Clarification/Follow-up by Yiddishkeit on 08/04/04 10:29 am:
Bzzzz...

Hey Sancho there is more resolve in Israel than in all the history of communism combined. When a palestinian arab sucicide bombing nutcase walks into the ice cream parlor in your little village in podunk Europe, scattering children body parts to the four winds, then you can talk about walls. Until then you don't know sh*t.


Bobby

Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 08/04/04 3:09 pm:
The USA and Aid.

When the world's governments met at the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, they adopted a programme for action under the auspices of the United Nations -- Agenda 21. Amongst other things, this included an Official Development Assistance (ODA) aid target of 0.7% of gross national product (GNP) for rich nations, roughly 22 members of the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development), known as the Development Assistance Committee


USA's aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP is already lowest of any industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically in the last three years, their dollar amount has been the highest.

The USA being a large and vey rich country provide more aid (valued in its own currency) nany other, however in comparative terms the USA is the 22nd biggest provider of aid calculated as a percentage of GDP, at0.145 of DP it falls far short of the target of 0.7% that is only met by five countries.

When you consider that over 3 billion dollars of "aid" is provided to Israel as military hardware the reality of America's "aid" becomes clearer.

This kind of aid actually benefits the doner because it is used to purchase their own products.

Under a reiprocal agreement Eygpt receives as much aid as Israel in monetary terms, so one third of the aid the US "gives" is conditional to Israel buying arms from the USA. If this conditional aid is discounted then the total aid provided by the in 2003 was less than 0.1% of GDP.

At the World Economic Forum in New York, February 2002, “[U.S. Senator Patrick] Leahy noted that two-thirds of US government aid goes to only two countries: Israel and Egypt. Much of the remaining third is used to promote US exports or to fight a war against drugs that could only be won by tackling drug abuse in the United States.”

That's the reality of US "aid" in a nutshell.

Clarification/Follow-up by Yiddishkeit on 08/04/04 10:01 pm:
Ok we know you can copy material from the internet site at www.globalissues.org.

The reality is you skipped some important info from that site.

1. The amount was based on increase in percentage from one year to the next. See the graph at the bottom of that sites page.

2. You left out the meat and potatoes and did not copy the smaller increase percventages reasons cited:

*biltaeral grants

*reconstruction aid to Iraq



Sancho, I have no clue who you where addressing this info to when copied from that website, but I'll share in my thoughts.

My soon to be ex is from Rio, Brazil. So outside of the Carnval don't expect too much, a few hot chicks and whoop-tee-do Earth summit. I prefer South Padre Beach in Texas or Daytona Beach in Florida and beside that the California girls are real hotties.

So what that we give aid to designated countries like Israel. I prefer we give more to Israel. I can't think of a better place to spend it. Israel is loyal to it's friends.

Egypt...oh well whatever. If there is an agreement of sorts, it might have a trial lawyer involved and that gives me a headache just thinking about it.:)


Sen Leahy claimed 2/3's of the aid is going to Israel and Egypt and that he politicizing for 1/3 going elsewhere, exports and to fight a war on drugs. Perhaps he's been doing a few drugs himself. In 2004 our deficit has grown enormous because of the war campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have a strong tendency to rebuild nations, just look at Japan and how many Toyota vehicles are on the US highway today. In the US, goverment and public, we spend our money in the areas we choose to. If Sen Leahy wants to attempt to have my tax dollars spent in other places, he can just pony up some thoughts of his own. If he hits a nerve with where he thinks the US citizens should spenf our money and we don't agree with him, we simply vote his *ss out of office. That's reality.


Bobby