Posted on 04/02/2024 9:49:12 AM PDT by Angelino97
Biden to Israel, If you want that 18 Billion dollars worth of aid I want Netanyahu FIRED! You got about 4 hours.
Interesting.
While the military industrial complex is rightly criticized from a moral perspective, it’s not likely to be reined in anytime soon until the economic incentives you speak of are addressed. I’m not sure that there’s an easy solution, but perhaps our government should start by insisting that large military companies be diversified, with plans to convert their defense production to other purposes during down-times.
“You said that giving money to Israel …”
I said no such thing. Israel BORROWS money, buys American goods with it, and then pays the money back over time with interest.
That is in no sense of the word a “gift”.
L
How’s your Arabic?
How’s the Arabic of anyone you know who fully supports the U.S.?
How well could they fit in in a government job in an Islamic middle eastern country?
Anyway... There are all sorts of different opinions about things and you have registered yours.
Let’s hope the millions of people who hate the U.S. don’t have their way with “Big Satan.”
Israel doesn’t hate us. They are extremely important allies.
“...with plans to convert their defense production to other purposes during down-times.”
Trust me on this, there is zero other purposes for 90% of military equipment. Let’s start with encryption. That’s an absolute no. Then there’s what the equipment is produced from, military parts most of which have no dual use. There’s no need, for example, for parts that have a full mil range temperature and those are EXPENSIVE. There usually aren’t any civilian substitutes. And where exactly would you alternatively use a frequency hopping radio? Stuff designed specifically for the military, for the most part, can’t be economically built for some other purpose. Also, none of the parts for a vehicle or carried item can be used for anything else. The boxes in your car or on a civilian plane are engineered differently and use different non-mil (less expensive and more generally available) technology. You may be shocked to find this out. Despite some of the amazing things the military tech can do is built from old, often out of production stuff that’s a generation or two behind the civilian market. Stuff built for a cell phone is built entirely by automation and from cutting edge parts. This is so because cell phones are built in the hundreds of millions. Car parts are built in the tens of thousands. Stuff for the military is generally built in the tens, if you have a wonderful contract. I’ve built stuff that was just a one-off. The price tag comes with a rocket attached.
Military companies are very difficult to run. A lot of the places I worked had just one...one, production contract. A fubar like Congress is pulling now with the budget would probably mean we’d have gone out of business. Military companies do not finance stuff on the off hope that Congress will authorize the purchase when the get off their ass and fund it. Often, somebody decides they don’t need it and you just wasted a million dollars. (Incidentally, it’s against the law to build anything for the military that isn’t funded.)
On the budget now, that everyone wants stopped because it does or does not do something, it’s been held up long enough that companies I have worked for would have gone under by now. That means laying off people who can’t be easily replaced. Once you shut down a factory you have a huge restart price. The fact there was no budget for so long is going to have very bad long-term impacts. We, the people are going to pay much, much more because Congress played politics with the budget.
Not one article I’ve read even addressed the horrible outcomes of this political snafu.
Are you saying that America never gives money to Israel?
And it got the uranium to build up their nukes from apartheid South Africa.
The white South Africans mightily blessed Israel. And yet today they are being murdered by the thousands.
Where are their blessings for having blessed Israel?
Point taken about the lack of dual use purposing for military hardware. I was thinking more along the lines of separate product lines to which production could be shifted, during periods of slow defense spending. Maybe there should be a requirement that any company involved in defense production for the U.S. be required to be diversified with perhaps 60% of its production devoted to non-defense production.
I realize there are many complexities involved, but one way another Congress needs to make some attempt to de-incentivize defense production for its own sake, while also ensuring that the country is adequately provided with the best military equipment in the world. It’s a tall order. But what choice do we have but to try to find a solution?
“Are you saying that America never gives money to Israel?”
I never said that. Now go hump someone else’s leg.
L
In the long run, it would probably be cheaper and in the best interests of society, to keep vital production lines active and store the surplus in a warehouse somewhere, or even dismantle it once it’s been produced, in order to ensure the production expertise isn’t lost but without having to arm the rest of the world to the teeth in order to do so. The money “wasted” would be well worth it. We spend billions on a standing army, navy, marines, AF with the hope that they never have to be used but so we know that they’re there if needed. It’s an insurance policy. The same view should be taken towards defense spending, generally.
Even Christians and Mohammads like you understand punishment and reward is ultimately settled in the Hereafter.
Simple. We’ll pay for it by paying for it. Cash. Israeli taxpayers do provide that for exactly such purchases as this. This is not the biggest arms sale in history for us, just the biggest recently. We always pay.
So much for the rest of your idiotic rant.
That must be news to the USAF, Boeing and a few foreign buyers. The USAF recently ordered 104 of them. 6 have been delivered, 98 to go. Several foreign sales are either recently fulfilled or in process. The USAF's newest version is the F-15EX Eagle II.
PS. Where were you when the OBama and Biden regimes gave over 100 billion to Iran and are still giving them billions?
Stauffer is either a idiot, believes he has a right to lie, or is on the Qatari or Iranian payroll and has to lie. US military aid is first and foremost a way of controlling Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. It also helps prevent any country dominating the region other than the US, maintaining the petrodollar.
If foreign aid is so detrimental to Israel, why do they lobby so much for it? Why not just say no?
And I don’t think we gave $100 billion of our money to Iran. We simply unfroze their assets. Might not be a good idea, but it’s not foreign aid.
We don’t hear, since Biden opposes Israel
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.