« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

American Spring: Time to Stop Funding Terror Around the World

Job stimulus for terrorists, a housing crisis for Israel, moral relativism, oh my!

Barack Obama has many sinister friends who are egregiously subsidized by taxpayers, but at least they aren’t terrorists.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for his foreign patrons.  At a time when Congress is searching for any morsel to cut from our domestic budget, Obama wants to expand foreign aid..to terrorists and terror filled nations.  His push for expanded foreign aid comes as part of a broader endorsement of the “Arab Spring” uprisings in his latest foreign policy speech.   Bin Laden is also endorsing them from the grave.  Republicans need to call for an American Spring and categorically oppose all aid to enemy nations and entities in the 2012 budget.

Over the past few months, Obama has helped blow up the Middle East by supporting radical Muslim uprisings in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.  Simultaneously, he has hypocritically remained silent on Bashar Assad’s violent repression in Syria until this week when he announced vapid sanctions on the Syrian dictator.  He is still refusing to recall his ambassador from Damascus that he sent in 2009 as a gesture to Assad.  He didn’t even call for tough measures against Syria’s puppet master; Iran, while claiming to support the Iranian protesters, despite his indifference when it really mattered in 2009.

However, upon further cogitation, Obama’s actions are actually quite consistent.  In both Egypt and Syria, Obama has strengthened the hand of terrorist organizations, placing Israel in great peril.

His support of Mubabrak’s demise in Egypt, has led to a popular groundswell for war against Israel fomented by the Muslim Brotherhood.  His continued support for Hamas and Fatah in Israel (with the proviso that they denounce “violence”, of course) has emboldened the Palestinian terrorists and jeopardized the besieged state from within.  Finally, his calculated tepid response to Syria’s aggression, despite his tough rhetoric, and refusal to break diplomatic relations, has emboldened arch terrorist Assad to incite a breach of the Israeli border.  State Department officials told the New York Times that Obama is worried about undermining the Syrian murderer because he views him as an indispensable partner in final negotiations for an Israeli peace deal, a.k.a. forcing Israel to hand over the Golan Heights.  Hence, Obama views Assad as to big to fail.

Obama has successfully imperiled Israel on all fronts, while using American money and diplomacy to undermine the prestige of both nations.  As the ever prescient Caroline Glick succinctly opined last week, “Unlike his predecessors, Obama’s interest in the Palestinians is not opportunistic. He is a true believer.”

Now, in anticipation of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, Obama plans to ask for more aid for Egypt, Libya, and the Palestinians, even as he turns the screws to Israel by demanding their retreat from their heartland and live within the Auschwitz borders.  Additionally, in his speech today, Obama opened the door for the division of Jerusalem and the right of return for millions of Arabs to the remaining morsels of Israel’s diminished state.   He wants to spawn job creation in the Middle East even as he kills jobs at home.  Instead, Republicans should return the favor by cutting off all foreign aid to enemy countries.

In FY 2010, we spent $39.4 billion on foreign assistance, the highest amount since 1985.  Obama is requesting $40.12 billion for FY 2012.   Here is a list of the top ten recipients of foreign aid:

Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) introduced a resolution (H.Res. 173) to prohibit the consideration of any bill that appropriates foreign aid for more than one country at a time.  This will allow Congress to strike out the terrorist supporting nations from appropriations bills without falling into an administration trap of opposing aid to allies.  Here are the terror supporting nations and entities that should be the first to be cut:

Palestinians and UNRWA

There is no such thing as a Palestinian, and the term only became popularized by the PLO in the ’90s.  We give them roughly $500 million annually and up to $1 billion on occasion (FY 2009).  Additionally, we contributed $267 million in FY 2009 to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organization that harbors Palestinian terrorists under the guise of humanitarian aid.  We are the largest bilateral donor to UNRWA.  If the Obama administration officials were left to their own devices, they would authorize hundreds of millions more in aid to the Palestinians.

