What is the justification for the money we send overseas.

Rome paid off enemies and it worked for a while until the enemies decided they wanted more and more or they would sack, rape pillage and plunder....which they did anyway.

Hamas - $351 M, Yep I bet that goes along way to binding friendship or purchasing new weapons

Libya $1.45 B, Maybe we are funding all factions to see who comes out on top?

Egypt - $397 M, Think we backed the wrong horse last time....Maybe this time things will work better

Mexico - $622 M, They have wonderful resources just sorry corrupt leaders at every level

Russia - $380 M, Yep they need our help and money...B.S.

Haiti - $1.4 B, Looks good for the international bunch at the U.N. But that place will never be self sufficient.

Jordan - $463 M, Can we please keep our drone base here it won't take up to much room

Kenya - $816 M, Tourism must be off?

Sudan - $870 M, Another blocking of China?

Nigeria - $456 M, At least they have oil there and the religion of peace is killing people up north so maybe military aid ain't such a bad idea

Uganda - $451 M, same as above

Congo - $359 M, same as above

Ethiopia - $981 M, same as above

Pakistan - $2 B, IMO you reward your friends whom you trust....glad we trust them?

South Africa - $566 M, give me a frigging break!! They once were a power house of wealth...guess corruption can destroy any country

Senegal - $698 M, dunno

Mozambique - $404 M, dunno

Zambia - $331 M, they killed all the whites or drove them out and now are becoming a pawn to the highest bidder for they can not even feed themselves now?

Kazakhstan - $304 M, Probably just to piss Russia off

Iraq - $1.08 B, Training arms government and infrastructure....How is that process going?

Tanzania - $554 M, blog.usaid.gov...

The second Feed the Future progress report is out and is generating a lot of buzz about the initiative’s successes last year.

People are talking about big numbers like:

9 million households benefiting directly from Feed the Future investments
More than 7 million farmers applying new technologies or management practices
More than 12 million children under five reached by nutrition programs
Over $115 million in new private sector investment in the agricultural sector as a result of Feed the Future interventions
Remember some of the threads on ATS about Monsanto having the government in there back pocket or a more politically correct sentence would be the government pushing GMO crops around the world? Hummm have to wonder..

Sorry maybe I am just in a dark mood but in my own country I see the need for job/apprentice type training for those who want to work. I see roads and infrastructure breaking down to third world levels in different areas right in the good OLD USA. Russia once said we would give them the rope they would use to hang us with....Oh sorry different times and they were mean back then......

those are certainly not all the aide dollars we are sending overseas...I do believe China has a smart approach (sometimes) if I understand what has been printed about some of their policies. They build something and they own and manage it until they get their money back or purchase it out right.

Military spending is worse than buying a car. It only last a short time and is obsolete or broken in a few years...but yes it is all that stands between a country and the invaders who are always close to a border.

Flame away..... just bugs the heck out of me some of the IMO waste and thinking that goes on with giving our aide dollars away.

Got rained out of Golf today so maybe that is why my pissed off meter is slightly pegged to red.....Also I have a Tokey Lizard (think very large gecko that can scream) that has taken up residence at the farm and with it's calls (always 5 very loud) in the middle of the night is starting to make me think about not being nice to mother natures prodigy. Wow feel better already! Guess typing and venting works for me....Excuse me that darn Tokey is calling my name!

I think I will call the Tokey 'Marvin' because I knew a Marvin once that was always shooting his mouth off!!!.Who would think a darn lizard could bug me so much; honestly he is as loud as a Rooster?.....He needs a girl friend

We're Rome 2.0. We buy friend and foe alike, expecting that will buy us influence and the ability to build peace or war, as we choose, on our terms. It's worked for a long time too. I have a feeling that when it stop working though, it will do so in a very spectacular way.

Buying people off never works. Respect works.... Purchase doesn't. Money always wears off eventually.

reply to post by 727Sky


To the people who's money is spent, there is no justification.
To the people who spend the money, is justification.

