Billions in annual aid to Egypt

[Guest]

Can someone please explain to me why, for years and years, we have been
giving Egypt $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic assistance annually

when our government is making cuts to our own military and our own economy is in the tanker????

I realize I am very naive when it comes to government issues, but why can't we just put a freeze on foreign aid until we get our own house in order?

I just don't understand...

[Guest]

Can someone please explain to me why, for years and years, we have been
giving Egypt $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic assistance annually

when our government is making cuts to our own military and our own economy is in the tanker????

I realize I am very naive when it comes to government issues, but why can't we just put a freeze on foreign aid until we get our own house in order?

I just don't understand...

Imagine for a minute that we freeze assistance and IRAN send equipment and money to Greece. Yes, you are naive.

[Guest]

Imagine for a minute that we freeze assistance and IRAN send equipment and money to Greece. Yes, you are naive.

Suspend the support, let IRAN take over, any time we want we can flatten that country. Charty starts at home, let do that for a change.

[Guest]

Suspend the support, let IRAN take over, any time we want we can flatten that country. Charty starts at home, let do that for a change.

Thank you, Figmo. My thoughts exactly...we should take care of our own first for a change.

It seems the countries that we are helping hate us anyway, so what difference does it make?

[Guest]

I agree and I dont just pull half of (all) aid back and we would be in much better shape.

[Guest]

Can someone please explain to me why, for years and years, we have been
giving Egypt $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic assistance annually

when our government is making cuts to our own military and our own economy is in the tanker????

I realize I am very naive when it comes to government issues, but why can't we just put a freeze on foreign aid until we get our own house in order?

I just don't understand...I'm guessing...but it is an educated guess...that there are two reasons why we have given aid to Egypt for a long time.

If you follow the money, I'm pretty sure you'll find that the majority of the aid we give to Egypt comes right back to U.S. arms suppliers in the form of orders for tanks, planes, bombs, bullets and guns and other military equipment. That's pretty much the same with Israel, where we fund about 15% of their entire defense budget, about $3 billion a year. So to a degree our politicians are killing two birds with one stone. They're buying Egypt's alliance and cooperation and at the same time getting some nice, profitable orders for our military suppliers.

On that second point, the "alliance" part, I'm guessing if you tracked back to when our foreign aid contributions to Egypt began, it would be shortly after the 1967 six-day war with Israel. We started giving Egypt money to prop up their military dictatorships, first Anwar Sadat (who had replaced the dictatorial and unstable Gamal Abder Nasser as president of Egypt. Nasser was the most prominent Arab leader and was the one who had nationalized and took control of the Suez Canal and precipitated the war with Israel.) For years after Sadat was assassinated we continued to support Hosni Mubarak, probably with his promise to let Israel alone and answer the phone when we call to ask for some cooperation in maintaining peace in the Middle East. (Read that "don't take sides with anyone in the region, particularly if the argument involves Israel.")

So another way of looking at the aid money we send Egypt, it's "sovereign bribery" to assure that Egypt continues to play nice with Israel, their tiny neighbor only about 100 miles from their northeast border.

The whole foreign aid to Egypt thing is pretty cheap insurance. Almost none of the money we send to either Israel or Egypt actually stays there. It comes back to U.S. arms suppliers in the form of profitable orders, who then probably make generous campaign donations to the members of Congress who approve such foreign aid.

Winners all around, don't you think?

By the way, the aid we send to Egypt amounts to .000002% of our federal budget.