The Daily Skunk

U.S. financial aid to Israel is actually more than the annual $3 billion mentioned in the previous article posted. Special military projects and additional federal grants outside of annual foreign aid, loan guarantees, and past loans pardoned into grants add a significant amount of money. For more information check out any number of resources, including:

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel050602.html (World Policy Institute)
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/cost_of_israel.html (If Americans Knew)
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html (Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_17.shtml (Jewish Voice for Peace)
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/factsheet/US_Aid_to_Israel.htm (Palestine Monitor)
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=753&CategoryId=4 (Miftah—The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy)

A discussion of U.S. financial aid to Israel should include the fact that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the world, even though it is one of the wealthiest countries in the world (labeled a “high income” country by the World Bank). Based on per capita income, it is between Spain and Ireland in wealth (according to World Bank data from 1998). The Gross National Product per capita of Israel is more than that of Egypt, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza combined and the total GNP of Israel is more than twice that of Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza combined.

Weapons manufacturers are another important aspect of this issue. Much of the money that Israel receives from the U.S. is used to purchase weapons from the number one weapons exporter in the world—the U.S. This, I think, is one of the keys in understanding the situation in Palestine and Israel and the U.S.’s role in its continuation.

For example, look at Lockheed Martin, a U.S. based corporation and the largest military contractor in the world. This is a corporation that makes huge profit from war and conflict (approximately 95% of its profit comes from the U.S. Department of Defense, other federal agencies, and foreign military sales). During the last quarter of 2006, Lockheed Martin enjoyed a 28% boost in revenue thanks largely to the continual war and occupation of Iraq. Lockheed Martin products are also used heavily by the Israeli military to maintain the occupation of Palestine. Israel has the largest fleet of F-16s (built and sold by Lockheed Martin) in the world outside of the U.S.

Lockheed Martin, just like all of the other major weapons manufacturers (General Electric, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, etc.), gives very large campaign donations; during the 2004 election cycle Lockheed Martin gave a total of $2,212,836 in political contributions, while receiving $19.4 billion in ‘defense’ contracts in 2005.

Corporations like Lockheed Martin profit from continual war and conflict; specifically, in the instance of Israel and Palestine, it profits (as do its stockholders and management) from the military occupation and ongoing violence in the West Bank and Gaza. Candidates running for office are very well aware of the interests of their financial backers and know that it is in their own best interest, in the sense of election and re-election, to maintain policies that result in profits for these financial backers—the weapons manufacturers.

The result is money sent to Israel to purchase arms from U.S. weapons manufacturers who work to ensure never-ending violence and occupation.

Can We Achieve Peace in the

Middle East?

by Ron Paul
by Ron Paul

Former President Carter’s new book about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised the ire of Americans on two sides of the debate. I say “two sides” rather than “both sides,” because there is another perspective that is never discussed in American politics. That perspective is the perspective of our founding fathers, namely that America should not intervene in the internal affairs of other nations.

Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.

The conflict in Gaza and the West Bank is almost like a schoolyard fight: when America and the world stand watching, neither side will give an inch for fear of appearing weak. But deep down, the people who actually have to live there desperately want an end to the violence. They don’t need solutions imposed by outsiders. It’s easy to sit here safe in America and talk tough, but we’re not the ones suffering.

Practically speaking, our meddling in the Middle East has only intensified strife and conflict. American tax dollars have militarized the entire region. We give Israel about $3 billion each year, but we also give Egypt $2 billion. Most other Middle East countries get money too, some of which ends up in the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Both sides have far more military weapons as a result. Talk about adding fuel to the fire! Our foolish and unconstitutional foreign aid has produced more violence, not less.

Congress and each successive administration pledge their political, financial, and military support for Israel. Yet while we call ourselves a strong ally of the Israeli people, we send billions in foreign aid every year to some Muslim states that many Israelis regard as enemies. From the Israeli point of view, many of the same Islamic nations we fund with our tax dollars want to destroy the Jewish state. Many average Israelis and American Jews see America as hypocritically hedging its bets.

This illustrates perfectly the inherent problem with foreign aid: once we give money to one country, we have to give it to all the rest or risk making enemies. This is especially true in the Middle East and other strife-torn regions, where our financial support for one side is seen as an act of aggression by the other. Just as our money never makes Israel secure, it doesn’t buy us any true friends elsewhere in the region. On the contrary, millions of Muslims hate the United States.

