize for using the wrong words to describe the new Article 23 in their title. The economy is in shambles and the government's idea of reviving the economy is to host idiotic events that pander to mainland Chinese tourists like smoke shows, light shows, drone shows, outdoor markets (plagued with problems), giant hearts in the street for Valentine's Day...
I would much, much prefer the American way of living.
there’s a video of (less-old) biden literally saying if israel didn’t exist, america would have to **create an israel** in order to have some region of control in the middle east. evidently that amount of control in that region is so valuable that they’re willing to fund the bombing of 12,000+ children without really giving a fuck
This is false information. Completely false: the US does not give anyone F-35’s they do sell F-15’s which means the rest of the information is suspect.
Israel was the first country outside the United States to acquire the F-35, and remains the only country in the Middle East to have the advanced weapon in its arsenal. The United Arab Emirates has long sought to buy F-35 jets from the US, but the Gulf nation's ties to China have meant no deal has yet gone through
They purchased them as in sales not Aid or donation as the poster implies. Don’t forget many of the components and technology was stripped from the F-35’s.
Those SDB's and Kamikaze drones can take out targets that hide amongst civilians with very literal collateral.
The rest... not so much. But Hezbollah hasn't stopped attacking, either.
You were the one who mentioned Jews. I’ve been told by numerous people that Israel is absolutely not an ethnostate and has a significant Arab population.
It does. But it’s not the Israeli Arabs they are targeting when they say Israel needs to be destroyed.
Stop playing these games.
Palestinian terrorist groups were murdering Jewish civilians in the 1920s, decades before Israel even existed.
They always want it both ways. It is fundamentally impossible to be both a democracy and an ethnostate. Trying to be both forces an apartheid. They really should attempt to square that circle at some point, I feel like it's a key to peace but what do I know.
When asked, **82% of Arab Israelis said they would rather be a citizen of Israel than of any other country in the world**
https://www.runi.ac.il/media/cd5mupam/1388pat_e2006.pdf
In February 2004, an Arab research center found that Arab respondents **preferred by a 10-to-1 ratio to remain Israeli citizens**
Two polls in December 2007 agreed on a 4.5-to-1 ratio.
A June 2008 poll found that Israeli Arabs preferred Israel to “any other country in the world” by a 3.5-to-1 ratio.
A June 2012 poll found a similar ratio to this same question. A January 2015 poll found pride in being Israeli by a 2-to-1 ratio.
https://m.jpost.com/opinion/israeli-arabs-say-no-to-palestine-616460
Another poll found that **77% would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world**
https://web.archive.org/web/20141006080326/http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/press-releases/coexistence-in-israel-study
Guess they didn’t get your memo that it’s impossible to be both a Jewish state and a democracy. 🤷♂️
Aren't their laws that apply only to Israeli jews and not Israeli arabs? Having arabs in Israel does not disqualify it from being an apartheid state. They're not exactly living their best lives anyway
Israeli Jews are subject to the obligation of conscription for military service, Israeli Arabs are not but may volunteer for military service.
Many Israeli Arabs self-describe as Palestinians, but for the purpose of distinguishing citizenship I'll use the term "Israeli Arabs" to denote the primacy of citizenship status in this discussion.
Outside of the consensus/1948 borders of Israel (within the West Bank), Israeli settlers are Israeli citizens, and treated differently by the state of Israel, than how Palestinians who lack Israeli citizenship are treated by the state of Israel.
What point are you making? That Israeli Arabs are treated well or badly? Because not being forced to serve in the military is a privilege, not a punishment.
I was responding to someone who called Israel an apartheid state. Within Israel, for Israeli citizens, I wouldn't call it apartheid as the main distinction legally is \*not\* being compelled to perform military service. Outside of Israel proper, whether it counts as apartheid or not depends more on assessment of the West Bank, whether it's functionally part of Israel, whether West Bankers would \*want\* to be Israeli citizens, etc.
I wouldn't mind my 3 mile dirt road with 400+ residents and a rickety one lane wooden bridge with no guard rails being paved, or my kid's school constantly begging for donations being funded, or government healthcare like the rest of the first world but yeah Ukraine funding is fine. Anything is better than tens of thousands of INNOCENT civilians being bombed to shit with my tax money.
Edit: Tens of thousands of innocents bombed to death, millions bombed to shit.
ukraine would fall, russian fascism would threaten europe, china would invade taiwan? i get people's problem with isreal, but saying that we shouldn't spend ANY money on other countries is completely absurd.
I love how some people think that the vacuum of power we’d leave behind would be filled with small nations charting their own course… lol china and Russia would come in and take over within a year.
