US Senator Landrieu: Don’t cut aid to Israel

[vminfla]

“I support the aid to Israel and we are going to hold the line on that,” Sen. Landrieu told The Media Line. “There are pressures on our budget, but we really value our relationship with Israel and want to see it strengthened. America does have very serious budgetary problems, but foreign aid represents less than one percent of the total budget of the United States.”

Landrieu, a member of US President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, spoke to The Media Line during a visit to Israel as head of a trade mission seeking collaboration opportunities in oil and gas development with Louisiana and other US Gulf Coast states.

Louisiana has 80% of the US off shore oil and gas operations, but suffered enormous damage to the gulf ecosystem with last year’s BP Deepwater Horizon spilled more than 200 million gallons of crude oil in the gulf. Still, Louisiana has some of the world’s leading companies that deal in developing oil and gas ventures, something Israel could benefit from in its efforts to extract the massive natural gas deposits found offshore.

The US Geological Survey last year estimated that more than 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas reserves lie under the waters of the eastern Mediterranean, most of it within Israeli waters. The fields are so large that plans are afloat to team up in order to seek investors. An official at the National Infrastructures Ministry confirmed reports that its director-general, Shaul Tzemach, had been promoting an initiative for Israel and Cyprus to run a joint campaign to attract American investors for developing the natural gas fields.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=243268

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And, this is why we invest with our trade partners, like Israel: Jobs.

[Enrique]

1. it's profits actually

jobs might be a by-product of some trade agreements, but what is getting Mary Landrieu off her butt and flying however many thousands of miles to Israel is not jobs, but profits for the oil companies that own her.

[vminfla]

2. High Paying Service Jobs Will Result from Continued Cooperation

Whether or not you question Landrieu's motives or not, jobs will be created. And - in this economy - that is a great thing.

[DonCoquixote]

3. jobs gotten by

shoveling aid to israel, which ensures we have to spend blood and gold in war.

[vminfla]

4. The classic blood for oil meme

Israel has been a solid trading partner in science and technology for decades. That relationship should be fostered and encouraged as it is mutually beneficial to both nations.

[DonCoquixote]

6. solid trading

Like the weapons we know are meant to kill children. The same relationship that puts us at odds with not just the Islamic world, but the whole world, as they grow tired of seeing Israel kill whoever they want and then scurry behind Uncle Sam.

[pelsar]

7. weapons meant to kill children....

there is a problem with them, i've noticed that at times those weapons confuse "little people" with children, consequently the "midget death rate (mdr) has increased 10x in the gaza and in the west bank.


so what shall we call your post, it doesn't do it justice to call it "false" or funny or "lacking in factual matter"........any suggestions?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pelsar]

11. were still on the "meant to kill children" part...

you can start "moving the goalposts" as they say, but i'm still stuck on your original accusation........ the weapons that were designed to kill children. How does that work, does the shrapnel not go over 4ft in height, but what happens if an adult is sitting down?

[vminfla]

12. Picking the wrong bullets from the catalog

You see, there are a couple of bullet choices.

You have the bad guy seeking bullets that will only kill people with a Chaotic evil alignment and then there are the children seeking bullets. Clearly the jews are picking the latter.

[DonCoquixote]

15. moving the goalposts

Simple,
if we know that Israel uses weapons against civilians, such as children
and we sell weapons to them anyway,
we know children will be killed.

Of course we can pretend they intend to shoot duck with them, but evidence disproves that (like the bodies of dead children)

Nice try to dodge the fact that Israel kills kids, and we help them do it.

[shira]

18. So Israel doesn't use weapons against bad guys b/c they'd rather target kids. Okay. Wait...

There are no bad guys on the Palestinian side, only freedom fighting leftwing innocent 3rd world victims of Israeli imperialism, racism, and colonialism.

Got it.

No wonder Israel commits one war crime after another....

:eyes:

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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[shira]

21. Riiight. A liberal democracy like Israel is no different than an authoritarian tyranny. n/t

[Shaktimaan]

24. actually

Israel pretty much has a better rate in regards to that than any other country on the planet that ever has the misfortune to fight a war. Sure Israel kills children. In wars it is pretty much impossible not to. If your enemy hides behind their own children, using them as shields then it becomes even more likely.

Now we know that the two above things are true. Israel has killed a lower prcentage of children than most during similar wars, (by a lot too), and that Hamas uses civilians and kids to shelter themselves from the IDF. Bearing those two things in mind it becomes obvious that Israel goes pretty far out of its way to avoid the deaths of civilians and particularly kids.