Even for those who are too naive and uninformed to understand that the PLO-Fatah are a bunch of terrorists, must certainly agree that their unity government with Hamas is a deal breaker.  A creation of a 22nd Arab state and 2nd Palestinian state (the first being Jordan) is absolutely inimical to our interests.  They will make the Taliban look like girl scouts and they will serve as the most effective proxy for Iran.  Obama’s puerile platitudes stating that Hamas must renounce terror are as fatuous as a declaration that Obama must renounce stimulus spending.  At present, any aid to the PLO is morally indefensible.

Egypt

Egypt receives about $1.5 billion in foreign aid per year.  Additionally, Obama is asking Congress to forgive $1 billion more in debt and grant them another $1 billion loan.  Before Obama helped overthrow Mubarak, Egypt provided stability in the region, helped fight Islamofascists, secured the chaotic border with Gaza, and committed to the treaty with Israel.  As such, there was some justification for that aid.

Obama has obviated any justification for aid by paving the road for the Muslim Brotherhood to ascend to power.  Thousands of Egyptians have been rioting in the streets calling for the end of the treaty with Israel, while the border with Gaza has been breached, allowing terrorists and weapons to flow across freely.  Moreover, domestically, Muslim gangs have been massacring the Coptic Christians and repressing women. Not one penny of aid for Egypt!

Pakistan

Paukeestaun has received upward of $13 billion in taxpayer dollars over the past decade.  Obama is requesting over $3 billion for this year, a slightly higher sum than Israel’s aid.  Pakistan is an absolute crack pot nation and perhaps the most Islamist concentrated nation in the world.

In theory, there is some merit to expending surreptitious help to the Pakistani government so they can maintain stability against their whacked out constituents, and ensure that nuclear weapons don’t fall into the wrong hands.  Also, there is clearly a lot of double-take and triple-take that is taking place behind the diplomatic scenes that we are not seeing.  At this point, however, there are too many open questions about the Pakistanis that demand resolution before we give them another penny of taxpayer money.  Moreover, Pakistan’s newfound relation with China is extremely disconcerting.

Congressmen Ted Poe and Vern Buchanan (R-FL) are introducing legislation to prohibit foreign aid to Pakistan until they can demonstrate that they had no knowledge of Osama’s whereabouts.

Lebanon and UNIFIL

For FY 2011, Obama asked for $246.3 million in total aid to Lebanon.  In addition, Obama asked for $211 million for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon who helped Hezbollah during their war with Israel in 2006.  Our aid to Lebanon has increased six-fold since the supposed Syrian pullout in 2006.  However, Hezbollah has ostensibly taken over the government, and by extension; Syria, and by further extension; Iran.  This is a no-brainer.

Libya

Obama is asking for $25 million for the Al-Qaeda backed rebels in Libya.  This comes just a few months after he requested $1.7 million from Congress to train Qaddafi’s military!  His policy towards Libya is as incoherent and schizophrenic as could be.  We should stay out and let both sides bleed.

Did Obama’s Muslim charm offensive even help?

Unfortunately, even after sending billions of dollars to these terrorist cesspool nations, America’s favorability ratings are still dismal in every one of these countries except Lebanon.  According to a Pew Research poll, 42% of Palestinians hold a favorable view of Hamas and 61% view Hezbollah favorably.  You just can’t buy love in the Middle East.

Ideological distinctions in foreign policy are often ambiguous and vague.  However, Obama, with his dyslexic foreign policy of supporting enemies and undermining friends, has provided Republicans with a historic opportunity to distinguish themselves.  The President has wide latitude over foreign operations, but Congress holds the purse strings.  It’s time for Republicans to categorically reject the idiocy of giving taxpayer dollars to those who pray for our demise.  It’s time for our own American Spring.

Cross-posted to Red Meat Conservative

COMMENTS

  • sandbun

    you do lose points for the whole “Obama helped overthrow Mubarak” rhetoric. The fact is Obama sat on the sidelines (much as he did with Iran and is doing in Syria) until it was already clear that the revolution wouldn’t stop until Mubarak left. There is nothing he could’ve done, save sending in the US military, to preserve Mubarak’s presidency.