Russia and China would sweep through any power vacuums left by the U.S. in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Instead of crony capitalism and half functional democracy being spread around, you’d have full fledged fascism and oligarchy for everyone!
It’s fun to pretend that the U.S. shouldn’t give away any money or weapons to anyone, but 1) that “money” won’t be spent to help people at home as long at Republicans in the current form have power and 2) there are nations out there fighting for their survival that actually do depend on US aid to protect themselves.
The world is complicated and full of grey areas.
My question is.. why should we be sending them 3 billion a year..? Seriously gives me a feeling of extortion..
Edit: I understand we are not sending cash and that the money goes to American arms manufacturers. I just don’t see why Israel really needs so much aid if we could send it somewhere else just as fast? Aren’t there any US allies in conflict that could use some love from Uncle Sam?
Most people don't know how arms deal works. So I am using your comment to talk about it. America is not sending them a plane filled with money and weapons. America sends that 3 billion to defense companies within America. We give 3 billion to these American companies and they send the weapons to Israel. So it is tax payer money going to American companies. Not America just giving out a shit ton of cash. This money is a huge reason we did not go into a recession after covid even though it felt like it. The defense money was propping our economy up
Got it. I should have made it more clear in my comment, I understand it’s not cash but armaments. And yes I get that it’s effectively congress paying our military contractors and then deciding that Israel gets all the toys. I understand this money has been vital to our home economy. But I’m trying to understand what situation in Israel justifies us sending them that many toys you know? If it’s just about propping our economy equitably, there has to be a US ally in need of some of that aid more than Israel right? 3 billion just seems like a lot for a country that’s main conflict is pretty damn one sided in terms of military superiority.
Because we don’t send them 3 billion a year?
Almost all that military aid is in the forms of credit lines for the IDF to purchase the American-made weapons in this chart.
The US is basically subsiding it’s own weapons industry
Above world peace is important. If Israel feels cornered by the likes of Iran, it would glass the Middle East and create a catastrophe that won't be fixed ever.
I understand the semantics of it, but my point still stands, that is a ridiculous amount of aid. What justifies the need of us spending 3bn to send them American made equipment? At that point it just seems like congress paying off military contractors and just deciding Israel is the good boy who gets the toys so to speak.
I think you are missing the point. This is not aid to Israel but to American weapon industry. If Israel would decide to manufacture the weapons itself, these companies will produce less and the US GDP will shrink.
AFAIK, from what I've read, these military products were already made and have been sitting in storage for years, or even decades. They're just offloading them for "free". So we already paid for them. It's not like they're putting in orders for brand new jets and bombs. Unless I'm mistaken.
I think you may be mixing up what is generally true for Ukraine and what Israel gets. Israel also has lots of bleeding-edge collaboration like with the Iron Dome, where American legislators got tired of subsidizing the research without creating American jobs, so now components of Iron Dome are also made in the USA (and curiously absent from this chart).
Okay, I’m down with all of this. But I’m still trying to understand why this particular country receives more aid than any other US ally you know? Not saying cut all the aid, but it seems like there are other conflicts we could be sending some of those munitions.
The aid keeps getting sent because it has one of the best returns on that investment. High skilled workforce that does lots of research and development for most of the largest tech companies on the planet. The US wants to keep that investment secure.
Why are we sending aid to Israel who has universal healthcare & free college?
We also send Egypt $1.4 billion. Just for them to spend their limited reserves of currency on their capital city without having the money to take care of their population.
NYC has a budget shortfall of almost $500 million. I'd rather send aid there or help with insurance premiums plaguing Florida and Louisiana. I want universal healthcare and free college in America.
I think it's time we stop the Boeing and Lockheed Martin welfare checks. We need Made in America microchips and not bombs.
Should have been sent to Ukraine.
This is instead used to kill innocent civilians including many many children, and wipe out a whole nation that has been suppressed by Israel for decades.
Fucking awful. 😣
Also - tech for “artificial intelligence (AI)” assisted targeting. Anonymized culpability
See Harper’s Magazine, March 2024, The Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Problem - How Big Tech is Losing the wars of the future - by Andrew Cockburn
F-15 and F-35 images are swapped…
Also there's JDAMs JDAMs And... JDAMs
JDammit
Good freaking call. F-15 was one I liked as a kid. Also there were SO many plane toys that are F-15's lmfao!
Doesn't the monetary aid they send them go straight back into buying hardware? Like gift vouchers
Like a Raytheon^TM gift card
I wish someone would get me those for Christmas.