I don't understand it either...then again I don't understand CONgress either.
More than our infrastructure, more than our roads...
Our nation is suffering from handout syndrome.
Everyone wants one.

reply to post by 727Sky


I never understood why so much money goes abroad when so many at home are hungry and living in squalid conditions.

But I'm just a naive, uneducated simpleton who doesn't understand the intricacies of international politics, so I guess it makes sense to someone.

Thanks guys for the replies:
QUOTE:
No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women serve in the British Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get 50% of their pay on retirement, while Politicians hold their political positions in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and receive full-pay retirement after serving one term. This is the same in Canada, the US and Australia. It just does not make any sense. END QUOTE:

I am not sure the above email I received is technically correct but it would not surprise me. Guess Kissenger was correct when he said, "In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as 'dumb, stupid animals to be used' as pawns for foreign policy."

-- Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein, The Final Days, p. 208

With people like that in power or an advisor to TPTB what can we expect. Also just to show how much stroke he had or has....does this sound familiar? Remember Reagan's speak to the U.N.

Henry A. Kissinger
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""Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." - Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberger meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992.(in an address to the Bilderberger organization meeting at Evian, France, on May 21, 1991. As transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates. )" — Henry A. Kissinger

One thing I do agree with him on if history is a teacher:
"If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless." — Henry A. Kissinger

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

you are right. nowadays people want to share the governing. the era of puppet monarchies has passed. and this is why USA with so large military and expenses, has not the influence it expects. the funny point is that USA itself was the pioneer in recognizing the will of people and republic !

I think there are three types of "money" we send overseas.

Military equipment. We send this to "allies" like Israel or Egypt. We do this either because we want to arm them, or we are getting rid of surplus, outdated weaponry. Keeps the corporate branch of the military industrial complex profitable, at taxpayer expense.

Food / humanitarian aid. "Give a man a fish, ..." The US can easily produce enough food, medicine, and emergency services for our own country. Fact is, many other countries could do the same if they managed their resources properly. For example, many countries in Africa could feed their people if they focused on farming their land and managing their populations. But since we give them food, farmers are killed by soldiers, the land is mined for diamonds and minerals, and they remain dependent on the US for food.

"Cash." To keep other countries dependent on the US Federal Reserve Note. If countries begin to trade in something other than US currency, the power of the US fades. If relatively poorer countries started trading in their own currency, and became successful at it, the US wouldn't have much economic leverage in their government. The US would have to resort to military force to get its way.

reply to post by 727Sky


Regardless of what the government tells and the propaganda behind the tax dollars give away, this are all money for bribes that ends in the hands of dictatorships and totalitarian governments as long as they let the corporate US interest rip the citizens in those countries off.

reply to post by VictorVonDoom


No doubt you are correct with the three main categories....As in such categories they are probably subdivided further into subcategories all the way down to Al-Cia-da....or some other well respected group

reply to post by 727Sky


No the categories are not correct there is only one, cash. It could probably be divided into tangible (resources) and intangible assets (influence).

He could spend a bit of time on each of the items he listed and dig deeper as you imply but the conclusion if simplification is the goal is that it is all about economic expansion and it has always been so.

It all got established as we defined property law that permitted government to easily control nation states. The structure in the backdrop is still a tribal one, but now they do not fight over immediate survival or to satisfy indispensable needs as a group, but to indefinitely maintain and expand the assets the new power pyramid of the legal established society over any other concurrent...

Nations as corporations are not people, but legal constructs that have no morals or friends, they have to only control public opinion/perception (in and outside its borders) and seek to form alliances that benefit their own policies.

It's about 0.5-1.0% of the total budget.

I'll be outraged at this as soon as we have dismantled the national security state.

There is none. I'm not about the handouts, but we're sending billions a year to countries like Egypt and Pakistan and there is actually a debate about helping Detroit? Let's let Detroit go bankrupt while sending billions a year to Israel... because OBVIOUSLY Israel is more important than our own damn city.