    Also I’d quibble with the way you presented “Unfortunately, even after sending billions of dollars to these terrorist cesspool nations, America?s favorability ratings are still dismal in every one of these countries except Lebanon.” It’s entirely true, but you overlook part of the reason our favorability rating are so terrible is BECAUSE we send aid to those countries. Using aid to prop up dictators isn’t going to help your favorability ratings with the general population.

    Other than that, spot on. We already needed to re-evaluate our foreign aid, and the Arab Spring only increases that need.

    • http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ Daniel Horowitz

      Sat on the sidelines? Maybe at the beginning when he was caught off guard. Once he got his immoral compass in place his press Secretary said “Muburak must resign now, and now means yesterday. That is a pretty astounding thing to say to an ally who was the only one to keep the country at peace with our interests. The point is that he never came close to exhibiting such resoluteness with Ahmedenijad and Assad.

      Regarding our favorability ratings, you prove my point. It will never help and that is why sending them more money now to a lawless and undefined government won’t improve our standing, nor should we care.

      • sandbun

        Muburak had no chance by the time they said that he had to go. A lot of people were condemning him on how late it was before he figured that out. But even if he hadn’t, do you really think Obama has that much pull with the revolutionaries in Egypt? That if he wouldn’t have said that Muburak had to step down then Muburak would still be the President? As I said, nothing we could’ve done other than military intervention would’ve made any difference.

        Exactly right about favorability ratings, just a point I thought you had overlooked.

  • YnotNOW

    Foreign Aid consistently tops the list of budget items that the “public” would like to cut. Mostly because they ignorantly want to make cuts on “the other guy” and not the painful ones that will affect themselves. But also because they assume that we’re only throwing money away at people who don’t like us anyway.

    The fact is, that foreign aid is the price we pay to have any leverage in many areas of the world, which is much cheaper than military leverage. Egypt is a good example, in that we don’t much like most of the players there, but we do want to influence them toward democratic and freedom goals and rule-of-law. Do we really want to give up what little leverage we have, and say in effect “whatever you guys come up with is what we’ll deal with.” ??

    Certainly, the Obama administration is skewed against Israel and promotes policies that put our one ally in the region in a bind. And has not applied the leverage of foreign aid and diplomacy effectively in promoting American interests (deferring instead to UN interests). But that does not mean that foreign aid should be eschewed. Or that we should give up that tool in our diplomatic arsenal.

    • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

      Not to mention that what we spend in foreign aid, despite what most Americans think, is a rounding error in relation to the annual federal budget.

  • BigRedConservative

    Foreign aid is the only way we’ll be able to push the incompetent Islamist dictators out of business. Speaking as someone with experience in the 3rd World, we can either choose who we want or end up with someone we don’t want. The best way to get rid of people like Zardari, or organizations like Hamas, is to fund grassroots movements. Or else the Muslim Brotherhood jump in before us and we end with a Pakistan.

    Oh, and I disagree point blank with your statement on Palestine. We support democracy everywhere, and it is completely inaccurate to deny Palestine statehood based on a possibility that it might lead to an Iranian puppet state. A non-state Palestine angry with America is infinitely more dangerous than a Palestinian state ignoring America.

    A million dollars of aid does infinitely more good than a million-dollar missile.

    • MF

      “A non-state Palestine angry with America is infinitely more dangerous than a Palestinian state ignoring America.”

      As if creating a Palestinian state will cause them to ignore America. Here, let me try to state it a little more realistically:

      A non-state Palestinian group angry with America is no better than a Palestinian state angry with America. They will always hate America and Israel and all other “infidels” as long as we exist. At best, granting statehood will temporarily molify them toward America, but you can be assured it will be that – temporary. Worse, it will strengthen them, better equipping them to damage Israel and America.

      No thanks.

  • taylerdog23

    to me. I agree with YNN, rickbull & BRC above. Foreign aid is relatively minuscule and is a necessary component to use in pursuing foreign policy goals.