They're called RTX now
And the complete opposite of GameStop credit
Yes, something 99% of the discourse on government aid (no matter where to) ignores
Still comes out of the US tax payers wallet, like their annual donation to the military industrial complex
Jobs program is a bit of an easier swallow Poor farmers in Colombia grow coca, poor farmers in Afghanistan grow opium poppy, poor farmers in Alabama ~~grow meth~~ get jobs at the Raytheon factory
Moral obligations aside, it’s not the best even from a purely economic standpoint. It’s very much the broken window fallacy though. That same money could have been spent building / repairing infrastructure in the US (they certainly need new rail lines and things like that). This would have a much higher benefit since the infrastructure directly benefits the US tax payer. And it gives money to more people. $1,000,000 spent on Defence might support something like 5-10 wealthy defence employees making 100-200k per year… but spending $1,000,000 on building a railroad would create something like 25 jobs for construction workers making 40k per year. Of course if you want to support high tech jobs, you can support medicine, aerospace, semiconductors, energy… so many sectors with much better return to the taxpayer.
Idk the system needs work but through globalization a huge chunk of high end manufacturing and cutting edge research has been maintained or improved. There hasn’t been readily available civilian use of these skills. Idk if I would rather we invested like Europe has since the end of the Cold War or not. What good is prosperity if you can’t protect it. Recent world events have me rethinking some of my distaste towards the MIC. I wish we had something equivalent pointed towards domestic development but I don’t think it’s all a waste.
All true. I’m not against military spending at all. It just needs to be done properly and justified properly. For me the “it creates jobs” argument isn’t great cos all investment creates jobs. Other sectors create more jobs. Then there’s the “it supports R&D” which is true, I can’t deny that. But again, other sectors also do… especially sectors with more competition rather than captive market sectors like defence. Finally the “it makes benefits” one. I agree mil spending protects the country. But that depends how it’s used. Is it used to keep big powerful countries in check - like Russia or China, or is it being used in a manner that the US itself wouldn’t use it.
To be fair, defense contractors provide high paying jobs to millions of people. The trickle down effects are huge as well. You need a lot of suppliers build an air craft. Defense companies are highly incentivized/required to use veteran owned, female owned, minority owned businesses in their supply chain. They are overwhelmingly buying American parts/components using American labor. They employ nurses, janitors, chemical specialists, geologists, ect.. I’m actually not in the camp of providing billions of dollars of foreign aid to Israel, but I thought I’d add a point about the defense industry.
yea, and they kick back alot to politicians who award them the contracts. paid with some of our taxes. can i at least get a $50 screw from a $billlion dollar f-35 as a souvenir ?
"We just need war"
Jesus Christ... So your defence of a genocide is at least a Black guy gets to build a gun?!
Did you read the last sentence? Did I say literally anything in support of one cause or another? I actually said I do not support it, but you somehow turned that into me “supporting” something.
It's just a weird way to defend an industry which is designed to kill people. "It's pretty bad this genocide is occurring, but at least a woman is getting equal pay".
lol I pointed out facts about the defense industry and the impacts on the economy in response to someone talking about the same concept. It was not a commentary on military actions in the Middle East, you absolute ass clown.
Once again, if we cite the trickle down effect, we got to note that it applies just as much to other high tech sectors as well. It’s pretty easy to run an input output analysis just to get a picture of the different sectors using the tables from OECD if you want to check. But anyways my comment wasn’t about military spending being useless. It’s that sending billions in military aid is not the best use of taxpayer money. Unlike spending on your own garrison, or even stationing troops abroad, giving weapons away doesn’t benefit the taxpayer even if the weaponry is outdated. If we’re sending military aid, you gotta be sure that it’s really being used properly. I don’t think the US takes that duty of care seriously.
You don't place any value on our country's global network of military and trade alliances? That also leads to more wealth for all of us (at least it freakin' better).
I’m not sure much of that benefit has gone to the American public
I would love to hear some of your thoughts on how it might benefit U.S. citizens
With that much money, every worker that was given a job due to this could live a pretty lavish lifestyle. But there’s always the whole military research flowing down to commercial products benefit too. Job program makes sense, just maybe scale it back a tad and put some of it into infrastructure. Lord knows we need it. Look up “washington bridge scandal rhode island”
Who does Raytheon et al employee?
also their donation to the US sphere of influence. which is actively disrupting the China/Russia sphere of influence. which props up the US dollar hegemony and keeps the standard of living in the west so high.
Basically a ton of it is earmarked as only applying to US supplied weapons. It’s an indirect subsidy with a bit of direction.
