David and Goliath

[Preacher]

David and Goliath

Great read..suggest everyone read it.

 

[Preacher]

For those unwilling to read the link. That article hits every truth trigger EVER! Scream about it Israel Firsters... I know you will.







The old one-liner was that American Jews were willing to fight to the last Israeli. After last week’s speech by Benjamin Netanyahu to Congress and his recent politicking here and at home to win his upcoming re-election, it can be said that the Israeli prime minister is willing to fight to the last American.

Netanyahu has plenty of support from conservatives who are itching for war with Iran now that Iraq is in shambles. Many of them hung on every word of the Jewish leader, who was advocating a vote for American youth to fight another Middle East war. The same neocons who rightfully complain about high taxes don’t seem to mind adding another $1 trillion or $2 trillion (who keeps track of such things when it comes to war?) to the already staggering $18 trillion U.S. federal deficit.

I still marvel at the unchastened George W. Bush administration. Dick Cheney, perhaps the most influential vice president ever, along with most of the neocon believers did everything they could to stay out of the Vietnam draft — and few of them ever had a son or daughter near enemy fire. Yet they wanted to send the nation off to invade Iraq. Not only did loyal Republicans line up, but so did Democrats. Few of them had children in harm’s way, and they turned a blind eye to America’s growing debt as long as they were on the right side of a war. The right side was the populist side and the lobbyist’s side. Whoever said war doesn’t pay either was shortsighted or read history and understood how wars destroy empires.

My suggestion to end these military adventures is simple. Have every president backed by Congress not talk about the necessity of the next war without spelling out a truth: that they eventually have to be paid for. Let Americans decide if they want to pay the additional war surtax.

The idea of pay as you go has lost any meaning in government. Neocons — many of whom are in the Republican Party, including some who will run for the presidency — want young people to fight and die in war, yet they demand lower taxes. They are no better than trophy wives who think their husband’s platinum American Express Card is free money burning a hole in their Gucci handbags.

American foreign and military aid to Israel is enormous. An estimate of what Americans have paid out to the Jewish nation since 1949 in terms of cash and weapons is $121 billion. And that doesn’t include the billions of dollars in loan guarantees that the U.S. has given Israel, saving that country huge interest rate costs. I will be conservative so as not to offend the pro-Israel readers and peg it at $100 billion. That is a lot of money for an investment that doesn’t seem to be panning out.

Last April, the report “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” written by Jeremy M. Sharp and issued by the Congressional Research Service, stated:

The Obama Administration gave $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Israel for the Fiscal Year 2014. In addition, the U.S. contributed $504 million to the joint U.S.-Israel Missile Defense Program during FY 2014. If we include that number, American taxpayers give Israel $9.9 million per day.

If Americans Knew stated:

Israel is by far the largest recipient of U.S. foreign military aid. According to the CRS report, the President’s request for Israel for FY 2015 will encompass approximately 55 percent of total U.S. foreign military financing worldwide. According to the CRS report, “Annual FMF grants to Israel represent 23% to 25% of the overall Israeli defense budget.”

The buried costs are much higher, reported the Washington Report On Middle East Affairs in 2003, which concluded that the U.S. has spent vast sums in the Middle East which at its core has been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More than a decade ago, it estimated American interventions cost close to $3 trillion as measured in 2002 dollars, or four times more than the cost of the Vietnam War.

Those costs have soared after a dozen years of spending to overturn the leadership in Iraq and the subsequent attempts to establish some stability in that country. According to a 2013 study released by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, the total cost of that war was $1.7 trillion. The study also found an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans. Add in interest rate costs and that total could reach more than $6 trillion in the next 40 years.

Whatever the amount it is not enough for Netanyahu who thinks it is unconscionable not to provide Israel with everything he thinks the country needs. Like so many Democrats who quickly draw the race card, Netanyahu pulls out the Holocaust card. The Holocaust ended 70 years ago. While terrible, it — like Selma — is in the past. I don’t know of a giant Indian lobby hitting up Washington because of atrocities by the British Empire in the first half of the 20th century. And we don’t hear about much money going out to Native American lobbyists regarding the massacre at Wounded Knee, which was the conclusion to the genocide of a race at the hands of the U.S. federal government. There is not much political gain in those atrocities and, thus, little interest in them either.

And now America is living off what we do best, manufacturing dollars out of thin air. Eventually, America will face its comeuppance just as every empire has. And who will send us aid in our moment of need? Israel? Pakistan? Germany?

Let’s grab some reality. Giving all that aid and all that meddling has earned America a reputation where hundreds of millions of people either hope for our downfall or believe we had it coming. The world did not feel sorry for the Spanish Empire, and it won’t feel sorry for us. But avarice has spread so far with our elected officials that they really don’t care unless it impacts their re-election.

Obama is an idiot, but he is our idiot
I’ve been very critical of President Barack Obama on this website for the past six years and consider him the worst president in my lifetime, but he was rightfully elected. Netanyahu was not, and I hope that even Obama cares more about what happens to this country than an Israeli prime minister who is desperate for his own re-election.

First and foremost, do we really want Netanyahu to lead our nation into a war? We could always make Netanyahu the commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. Or give him the president’s nuclear briefcase so he can launch an American nuclear attack. That way there will be no more wasted time with him cajoling Congress regarding Iran.

I am purposefully being ridiculous, but we need to consider Netanyahu’s record when it comes to encouraging U.S. combat operations in the Middle East. Six months before the U.S. launched the attack on Iraq, he said, “I think the choice of Iraq is a good choice, it’s the right choice… It’s not a question of whether Iraq’s regime should be taken out but when should it be taken out.”

Netanyahu added: “If you (the United States) take out Saddam (Hussein), Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

Watch a video of his speech here.

Whatever Netanyahu’s guarantees were it wasn’t a money-back guarantee. And while I don’t dismiss the eventual possibility of a war against Iran, it should be undertaken only if that country becomes a clear and present danger to the United States. I don’t think we are close to that threshold, no matter what Netanyahu and his conservative cheerleaders say.

 

[Dot Com]

you & that other WS use the word "trigger" Why is that?