Obama, It's Time to Stop the Arms Gifts to Israel and Egypt

[Joanne98]

As the black plumes of black smoke billow into the skies over Gaza from the United Nations relief agency -- the main source of fuel, food, and medicine for the bombed-to-hell Gazans (including the many who never wanted Hamas there to begin with) who are trapped in a box with no way to escape and little means of fighting back, there's little use for Israel to deny it's using white phosphorus bombs, and using them illegally -- in densely populated civilian areas.

According to the UN spokesman on the ground, John Ging, this inferno was caused by white phosphorus bombs -- no ifs ands or buts -- and it wasn't an accident: the UN repeatedly warned Israel that its bombs were getting closer and closer. Because of the nature of white phosphorus, the flames can't be put out with water. What's more, according to physicians in Gaza, some five dozen Gazans have already been burned by this nasty weapon that melts skin to the bone.

Proof of the illegal use of white phosphorus bombs Israel's previous denials , also give new weight to claims (denied by Israel) that it is also trying out a new weapon developed by the U.S. Air Force -- DIME -- short for Dense Inert Metal Explosive, which rips off limbs and slams micro-shrapnel under the skin of those nearby. Some also suggest that Israel is using cluster bombs -- which the U.S. reportedly stopped supplying to Israel after its controversial use of these weapons in the 2006 assault on Lebanon.

In view of this latest display of Israel's Goliath against the neighbor's David, I suggest that it's time for the U.S. to stop supplying Israel with all freebie weapons to try out against its Arab neighbors. In fact, it's time for a review of the continuing U.S. role in maintaining the 1979 Camp David Agreement negotiated by Jimmy Carter -- that brought peace between Israel and Egypt, and for Americans to realize the ramifications of the earth-shaking, well-intentioned peace agreement.

While hearts warmed back then at the thought that in exchange for return of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula (which Israel had seized in the 1969 Arab-Israeli War) that Egypt would be the first Arab country to recognize Israel's right to exist, what slipped between the cracks was the payoff involved: namely, in return for the two former foes keeping the peace, a very chilly peace lately, that the US would play the role of "Arms Santa Claus" providing billions of dollars of free fancy weapons and arms to both Israel and Egypt each year.

Since 1979, Israel has received over $2 billion of U.S. tax dollars for its military annually and Egypt has made off with $1.3 billion yearly -- which makes Israel and Egypt the biggest recipients of U.S. foreign aid in the world, never mind our altruistic notions that U.S. aid is mostly in the form of food to hungry nations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-rossi/time-to-cutoff-the-arms-g_b_158071.html

[midnight]

1. That money could be better spent on educating our children,

and not helping to bomb the children of other countries.

[coruscate]

2. Especially in the second, global great depression

We can no longer afford to buoy the world when we can't pay our own bills.

All politics and all wars, ALL NATIONS aside... we have to take care of our own first and foremost.