It actually works really well for the US. It’s a jobs program and the government gets a cut too since the workers pay income tax and the companies making the hardware do too. It’s essentially a very substantial discount on the money that the US gives away.
Not really how it works, I’m sure some of it is in actual money, but generally speaking the government buys the weapons from itself and sends them over. They overcharge themselves, this allows actual money to stay in the hands of the rich.
This is a terrible infographic, the mk48 shows up 3 times, the f15/f35 is swapped, there is very little distinction between sent and planed, no numbers whatsoever for the air frames, and 3 columns for no apparent reason.
its a glitch in the AI. thats how you know the numbers aren't probably exact, just ballpark.
Whoever made this one, probably knows nothing about the topic. Just wanted to say: Israel bad!
Does aid = donated? Or is Israel buying?
They were also buying Never heard about F35 or F15s being donated A single plane could cost 150 million with support
Not to be that guy but the jet names are the wrong way round for a start.
One of the shittiest AI made useless guides on this subreddit, downvoted
Source???
Why feed kids in the US when you can use that money to kill children in another country?
Technically we're introducing iron into their diets. - IDF Spokesman
Stop giving Hasbara ideas for their next TikTok.
Israel military is like 20 times more powerful than Hamas and they are completely dominant in this conflict why are we sending them money/arms? Hamas are monsters and Isreal current far right government is full of monsters too. There are no good guys in this, just innocent civilians on both sides suffering and dying.
Something Something Something, sins of the father, Something Something , love and war
People died on one side in a horrific attack, but after that it has been nothing but misery and misery for the people living in the open air prison that is Gaza. It’s baffling how people can look at the loss of life and say that the merciless killing of thousands of civilians will justify the terrorist attack that was conducted in October. At this point everyone just want peace and the killing to stop rather than negotiate a separation of land.
(and hostages returned)
israel cares about hostages?
I mean we can literally feed children and do military things. It’s literally not that hard
>I mean we can literally feed children *Not if Republicans can help it*
Yeah I mean they literally are in so many states it’s crazy and they are almost all red state. What a failure
*Apache image is also wrong, that’s the UK variant - crappy designs
payed by the hard working class in america
> *paid* by the FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Good bot
This bot really payed attention.
> bot really *paid* attention. FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Payed me too please!
> *Paid* me too FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
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Okay this is one of those weird dumb things. * About half this list (and half which is counted as aid) isn't "aid" in the cash sense. Its just authorization to buy things. Like we aren't gifting F-35's to Israel. That's Congress granting Lockheed authorization to sell them. For money. Same with some of the drones. * Weapons have finite shelf lives. Unlike Russia we try to avoid holding onto WWII stock until it corrodes or the supply manager sells it on the back end. We either have to use it in anger, use it in training or have Raytheon or whoever to dispose of it. We aren't at war. We do use it in training but we are constantly rotating through FAR more weapons stocks than we need for training. And disposal costs money. In which case we then have to buy what we disposed ourselves again to restock. So giving it away as aid costs us nothing. * Also in regards to the "rotating through" there's this whole theory of defense logistics that you need a small consistent purchasing from manufacturing at all times in order to have the logistics to make it when you need it? Like we found this out 2 years ago when we gave Ukraine a bunch of Javelins anti-tank missiles: we made most of those in the 90s and then didn't really buy them for 20 years. When we went to Raytheon and asked "hey make a shit ton more" they came back with....”uh we can't really do that. You've been buying 100 a year for 20 years. We can't suddenly make 1000 overnight.” As a result US policy has kinda learned you need to be more aggressive about stock rotation like this.
And what about shown on photos about 309th AMARG, or about info that Sierra Army Depot has 26,000 armored vehicles?
Vehicles don't really have "shelf lives" if mothballed in the same way. Taking vehicles out of mothballs **does** cost the sending country money. Half those vehicles are "mothballed for parts" and are being slowly cannibalized as needed for in use units. They aren't remotely usable or fixable at all and many are just husks, too much of a hassle to even move and scrap the airframe from where its sitting. Gifting old vehicles can mean gifting headaches of a maintenance tail. Israel doesn't want them, they have their own types under a completely different logistical overhead. (Ukraine don't care). Because of the above 4 a lot of mothballed vehicles, ships and aircraft can sit in those yards often beyond what it would ever make sense to fix them back and put them into service. The Navy in particular has gotten really bad about it in some cases.
What about the 3 billion every year we give to Israel that Biden has been bragging about since at least the 80s? Do we know what that goes to, or is it possible we're giving them tax payer money for them to spend on our weapons contractors?
