https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-oval-office-israel-watch-live-stream-today-2023-10-19/?intcid=CNI-00-10aaa3a
President Biden is asking Congress for $100 billion in supplemental funding, including aid for Israel and Ukraine.
Two counterarguments:
He should name one security argument of supporting "Isreal".
A political system where the president can say whatever without an opposition is useless...
yes because bombing pali children will save us from a sovergen debt crisis and a bunch of other issues that resulted in the US dumping tens of billions in "foreign aid" while allowing the country to rot with a shitty 2 party system.
but the GDP went up!!!!!
when was the last time the GDP actually improved your life?
5 Star General, former President, Dwight D. Eisenhower had this to say about the Military Industrial complex. It rings true today as much as it did in 1961
If we’re linking to the classics: Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler: War Is A Racket
Eisenhower was the main force behind building the Military Industrial complex.
It's kind of like a drunken, pantsless party guest saying that there's a bunch of shit and vomit in the bathroom, and that it will certainly be a problem, but they're going home now, so you should clean it up.
Only instead of shit and vomit, it's a bunch of rich assholes making money by killing poor people.
So is it somehow less true because he's the one who shit and vomit everywhere?
https://www.theonion.com/man-always-gets-little-rush-out-of-telling-people-john-1819578998
He was kind of saying "there's this thing I built that could make all of you really rich, but it's kind of horrible, you should totally dismantle it instead of using it to get rich".
When Eisenhower gave that speech in 1961, there were already people screaming about how the military industrial complex was horrific, how it would lead to endless wars, and how it would cause global suffering.
Ukraine? 100%. This is among the best and most cost effective uses of US military funding ever. A hostile (or at least deeply antagonistic) nuclear power is geopolitically neutering themselves in slow motion, and all we have to do is send some crap over and make sure the Ukrainians don’t run out of bullets. We’re destroying the combat effectiveness of what we thought was a peer power for literal pennies on the dollar.
Israel? 😬 the whole thing is a shitshow, and Netanyahu’s strategies have been and continue to be obviously unworkable in the long term.
More evidence to the contrary today: FBI says Hamas attack on Israel inspiring ‘new level’ of terror threat against US
The head of the FBI warned a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the Hamas attack on Israel has given terrorists inspiration “the likes of which we haven’t seen” since the rise of Isis a decade ago.
Christopher Wray told the US Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs that while the terrorism threat had been high throughout 2023, “the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level”.
“We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since Isis launched its so-called caliphate years ago,” Wray said.
Original link is paywalled: https://www.ft.com/content/e1758abc-df4c-49d4-ad4f-3f7b5f143305
Why is this moron still lumping Ukraine and Israel into the same bucket?
He should have just stuck to his most effective presidential policy, wearing cool glasses and having prog-fascists give him cool nicknames.
Supporting Ukraine's fight against a foreign invader, specifically the successor state to the US's long standing Cold War opponent. Easy to see how this will help US security in the long run.
Supporting an apartheid government in it's Final Solution to end a long standing Question about an undesired group in a neighboring occupied territory. It's a bit harder to see how this helps US security. I guess one could argue that, Palestinian children won't grow up to hurt the US, if they are killed before they grow up. But, that's not really good for building long term peace and stability.
I'd never seen this memorial before, so had to Google lens it and realized what the "counterargument" image was.
It's the memorial at the twin towers after 9/11.
9/11 was blowback from what our government did in our name in the decades prior. The military-industrial complex is protecting neither our liberty nor our security; it’s making line go up for American oligarchs 📈
No I tracked what the whole thing was after I realized what I was looking at. Osama bin Laden and the Mujahideen and the CIA and so on, i just had a moment where brain no work so goodly because I didn't know i was looking at the twin towers memorial.
"Squares? Military buildings? No...it looks like a memorial. Hmm maybe vietnam? No...eh I'll just ask google. Oh wow I feel dumb as shit"
Another counter argument:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/who-said-war-would-pay-itself-they-did/
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In an impassioned speech, Mr. Biden said that America must again act as a "beacon to the world," and insisted that the needs of the people of Israel and Ukraine are vital to the United States' national security interests.
That's why tomorrow I'm going to send to Congress an urgent budget request to fund America's national security needs, to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine.
At a time when Congress is divided, the president said the United States "can't let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibility as a great nation.
While Mr. Biden reaffirmed the United States' intense commitment to Israel and the Israeli people, he also stressed the humanity of Palestinians who simply want peace.
Mr. Biden told reporters on the way back from Tel Aviv that "we're going to get people out, and quickly" but said he couldn't discuss details.
Mr. Biden said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi agreed to allow up to 20 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafa gate.
The original article contains 1,009 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I'm not convinced Biden is wrong on either count.
Israel is hunting down would be terrorist threats like it's nobody's business (if they had the capability I'm sure Hamas would've attacked the US). I'm not saying the overkill is right or that it won't have consequences, but the Hamas threat is real. Beyond that, we risk an escalation if Iran (or friends) that don't love the US or its allies start getting ideas about helping out Hamas.
Ukraine is fighting back similar Russian aggression.
Hamas, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China must not be sent signals that the world is open for use of offensive force. If the US and allies stand back and "let Hitler have his war", history will rhyme again and this conflict will come to our doorstep.
You think Hamas gives a shit about the US? They're busy with the occupier in their own country