jefff@cadovax.UUCP (Jeffery H. Fields) (07/12/85)
Chris Shaw asks: >I have some questions.. Who (in Lebanon) has the US been supplying with arms >in order to "fuel the conflict". I don't mean just selling weapons on the >world's arms market, but government-sponsored support. Agreed, Lebanon is >a mess, but did the US have a starring role in the conflict? Or did the US >just sell popcorn? Chris, do you remember the US Marines who were killed by an American made cluster-bomb in Beirut? The cluster-bomb had landed unexploded in the airport. It exploded when the Marines on routine patrol stumbled on it. Fact: In 1982, when Israel first invaded Lebanon, the US was providing Israel with $7,000,000 per day in economic aid. I don't know what today's figures are, but they most certainly are higher. Fact: Israel spends more than half of the economic aid received from the US on US-made arms and munitions. Fact: Israel used the weapons it bought from the US to invade Lebanon. Thus, when you consider the facts, it follows that the US has effectively given the Israelis the weapons that have been used to kill thousands of Lebanese, i.e. the formerly occupying Israelis were the "who (in Lebanon)" that the US has been supplying with arms. Furthermore, the US supported the Maronite Christian Faction under the regimes of the Gemayel brothers. The Amal are bitter enemies of the Maronites. So, one can see how the US threw a lot of combustible material into the flaming conflicts in Lebanon. -- Jeff Fields {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!jefff Pax vobiscum.
tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL) (07/16/85)
> Fact: In 1982, when Israel first invaded Lebanon, the US was providing Israel > with $7,000,000 per day in economic aid. I don't know what today's figures are, > but they most certainly are higher. > Jeff Fields True Fact: U. S. aid to Israel today is roughly 3 billion dollars per year, which is approximately $800,000 per day. You slipped a decimal point. I trust it was not deliberate. -- Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan
paulb@ttidcc.UUCP (Paul Blumstein) (07/18/85)
In article <860@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL) writes: >> Fact: In 1982, when Israel first invaded Lebanon, the US was providing Israel >> with $7,000,000 per day in economic aid. I don't know what today's figures are, >> but they most certainly are higher. >> Jeff Fields > >True Fact: U. S. aid to Israel today is roughly 3 billion dollars >per year, which is approximately $800,000 per day. You slipped >a decimal point. I trust it was not deliberate. >-- >Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan Another Fact: A large portion of this aid has been in the form of loans, not non-returnables. Israel has had a good track record paying back those loans, unlike a lot of other countries we deal with. If we had to set up military bases in the region to protect our interests, we'd be paying a lot of money in any case. -- -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- Paul Blumstein "I may be drunk, but you're ugly. Citicorp/TTI Tomorrow, I'll be sober." 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. W. Churchill Santa Monica, CA 90405 (213) 450-9111 {philabs,randvax,trwrb,vortex}!ttidca!paulb
tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL) (07/22/85)
Unfortunately, Paul Blumstein reposted my article where I incorrectly accused Jeff Fields of slipping a decimal point about the amount of U. S. aid to Israel per day, where in reality, I slipped the decimal point. Because of the reposting, I will apologize again. I think this whole matter provides an illustration of David Canzi's article on the manipulative use of statistics. Seven million dollars per DAY sounds like so much more than two and one half billion dollars per YEAR. The way you state the figure depends on the point you wish to make. -- Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan
berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) (07/27/85)
> > Fact: In 1982, when Israel first invaded Lebanon, the US was providing Israel > > with $7,000,000 per day in economic aid. I don't know what today's figures are, > > but they most certainly are higher. > > Jeff Fields > > True Fact: U. S. aid to Israel today is roughly 3 billion dollars > per year, which is approximately $800,000 per day. You slipped > a decimal point. I trust it was not deliberate. > -- > Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan Hurra! At last, everybody can calculate the number of days in a year: $3,000,000,000/$800,000 per day = 3,750 days. On the other hand, using more traditional year with 365 days, $3,000,000,000/365 days = $8,216,438 per day. More to the point, the raw numbers, whatever the decimal digit, tell nothing. One needs to remeber that we are talking about money spent by a superpower in one of the most critical, and surely the most violatile area of the world. Personally, as a non-zionist Jew, I had followed the Lebanon war with very mixed feelings. First, I was outraged: a fabricated pretext for the invasion, broken promises about 25 km limit of the action, bombardment of Beirut and lastly, Sabra & Shatila massacres. But then, the subsequent massacres between Lebanese - Druse and Christian, Sunni and Shia, pro Arafat Palestinians and pro Syrian Palestinians, Shia and Palestinians, etc, reveled how intractable place the Lebanon is. The impression is that in Lebanon one needs tanks, artillery etc. just to be listended to -- this is the language that differnt factions there talk to each other. In summary, it seems that the Israeli action was justified and misguided in the same time. An objective observer must admit that PLO was bragging about its military preparations to figth Israel, and that formally Lebanon was (and is) in the state of war with Israel. Israel didn't attack a peaceful neighbor, but rather performed a military operation on the teritory of an military adversary. Thus the action was a justifiable one. On the other side of the picture, the net gains do not seem to justify human and economical costs, thus I think that the action was misguided.