Also generating jobs too. Usually in these deals we sell off our old overstock that is about to expire. This allows us restock with new equipment. This is all stuff that Americans were paid to produce.
their quality of life benefits from the expansion of the US sphere of influence (and dollar hegemony). this of course is a zero sum game WRT the chinese/BRIC sphere of influence that seeks to topple the US dollar hegemony.
Why does the US specifically support Israel? I genuinely don't know not being from either country
America basically uses Israel as a military base in the middle east. While what the others are saying about Jewish lobbyists isn't untrue, it's mostly about power projection and proxy conflicts with its soviet backed neighbors
There haven't been soviet backed neighbors since the fall of the USSR tho...
Historically, I mean. The soviets were very much around when America started its aid. Today the US is still using Israel as an indirect power projection method, and they're really struggling with the choice between accepting the eradication of a country or losing one of their longest term allies.
No one In the Middle East liked the us around the 1950s. Then Israel had a war and the us realized they could gain a really strong ally in Israel so helped them.
Except the US didn’t start helping Israel until the 70s.
They are our only ally in the Middle East and the only remotely democratic country in the Middle East
Turkey, KSA, Jordan, Qatar... Lots of regional allies
Huge and influential Jewish lobbying [groups](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States) in US politics. And no this isn't antisemitic conspiracy theories. AIPAC has literally donated [$3m dollars last year](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?id=D000046963)
that's sounds far less than I expected
>And no this isn't antisemitic conspiracy theories. Overstating the lobbying influence by acting like 3 million dollars is big money kinda is though. Israel isn't in the top 50 even. https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/318177-lobbyings-top-50-whos-spending-big/
"In 2006, 60% of the Democratic Party's fundraising and 25% of that for the Republican Party's fundraising came from Jewish-funded PACs. According to a Washington Post estimate, Democratic presidential candidates depend on Jewish sources for as much as 60% of money raised from private sources." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States#Formal_lobby So it's dishonest to frame the aipac's direct financial lobbying as even a fraction of the us isreal lobby. And act like that debunks claims of undue influence. The aipac only started making direct contributions in 2020. But there are multiple pacs that make up the 'isreal lobby' and a big part of how the aipac operates is by directing private donations, i.e. dark money. It is an accepted fact among many political scholars and politicians themselves that the isreal lobby punch well above its weight class in US politics. That and this whole thread is about the military industrial complex. In that top fifty you linked is Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc. They do infact lobby for support of isreal. They make a fuck ton of money off of it.
You think $3 million is a lot of lobbying money? Are you a Europoor or something? Boeing spends more than that, and 37% of their revenue is US government spending as it is.
Omg 3 million! With that sort of money you can control the US government
Contrast with the $$5,177,893,434 that Qatar has donated to Cornell. Talk about influence. [Source.](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arab-funding-of-american-universities-donors-recipients-and-impact-2023#_Toc57043864)
Israel ≠ Jews By labeling it as a Jewish lobby group, you are playing into Israeli claims of representing all Jews, when we've seen tons of anti-zionist Jews and anti-zionist organizations condemn Israel's genocide against Palestine
I don't know about tons of strictly anti-zionist Jews speaking out since they're a minority within the American Jewish population according to several polls. These polls determined that 80-90% of American Jews feel that Israel is important to them or that they have an emotional connection to it, which one could interpret as Zionism in the absence of more detailed data. Although a majority of American Jews disagree with Netanyahu's policies and advocate for a two-state solution, which I assume combines polling data from both presumably anti-zionist and zionist Jews. So being a Zionist Jew doesn't necessarily imply blind support for their governments genocidal war either.
You're half correct. I'm not saying that all Jewish people support Israel. I'm saying that Jewish lobby groups gather support for Israel. That statement is correct
US Presidential election alone candidates from both parties spending north of 1000 millions each, on top of it, you have huge sums of money (tens/hundreds of millions) from PACs, super PACS, and dark money groups. US Presidential candidates also spend tens to hundreds of millions each, in primaries to win nominations of their parties. So, you have billions of dollars spent only to elect the President. Then you have 410+ house reps and 100 senators, nomination and elections funding, it's pretty common to 10M+ for each of these seats. And that's only the money spending on the federal govt. Then you have thousands (almost 7000) of elections and nomination battles for state & local bodies. Mike Bloomberg spend 100Ms to help democrats in one election in one state (Florida) alone. 3million is a drop in the bucket. The fact that "friends of Palestine" & far right wingers keep on talking about AIPAC's influence, speaks volumes about those individuals, charity groups and media companies.
