Ryli Dunlap
2 min readDec 10, 2024

True, the US supports several countries (and many with dubious human rights records). The US doesn't care about that though, only defending 'interests'.

I think Afghanistan is an excellent argument against continuing to flood regions of the world with weapons, which only exacerbates conflict - and end up in the wrong hands often too.

Israel is - by far - the largest recipient of foreign aid from the US than any other country:

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

The aid to Egypt and Jordan is a small fraction to what is given to Israel, and has been scaled back recently. Aid to Egypt and Jordan is also largely contingent on them remaining at peace with Israel, and is an incentive to do so. So, even this aid relates to assisting Israel.

The fact that Israel buys US weapons with the taxpayer money handed to it is little consolation to the US taxpayer who sees little direct benefit from that 'investment', besides horrible pictures on the news of homeless people being bombed.

The $25 billion or so that the US taxpayer has provided to Israel since Oct. 7 ends up in the coffers and pockets of defense industry executives and as kickbacks to politicians who broker these deals, and to lobbyists who lobby for these policies that the taxpayer doesn't get a lot of say in.

So no, $25 billion ending up in the pockets as profit to the privatized defense industry is not a great deal for the US taxpayer, especially considering that the middle class and poor shoulder most of the burden, given that the wealthy (who benefit and profit from these wars) pay very little in taxes.

Interestingly, your country - Canada - seems to be coming to the same conclusion, announcing cuts and restrictions to arms transfers to Israel:

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/03/20/canada-stops-arms-shipments-to-israel_6636777_4.html

Sign up to discover human stories that deepen your understanding of the world.

Free

Distraction-free reading. No ads.

Organize your knowledge with lists and highlights.

Tell your story. Find your audience.

Membership

Read member-only stories

Support writers you read most

Earn money for your writing

Listen to audio narrations

Read offline with the Medium app

Ryli Dunlap
Ryli Dunlap

Written by Ryli Dunlap

Aspiring writer. Recovering programmer. Many opinions — some unpopular. I unload them here. Blog: https://pontifi.co Dance/Music: https://rylito.com

No responses yet

Write a response