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Originally Posted by ArlJim78
First of all I don’t believe for a minute this statement. Yes we’ve supported and propped up and used despots, but what was the choice? There’s not a lot to choose from in some cases. Should we have postponed any and all strategic relations until democracy was in full bloom? Even without our involvement I don’t believe that you can say for sure that the same regimes wouldn’t have thrived anyway, or that even more tyrannical ones would have existed in their place.
It is more than we give to any other nation, but over all these years it’s a drop in the bucket at around 100B. We’ve pumped around 90B into Iraq for rebuilding since the takeover of Baghdad.
The region is of vital strategic importance. Without Israel acting as our surrogate what strategy would have held in check the Soviet Unions ambitions and at the same time prevented the further expansion of fanatical religious regimes, given us the amount of intelligence that we currently share with Israel, and at the same time costing us less in terms of blood and treasure?
We give so much more to them simply because they are a stable, strong, democratic ally acting as our surrogate in a region of huge strategic importance, as I mentioned above.
There is not another country that can offer this to us and that is why more goes to them. Until recently we have given far less to others in the area, typically Egypt. But now with Afghanistan and Iraq on the receiving end of huge amounts of US aid our overall expenditures in the region are balancing out.
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Even being on the other side of these issues i commend you for your knowledgeable thought out responses. Cheers!
Now back to war.
We had plenty of choices but to use the despots that we have used. Thats what i mean. We say that we are doing what we do in the name of "the american way" and then we support leaders or governments that are so far away from what we claim we are fighting for. One minute, Rumsfeld is shaking hands with a guy and we are pumping them with money and arms. The next minute, the same guy has phantom wmd's and we need to rid the earth of him. It seems that we support despots that can be US controlled and the ones that cant are branded tyrants. Such is the American way or at least thats what our leaders think.
Israel is stable? Are you kidding me? They are the single reason why we have such unstable standing in the region. If not for our undying support of a country that is virtually worthless to us, we wouldnt have all of the problems with the arab governments that we do.
Egyptian and Russian ties were cut in the early 70's. We have a base and strong support in Saudi Arabia. So why is Israel so vital to us? I still dont know.
As for using how much money has been pumped into Iraq, again, that is yet another question for this administration. Why are we there? Wmds? Nope, arent there. Saddam the oppressor? We helped make Saddam! Terrorist ties? 911 commission proved that wasnt the case. So why? And if we are going to make that a base in the middle east, again, why give so much to Israel?