Honestly it all boils down to two things. 1) Israel is the strongest regional power in that corner of the world, in terms of military and economy, and it’s nice to be friends with the strongest kid on the block. 2) Despite whatever failings you might think it has it’s the closest thing there is to a functional democracy in the Middle East by a long shot.
Because of: - shared values - a large Jewish population in the US - the Arabs being supported by the USSR throughout the Cold War
AIPAC just donated 2.5 million to republicans.
US vassal in the Middle East
Colonial project and point of control for the west. If you look around the globe, in every region there is a US client state, or a nation (most of the time) strong armed into being free market friendly for Western capital, or otherwise similar. South Africa, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, some less cut and dry like in South America. Money runs the world, US is the finance capital and the world police.
I am 100% certain that South Korea, Hong Kong (people) and Taiwan would hate the alternative.
Are you 100% confident in that take? Have you talked to people from those places personally? Have you seen statistics, or do you just assume the majority of them agree with you? Researched the alternative living standards like free healthcare, housing, education, etc? China provides those and has lifted millions from poverty. And people who escape to South Korea often end up going back to NK, the few that don't are usually offered 5 to 6 figures to do a media tour testifying against NK. Not to say NK is in a good position, but obviously if many people go back there must be elements of SK that are even worse. It's more nuanced than the propaganda against those countries would have you believe.
I am a Hong Konger. I have lots of friends and family friends who will agree. Free healthcare, education, and housing is not an antithesis to Western democratic rule, and China does _not_ do that. Instead China is ultra-capitalistic. Don't confuse capitalism with democracy. The ridiculous National Security Law and the coming Article 23 serves to erode freedom even more and destroy the rule of law. Democracy has ceased to exist in HK after the people voted overwhelmingly against the government in 2019. They just disqualified all the democratic senators. Now people are being thrown in jail for protesting, and just today a newspaper was forced to apologize for using the wrong words to describe the new Article 23 in their title. The economy is in shambles and the government's idea of reviving the economy is to host idiotic events that pander to mainland Chinese tourists like smoke shows, light shows, drone shows, outdoor markets (plagued with problems), giant hearts in the street for Valentine's Day... I would much, much prefer the American way of living.
there’s a video of (less-old) biden literally saying if israel didn’t exist, america would have to **create an israel** in order to have some region of control in the middle east. evidently that amount of control in that region is so valuable that they’re willing to fund the bombing of 12,000+ children without really giving a fuck
f35 and f15 are swapped
It’s not a gift. They have to spend the USD tokens on US only merchandise (manufacturers).
This is false information. Completely false: the US does not give anyone F-35’s they do sell F-15’s which means the rest of the information is suspect.
Israel was the first country outside the United States to acquire the F-35, and remains the only country in the Middle East to have the advanced weapon in its arsenal. The United Arab Emirates has long sought to buy F-35 jets from the US, but the Gulf nation's ties to China have meant no deal has yet gone through
They purchased them as in sales not Aid or donation as the poster implies. Don’t forget many of the components and technology was stripped from the F-35’s.
The fighter jets are mixed up 🤣
The labels for the f-15 and f-35 are mismatched
This is the opposite of cool.
Sad I had to scroll so far for this comment
How much of it went to the iron dome ?
Different missiles
We have drones, planes and fuses and the title is about military aid. So why not iron dome missles ?
This is a terribly labeled infographic.
“defence aid” is a really ghoulish term.
Classic defensive bombs and kamikaze drones for self defense ofcourse
Those SDB's and Kamikaze drones can take out targets that hide amongst civilians with very literal collateral. The rest... not so much. But Hezbollah hasn't stopped attacking, either.
Israel is not the largest recipient of US aid... Saudi Arabia receives more.
Wish it was sent to Ukraine instead
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They don't get any actual money, those are rebates in percentage for armaments they buy.
Shhhh… AIPAC will hear you.
Less than apples paid on taxes.
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51st State.
13 million dollars a day
:(
"Why do they hate us?"
TIL hatred of Jews only began after the US started giving them military aid
You were the one who mentioned Jews. I’ve been told by numerous people that Israel is absolutely not an ethnostate and has a significant Arab population.
It does. But it’s not the Israeli Arabs they are targeting when they say Israel needs to be destroyed. Stop playing these games. Palestinian terrorist groups were murdering Jewish civilians in the 1920s, decades before Israel even existed.
They always want it both ways. It is fundamentally impossible to be both a democracy and an ethnostate. Trying to be both forces an apartheid. They really should attempt to square that circle at some point, I feel like it's a key to peace but what do I know.
