Oh, I grok that. But his original claim was about military aid, which we are providing to SK at the same cost as to Israel. The specific terms and breakdown of aid doesn’t change the fact that it’s aid. That’s why his original dodge was to try to change the issue to financial, rather than military, aid. The story he was selling (“ZOMG, the military aid we give to Israel is more than we give to any nation in all types of aid, combined, other than Iraq”) is incompatible with the facts, so a distinction without a difference is propped up so the original story can still be sold.
I doubt that anybody really believes that if the US stopped giving raw cash and instead stationed tens of thousands of troops on the Lebanese border and vowed to defend Israel from attack, or generally garrisoned troops in Israel to defend it, that RNATB would be satisfied and claim that we were no longer giving Israel any military aid.
The issue isn’t whether or not they’re identical, but whether or not we provide military aid to both nations. The USFK was established to defend South Korea. It is a special kind of argument that claims that establishing a military force, tens of thousands strong, and paying for it yourself, in order to aid in another country’s defense… does not constitute militarily aid to that country.
Usually when people talk about military aid, though, they’re talking about financial aid given to be earmarked for military purchases, loan guarantees, and weapons sales. The direct stationing of troops in a country usually isn’t classified as military aid.
I agree with you, though, that the people who are unhappy that we’re giving military aid to Israel wouldn’t be any happier if we stationed troops there for their defense.
Well, if they do talk about it that way, they’re incorrect and really mean to be talking about Foreign Military Financing (at least wrt America).
If we’re looking at MA rather than FMF, it’d be correct to state that it would be defined something like:
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We are definitely providing a military service in order to aid South Korea.
And yah, if we switched tomorrow to providing an exactly equal deployment of troops and materiel to Israel, rather than cash, I would be surprised (to put it mildly) if people were supporting ‘the end of our military aid to Israel’.
I disagree. Some people who have problems with the foreign military aid to Israel would be significantly less bothered by a US base in Israel.
Just curious, how do you think the Israelis would feel about tens of thousands of US soldiers at a military base in Israel? Would they feel the same way about it as they feel about getting 3 billion dollars in “store credit”
Put a little differently (I’m not really disagreeing, just addressing an implication you may or may not have meant to make about the Guardian in particular), the European media, at least the left-leaning part of it, has a decades-long crush on the Palestinians and isn’t going to play nice with Israel till . . . I forget exactly what the goal is, but I’m sure it involves the Israelis apologizing to the Pals and the Euro Left, which will happen . . . never. Oh, and bashing Israel can also be a fun way for left-leaning Euros to bash the U.S. But yes, the articles were pretty factual this time around.
That was fun, Iran wanted the Ihawk surface to air missile and the US shipped them over to Israel, who promptly traded the older model of the sam, along with parts for the F4 phantom.