Only around 9,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel since 1948. For comparison, Jordan killed twice as many in a month during Black September.

[pelsar]

27. clearly logic is not your strong point......

either that or word definition escapes you.

"weapons meant to kill children", means in case you don't 'understand what you wrote means that they were designed to kill kids,.....and lets face it, its a pretty stupid statement.

i'm not doging anything, just pointing out how your statement lacks simple logic, common sense,etc

[oberliner]

13. Interesting collection of websites

Good stuff.

[DonCoquixote]

17. Thanks

Funny how none of Zion's warriors was able to bring up any site that denied my information, then again, they are used to yelling "anti-semite" and stifling all thought.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[vminfla]

9. That's crazy. We all know that Jews use the blood of children for their matzot

Everyone knows that the Jews kidnap arab children before passover to use their blood for Passover matza.

[DonCoquixote]

10. You cannot make Matzo

with Tanks, Jets, and machine guns :)

[King_David]

5. Yea ?

Explain how that works please

[DonCoquixote]

16. simple

Israel kills civilians
we help them,
therefore, people get angry at us,
see, very simple.

[King_David]

19. Can you point to where American Military has helped israel

In a war .

[DonCoquixote]

23. simple again

we supply them the guns they need to fight that war...

It is funny seeing you try to split hairs and say "aha" when the truth is, if israel did not have access to OUR TAXPAYER FUNDED AID AND WEAPONS, they would not be able to kills so many civilians.

I brought links with facts, can you offer anything better, or keep trying to box people in to where you can go "aha" despite the fact that our weapons and our taxes make the killing possible.

[King_David]

26. What a desperate argument. nt

[DonCoquixote]

28. In other words

You have nothing to argue with.

[pelsar]

29. i'll do you a favor.....

and explain to you how the real world works....but you won't like it, since it will "ruin" your emotional rant:

ready?

israel buys a lot of smart weapons from the US and their parts. This allows for precision bombing etc. Without those very expensive weapons and systems israel would have to use cheaper less exact weapons.

for instance, instead of using a precision guided missile from a helicopter that is watching the group from afar with other monitoring systems waiting for the moment when the kassam firing group is isolated...the army would simply use artillery, who's first shells can be off by hundreds of meters and then get adjusted, which takes many more shells.

a lot cheaper, but a lot more damage is caused.

israel is hardly going to stop defending itself simply because the US decides not to help.
_______

[DonCoquixote]

30. this would be funny

So you say that these smarter weapons save lives, even when aimed at civilian targets?
If you bothered to read the links, you would get the list of people who would disagree, well, if they were still alive, that is.
And yes, let Israel defend itself WITHOUT OUR HELP! If they had to fight on their own, they would have had to negotiate peace a long time ago.

[pelsar]

31. guess you don't know much about bombs....

dumb bombs simply kill more of the "wrong people" when in a civilian environment as in gaza........i believe that is the point your having trouble with.....

and no....peace is not dependant upon the US and their military grants (which they use to keep their own industries working), you'll have to find some other way of attacking israel.

[DonCoquixote]

32. well then

who is the genius that uses it in a civilian environment? (answer: israel)
moreover, who is the genius that gives them bombs knowing they USE them on civilians? (us)\
and any gains for our industries are offset by having to waste money in the mid east,

I do not need to find any way to attack Israel, Israel is it own worst enemy.

[oberliner]

33. The US has killed numerous civilians all by itself

Why would the US have a problem selling/giving bombs to countries that use them in civilian areas when the US does exactly the same thing and has done so on a much larger scale?

[pelsar]

34. its those pesky facts that are so bothersome....

guess it would be kinda dumb to drop bombs on empty fields when trying to stop kassams from being fired...but i guess that is what your suggesting (either that or israel shouldn't bother trying to stop them..

so which is it?

[DonCoquixote]

35. how about

getting the hell out of occupied territories and letting the two state solution have a chance? Nah.

[pelsar]

36. don't you feel a lot better now?

so why didn't you just say so?..instead of writing all kind of foolish nonsense, of something you don't know a whole lot about...

now in answer to your question:

tried that

it didn't work out so well for us....you might have noticed the 'cheaper bombs" the Palestinians have been using, either human beings as the guidance system, or random rockets, both seem to target civilians, the first as a pre planned target, the second as a default......

(did you notice the missile that landed in an israeli school yard yesterday?)

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pelsar]

39. your confused again...

or lack of knowledge......it probably willful ignorance as far as i can tell. The whole "targeting civilian thing belongs to the Palestinians, did you miss their celebrations, they're quite proud of it.