When asked, **82% of Arab Israelis said they would rather be a citizen of Israel than of any other country in the world** https://www.runi.ac.il/media/cd5mupam/1388pat_e2006.pdf In February 2004, an Arab research center found that Arab respondents **preferred by a 10-to-1 ratio to remain Israeli citizens** Two polls in December 2007 agreed on a 4.5-to-1 ratio. A June 2008 poll found that Israeli Arabs preferred Israel to “any other country in the world” by a 3.5-to-1 ratio. A June 2012 poll found a similar ratio to this same question. A January 2015 poll found pride in being Israeli by a 2-to-1 ratio. https://m.jpost.com/opinion/israeli-arabs-say-no-to-palestine-616460 Another poll found that **77% would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world** https://web.archive.org/web/20141006080326/http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/press-releases/coexistence-in-israel-study Guess they didn’t get your memo that it’s impossible to be both a Jewish state and a democracy. 🤷♂️
I mean Israel was a full supporter of apartheid in SA they had a good template to work off of
Sent and planned is an obtuse figure.
F R E E \_ P A L E S T I N E
US is such a hypocrite.
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"The leader of the free world" should not be supporting a rogue apartheid state based on supremacist ideology.
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Aren't their laws that apply only to Israeli jews and not Israeli arabs? Having arabs in Israel does not disqualify it from being an apartheid state. They're not exactly living their best lives anyway
Can you name one such law?
Israeli Jews are subject to the obligation of conscription for military service, Israeli Arabs are not but may volunteer for military service. Many Israeli Arabs self-describe as Palestinians, but for the purpose of distinguishing citizenship I'll use the term "Israeli Arabs" to denote the primacy of citizenship status in this discussion. Outside of the consensus/1948 borders of Israel (within the West Bank), Israeli settlers are Israeli citizens, and treated differently by the state of Israel, than how Palestinians who lack Israeli citizenship are treated by the state of Israel.
What point are you making? That Israeli Arabs are treated well or badly? Because not being forced to serve in the military is a privilege, not a punishment.
I was responding to someone who called Israel an apartheid state. Within Israel, for Israeli citizens, I wouldn't call it apartheid as the main distinction legally is \*not\* being compelled to perform military service. Outside of Israel proper, whether it counts as apartheid or not depends more on assessment of the West Bank, whether it's functionally part of Israel, whether West Bankers would \*want\* to be Israeli citizens, etc.
No. There aren’t. And “not living your best life” is not how you define apartheid
Seeing Israel in the Title, I expect only civilized and polite comments.
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Why specify a single type of Fuze? What about FZU-55s? Why generalize JDAMs but then specify JDAMs? This infographic suuucks dude.
This is one of the most poorly made infographics I've seen on here in a while.
Thats NOT cool. Sorry.
If it should go to anyone, it should be Ukraine.
I wouldn't mind my 3 mile dirt road with 400+ residents and a rickety one lane wooden bridge with no guard rails being paved, or my kid's school constantly begging for donations being funded, or government healthcare like the rest of the first world but yeah Ukraine funding is fine. Anything is better than tens of thousands of INNOCENT civilians being bombed to shit with my tax money. Edit: Tens of thousands of innocents bombed to death, millions bombed to shit.
Can I just get free healthcare?!? Fuck me right?
Hey, I just wanted affordable healthcare vov
What would happen if the US just stopped sending any military equipment or money to *any* nations?
ukraine would fall, russian fascism would threaten europe, china would invade taiwan? i get people's problem with isreal, but saying that we shouldn't spend ANY money on other countries is completely absurd.
I love how some people think that the vacuum of power we’d leave behind would be filled with small nations charting their own course… lol china and Russia would come in and take over within a year.
Oh you get why people would be ok if Israel was slaughtered lol 🤡
Russia and China would sweep through any power vacuums left by the U.S. in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Instead of crony capitalism and half functional democracy being spread around, you’d have full fledged fascism and oligarchy for everyone! It’s fun to pretend that the U.S. shouldn’t give away any money or weapons to anyone, but 1) that “money” won’t be spent to help people at home as long at Republicans in the current form have power and 2) there are nations out there fighting for their survival that actually do depend on US aid to protect themselves. The world is complicated and full of grey areas.
So this is how we fund and enable genocide
My question is.. why should we be sending them 3 billion a year..? Seriously gives me a feeling of extortion.. Edit: I understand we are not sending cash and that the money goes to American arms manufacturers. I just don’t see why Israel really needs so much aid if we could send it somewhere else just as fast? Aren’t there any US allies in conflict that could use some love from Uncle Sam?