    Also agree with BRC’s note above regarding Palestine (although you may quibble with the word “Palestine” since you clearly don’t believe Palestinians exist). I’d love to see your response to BRC’s great point re: democracy and Palestinian statehood.

    Finally, while I’m more than happy to blast this administration for anything they deserve it for, your claim view of Obama’s “dyslexic foreign policy of supporting enemies and undermining friends” seems to be belied by the facts on foreign aid. Since the content of your post is about foreign aid, I’m not sure how you square your view that this administration undermines Israel when the fact is that foreign aid to Israel has increased during this administration. Your own chart above shows an increase from FY2010 to FY2011. As does this: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf.

    I can only assume that you bristle at almost any criticism of Israel and view it as unfair. That is absolutely your right and I respect your viewpoint. But doesn’t the U.S. have a voice in Israeli affairs considering that they are the 2nd or 3rd highest recipient of U.S. foreign aid?

    Nonetheless, appreciate your post.

    • http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ Daniel Horowitz

      You are either woefully ignorant of history and current events, or you get your news from the New York Times.

      1. Nobody ever said that foreign aid is a significant part of the budget. Nonetheless, we need to cut anything that we can, and foreign aid is certainly easier than domestic programs. Moreover, not one penny should go to terrorists and throat sliters on moral grounds, not just from a budgetary perspective. We all understand the prudence of foreign aid for strategic interests, but that is only when it serves your strategic interests. For example, when Mubarak was in power, he served our interests by keeping stability at the Suez Canal and keeping the Islamists at bay. However, once the country descends into chaos and is largely supported by radical Islam, we don?t give taxpayer dollars to terrorists.

      We have been giving money to the Palestinians since 1993. In addition, they are the most aided entity per capita in world history. Where the hell are the results of it? Enough is enough. Then again, we can continue bleeding Israel dry and repeat the inane cycle of concessions and you and your moral relativism will continue to blithely propagate the same platitudes about the promised peace of a Palestinian State. Oh, if only they had their own state they would put their toys away and embrace democracy and live happily ever after.

      2. Palestine is a geographical region, not a people. To the extent that it is a people-it is referring to the Jews who lived in that part of the Roman Empire when Hadrian originally coined the term. It was named after the ancient Philistines mentioned in Genesis. It was only recently, primarily in the ’90s, that the term was highjacked by the Arabs and the leftists to proliferate an aura of legitimacy for a decrepit, licentious, and nefarious people.

      3. What part of the last 18 years of state of affairs with the Palestinians/Hamas/Fatah/Iran do you not understand? There is no democracy project. We are not giving money to a group of pro-American freedom fighters to overthrow Hamas. We are giving money to the terrorist entity itself. There is no freedom agenda or strategic interest in that. These people are the most radical and regressive on earth. They chose Hamas for their government for a reason. Nothing can change the decade?s worth of poisonous indoctrination that every Arab there has been inculcated with from birth. As such, it is not just a handful of radicals we are dealing with. Extreme violence is endemic of that whole society, and at this point, is immutable. Consequently, it is not in our strategic interest to engage in such a fatuous and dangerous experiment. We have enough problems dealing with the existing 21 Arab states. We don?t need a 22nd one.

      I cannot fathom the degree of nievity it takes to believe that the recognition of statehood would change their entire fiber of being. It is Islamism to the core that drives them to behave so repugnantly. You can never extirpate that from them. Even had it been possible to change them several decades ago, the ship already sailed on that. Decades worth of violent indcortination can never be overcome.

      Also, even if you buy into the credulous view that every Arab entity can be normalized through democratization, this case is different. You can’t create a democracy for one undeserved people by raping another, especially when their land mass is smaller than New Jersey to begin with. They won that territory in a defensive war-the ultimate defensive war, in which they faced complete extermination. Nonetheless, they still gave back 90% of it (the Sinai Pen.), and in 2006, became the first country to use their army and evict their own citizens for the purpose of giving the land over to their enemies (Gaza). How the hell did that work out? And it still isn’t enough? Get a clue, lefty troll.