It is time to challenge the notion that it is our job to broker peace in the Middle East and every other troubled region across the globe. America can and should use every diplomatic means at our disposal to end the violence in the West Bank, but we should draw the line at any further entanglement. Third-party outsiders cannot impose political solutions in Palestine or anywhere else. Peace can be achieved only when self-determination operates freely in all nations. “Peace plans” imposed by outsiders or the UN cause resentment and seldom produce lasting peace.

The simple truth is that we cannot resolve every human conflict across the globe, and there will always be violence somewhere on earth. The fatal conceit lies in believing America can impose geopolitical solutions wherever it chooses.

January 23, 2007

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

It was right now actually, in the process of upgrading the software that runs the site a bunch of characters got messed up.

Hopefully I can fix it later….

Fixed

For the interview in its entirety:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/shank1.html

*And please read the following post when you finish this excerpt

“Private: Another Supplemental Spending Bill for the War in Iraq”

Shank: In one of your speeches, titled “Don’t Do It, Mr. President”, you urged the president to not bomb Iran. Why are you so against a military invasion of Iran?

Paul: Because I’m against military activity in almost every circumstance when war isn’t declared. I recognize there are a few times our president could act but I think I pointed out in one of my speeches that I can’t remember a time that the president was required to act, i.e. that it was so necessary: the tanks were landing, there was a landing on our beach, the missiles were flying. It’s never happened.

The president has the authority to repel an invasion or an attack. But going into Iran doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It’s going to expand the war, spread the war, and probably close down the Straits of Hormuz. We don’t have the authority nationally or internationally. It’s just the most foolish thing I could conceive of. And yet it looks like there’s bipartisan consensus that we can’t take anything off the table. We can’t even take off the table that we might use a nuclear first strike to go after Iran. They don’t even have a weapon and our CIA says they probably can’t get one for 10 years. And even if they did have one, what are they going to do with it? Are they going to attack us? They wouldn’t do that.

Yet at the same time we stood up against the Soviet system. They probably had 30,000 nuclear warheads and they had the capability of launching missiles at us. We didn’t have to have a nuclear war to finally win the cold war. We talked to them and there were negotiations.

Their system was a failed system, and it failed. The Iranian [system] will fail too if we just leave them alone. They can never become a power capable of attacking us. They don’t have an air force, they don’t have a navy. It’s an unbelievable, hysterical reaction on our part to become so frightened that we have to attack people like Saddam Hussein. It just bewilders me how people can fall into a trap of believing these stories that are put out and that the media propagates.

Ron Paul is running for president in the 2008 elecetion.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

William

I just decided to write something in 10 minutes or less. I don’t know where I’m going to go with this, we will see at it’s end.

The other day I was at the local super market here in my small town, a store which was a minor monopoly until relatively recently, started using the self checkouts - and it got me thinking about my consumer situation and where we are headed. Now that Walmart and Target, have started carrying groceries and everything else you would expect to find at any other small business/ locally owned store, the grocery store doesn’t quite have the corner on the goods that it used to and I’m sure it is feeling the pressure. They aren’t the only ones.

Walmart is now carrying fast food and gas! What aren’t they selling?

Is that bad, I don’t know. Maybe. I understand basic economics, but there is a point where we need to start questioning where this is going to take us. I guess maybe this is some kind of evolution/retroactive approach to consumption in America. Being able to get everything in one place certainly has it’s advantage, especially with gas prices today.

So, with our support of these super stores, it is inevitable that we will see the local grocery stores disappear, not too hard to believe when you look in any small town and realize that the local family owned hardware stores (or even True Values & Ace Hardwares) and pharmacies are disappearing or are already gone.

So, what do the smaller stores have to do to survive? I don’t think it begins with the self checkouts. A quarter of the time even if you are competent enough to use these machines, something isn’t programmed into them right and they end up taking just as long to use anyway. What the grocery stores need to make sure they do is support locally grown if they can, buy the best they can and above all offer human service that exceeds the quality of the box stores by far. Basically, become a specialized organization.

As a side note, I just read part of an article from the magazine “outside” that said Walmart is starting to make big environmental changes. They are going green, call me a bigot but it’s about damn time. They have more money than most of the world, and they consume more than most of the world (Yes, I know what I sound like here… thanks Rush).

Anyway, don’t be surprised when one day it will be a world full of Walmarts, McDonalds and help that is only available over the phone with an foreign accent. Self checkouts will probably disappear due to incompetency, gas stations will only exist at Sams Club and Barnem and Bailey’s circus will put a viewing window on the second floor of every walmart.

Oh, by the way… when Walmart is the super power monopoly - do you think they will keep prices low even if they have no competition? Hopefully Target will still be around.

William

This took longer than 10 minutes…