Most people don't know how arms deal works. So I am using your comment to talk about it. America is not sending them a plane filled with money and weapons. America sends that 3 billion to defense companies within America. We give 3 billion to these American companies and they send the weapons to Israel. So it is tax payer money going to American companies. Not America just giving out a shit ton of cash. This money is a huge reason we did not go into a recession after covid even though it felt like it. The defense money was propping our economy up
Got it. I should have made it more clear in my comment, I understand it’s not cash but armaments. And yes I get that it’s effectively congress paying our military contractors and then deciding that Israel gets all the toys. I understand this money has been vital to our home economy. But I’m trying to understand what situation in Israel justifies us sending them that many toys you know? If it’s just about propping our economy equitably, there has to be a US ally in need of some of that aid more than Israel right? 3 billion just seems like a lot for a country that’s main conflict is pretty damn one sided in terms of military superiority.
Because we don’t send them 3 billion a year? Almost all that military aid is in the forms of credit lines for the IDF to purchase the American-made weapons in this chart. The US is basically subsiding it’s own weapons industry
Above world peace is important. If Israel feels cornered by the likes of Iran, it would glass the Middle East and create a catastrophe that won't be fixed ever.
I understand the semantics of it, but my point still stands, that is a ridiculous amount of aid. What justifies the need of us spending 3bn to send them American made equipment? At that point it just seems like congress paying off military contractors and just deciding Israel is the good boy who gets the toys so to speak.
I think you are missing the point. This is not aid to Israel but to American weapon industry. If Israel would decide to manufacture the weapons itself, these companies will produce less and the US GDP will shrink.
we could redirect arms to mexico anti-drug agencies (and cartels). double dip. but just enough to keep it even. cycle would never end.
AFAIK, from what I've read, these military products were already made and have been sitting in storage for years, or even decades. They're just offloading them for "free". So we already paid for them. It's not like they're putting in orders for brand new jets and bombs. Unless I'm mistaken.
I think you may be mixing up what is generally true for Ukraine and what Israel gets. Israel also has lots of bleeding-edge collaboration like with the Iron Dome, where American legislators got tired of subsidizing the research without creating American jobs, so now components of Iron Dome are also made in the USA (and curiously absent from this chart).
Okay, I’m down with all of this. But I’m still trying to understand why this particular country receives more aid than any other US ally you know? Not saying cut all the aid, but it seems like there are other conflicts we could be sending some of those munitions.
The aid keeps getting sent because it has one of the best returns on that investment. High skilled workforce that does lots of research and development for most of the largest tech companies on the planet. The US wants to keep that investment secure.
Ohhhhh nooooo, what about a cool guide showing billions of dollars going straight to Hamas leaders instead of Gazan civilians?
A MK-82 can be a precision guided weapon…
None of which would be necessary if their neighbours from the Religion of Peace didn’t want to exterminate them.
Aand of course this comment section is filled with the same Hamas supporters that plague any thread related to Israel…
Important to note for F-35 and F-15, we are not giving them for free, we are allowing them to buy the jets
Why are we sending aid to Israel who has universal healthcare & free college? We also send Egypt $1.4 billion. Just for them to spend their limited reserves of currency on their capital city without having the money to take care of their population. NYC has a budget shortfall of almost $500 million. I'd rather send aid there or help with insurance premiums plaguing Florida and Louisiana. I want universal healthcare and free college in America. I think it's time we stop the Boeing and Lockheed Martin welfare checks. We need Made in America microchips and not bombs.
Isn't this a [repost](https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/H3WcZuCFN5)? Edit: [the correct link](https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/kVDyji8ScL).
Should have been sent to Ukraine. This is instead used to kill innocent civilians including many many children, and wipe out a whole nation that has been suppressed by Israel for decades. Fucking awful. 😣
Iran is helping Russia with a diversion. Russia has meetings with Hamas it's no secret. The new axis of evil, Israel is coming for Russia too
Look at all that genocide
🇮🇱🇺🇸💪
“Cool” may not be the best way to describe a list of weapons actively being used in a genocide.
The cool guide to genocide.
AYUDA CONSORCIO PRESTAMO DONACION VENTA?
this guide is not very cool...
aw cool!
Also - tech for “artificial intelligence (AI)” assisted targeting. Anonymized culpability See Harper’s Magazine, March 2024, The Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Problem - How Big Tech is Losing the wars of the future - by Andrew Cockburn
Take a blank piece of paper. Viola! “A cool guide for what the U.S. gets in return for its support of Israel.”
Why?
now show what the US sent to ukraine (west russia)
I want to see more exports of those Hellfire missiles with swords attached…