And israel? if israel was actually targeting civilians their death toll would be in the thousands. At every checkpoint entering israel arab Palestinians are lined up, it wouldn't take much to kill a hundred civilians in a few minutes. Or in gaza, one of them most densest populated areas in the world, hell one 1000kg bomb on an apt building would destroy the whole thing an kill tens if not a hundred in a minute.

see, thats called simply knowledge of the environment, israel wouldn't need all those smart bombs and their complex and expensive systems if israel was targeting civilians...Like i mentioned earlier, logic is not really your strong point.

oh yea i suppose i should mention the obvious...hamas, islamic jihad live and "play" in gaza city and the civilian environment, israel doesn't yet have phasers and tractor beams, hence when missiles are sent and bombs dropped civilians will also be killed, since hamas and friends refuse to move out to a military environment.

i in fact value my life, my family my friends lives over the ones i don't know, this tribal mentality primitive as it is, is within all of us, including you.

[King_David]

45. Your links are POS antisemitic garbage

Rense.com. And other shit?

You link to this shit and wonder why people call some people anti-Semites?

You left out jewwatch on your list .

[Shaktimaan]

46. you forgot...

stormfront.

I'm sure it was easy to find anti Israel information when you go to anti-semitic sites.
Not many people have the cohones to admit that those sites are where they get their information from though. I'll give you credit for that. Be proud of your white heritage!!! Shout it from the rooftops.

That said, none of the bbc articles said anything about Israel purposefully targeting civilians. Less than 10,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel in 65 years of near-constant war. Twice that many were killed by Jordan in a month during Black September. But you don't seem to care about that, do you?

Judging by your website selections, it isn't hard to see why.

[King_David]

47. I dont think anyone who links to websites that you fo

Has an opinion worth reading.

[vminfla]

50. We Just need to buy bad guy seeking bullets

that can change direction and go around corners.

[shira]

22. If the USA cut Israel loose, they'd have to commit tens of billions $$$ in troops...

...bases, and aircraft carriers throughout the region.

Israel is a ginormous bargain.

[vminfla]

48. People keep forgetting how strategic a partner US is

Imagine how bad things would be in the Middle East if Israel were not there. For some, that is a wet dream. For clear-headed thinking people, we recognize what a nightmare that would be.

[azurnoir]

14. oh goody more off shore drilling in the gulf

perhaps we can turn the entire gulf into a dead zone what the heck it may be safer that way


FDA underestimated health risks of Gulf seafood following BP disaster, study finds


The concerns were often heard in Gulf Coast communities in the months after the BP oil disaster began unfolding last April: The federal Food & Drug Administration (FDA) was setting acceptable levels of seafood consumption that failed to adequately protect women and children from contaminants, and that did not account for the large amount of seafood that the region's residents eat.

A new study has found that those concerns were justified.

Research carried out by scientists affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and published online this month in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that the FDA seriously underestimated the health risks from contaminants in Gulf seafood following the BP disaster. The NRDC researchers focused on a group of chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are found in crude oil and have been linked to cancer and birth defects.

"We were surprised by how far off FDA's numbers really were," study co-author Miriam Rotkin-Ellman wrote on her blog. "FDA accepted 100 to 10,000 times more PAH contamination of seafood than our calculations deemed safe."

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/fda-underestimated-health-risks-of-gulf-seafood-following-bp-disaster-study-finds.html

[vminfla]

37. Different Gulf -And- More R&D spent in Israel helps both the US and Israel

Israel is a world leader in science and technology. Having them invest in oil exploration and R&D not only improves responsible drilling in the Middle East, but the technology garned from Israel will invariably help State-side gulf drilling.

[azurnoir]

40. And these companies will be importing American workers for these projects?

we're just to assume that right?

[King_David]

41. Why import them?

Plenty of USA citizens in Israel itself also Turkish citizens.

[azurnoir]

42. yes there are in fact we have a US citizen that posts here on DU who has been in Israel for

about 30 years now he is also an Israeli citizen, there are many US citizens in Israel they have dual citizenship but they are also living and working in Israel's economy this doesn't really do squat for American workers who actually live in the US and are for the most part are citizens of only this country

Could it be that some of workers here in the US just do not count with you?

[King_David]

43. Best you ask an American that question not me nt

[azurnoir]

44. ah so you are not concerned whether Americans living in the US have jobs? n/t

[vminfla]

49. OK, so the americans actually have to reside in the US ?

I primarily reside in the US, but have European customers. Is that good or bad?

[azurnoir]

51. I would say its neither good nor bad n/t