      Should we go back to the 1848 borders which we won in an offensive war just because Mexico is flooding the southwest and infringing on our territory. Is that a solution to the border problem and the tensions between us and Mexico? Maybe leftists like you and Obama think so. Should we give back the Louisiana Purchase to the French, because let’s face it, they were ripped off? It’s funny how much of a parellel there is between our border and theirs. Obama ought to secure our own border first before he screws with Israel’s border.

      In addition, somehow there is this premise that giving land to the so-called Palestinians requires the brutal eviction of all Jews living in that land. It’s funny how there are 2 million Arabs living inside of Israel (pre-67 Israel at that), most living off welfare, and enjoying more rights than they would in their own hell hole, basket case countries. Yet, if Israel were to accede to Obama’s demands, they would have to expel 500,000 people from their homes. Additionally, because the Arabs would be so excited and obsequies over their newfound “peace”, they would desecrate all of the Jewish and Christian graves, cemeteries, holy sites, synagogues, and churches. Israel would have to dig up their own cemeteries like they did in Gaza. Only morally decedent people like you, Obama, and the NYT editors are agog over such an idea. The NYT savored the fact that Gaza was made Judenrein in 2006, and they are breathlessly waiting the moment it will occur in the rest of that diminutive land.

      4. Look at a damn map and educate yourself on geography. There is simply no way that two secure and contiguous states can exist within that area, even if both sides were civilized. Being that one side is inexorably violent and hell-bent on the destruction of the other, it is a recipe for disaster.

      5. The aid to Israel is something that is set in stone from bi-partisan support of Congress. It has nothing to do with Obama. Politically, he can?t rescind it so instead, he uses it to screw them. Personally, I would be fine with cutting aid to everyone and let Israel do what they want. I just don?t want my money going to Hamas and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade (Fatah/PLO).

      As Rush said earlier today, has Osama been alive another few more weeks, he would be proud of Obama for executing his dream.

      • taylerdog23

        Seriously, I really appreciate the time you put into it.

        I’m on international work travel for the next few days and won’t get a chance to respond back right away, but I’ll review your response when I get a chance and get back to you. Just wanted to get back to you right away because I appreciate where you’re coming from.

        That being said, I of course do not appreciate the “leftist troll” comment. No worries, though. But c’mon, dude, that’s just lazy. You have some good info in your reply, but the leftist troll and “you are ignorant about history” thing kind of defeats your logical reply. For me at least. I can see that this is an emotional topic for you, but the troll thing is just soooo tired. That’s cool, though. Think whatever you want about me. I’m sure we can have a dialogue about all this though. You seem like a smart dude, and that’s why I come to RS–for conversations with smart folks that probably know more than I do.

        Real quick note about me–I’m not a leftist troll and this is not a conceptual argument for me. I grew up for 5 years in Jerusalem/Tel Aviv/Haifa. I rode the 48 and sometimes 18 buses on my way to elementary & middle school. I was 10 years old when my route 18 bus got hit by suicide bombers twice in less than 2 weeks (thankfully I wasn’t on the buses). So yeah, I understand terrorism and fear and Israeli’s dire concerns for security. I can only hope that you have had the privilege of living in Yerushalayim for an extended period (sorry, but Birthright trips mean little to me in terms of really understanding what Israelis [and Palestinians] deal with on a day-to-day basis–I learned zero about the Israeli-Palestinian situation when I did mine) and were able to experience the majesty of that city, as well as its challenges.

        Thanks again, brother. Have a great weekend.

      • MF

        Mr. Horowitz, I couldn’t be in stronger agreement with you on everything. Since the only other posters to this thread all seem to be taking the other side, I wanted others to know that he is not at all alone. Apparently others just haven’t taken the time to give him the 5′s that he so strongly deserves.

  • kevin78

    We need only one more law. The only law we need is one that states that no more laws would be passed until we enforced our present laws.