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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30565 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

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Perhaps no one has noticed given Trump, Ukraine, Yemen, Trump, and eggs: war in the Middle East is back! Very strong words from America in support of Israel:

All hell will break loose, and all of the terrorists in the Middle East – again, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian-backed terror proxies and Iran themselves – should take President Trump very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law-abiding people. He is not afraid to stand up for the United States of America and our friend and our ally Israel.

as compared to “Canada only works as a state”. Israel’s reasoning is as follows:

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement cited by Israeli media that the attacks had “the goal of achieving the war objectives as determined by the political leadership, including the release of all our hostages – both the living and the fallen”.

Prompt: what is it that makes Israel worthy of the friendship of the US whereas NATO is worthy of relegation given both would pull it into wars of choice half way around the world of no strategic importance? Follow-up: should Israel be the 51st state?

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/17/middleeast/israel-strikes-gaza-hamas-ceasefire-intl-hnk

what is it that makes Israel worthy of the friendship of the US whereas NATO is worthy of relegation

I understand that users here tend to be particularly stupid when it comes to anything involving jews, but the simple answer is that unlike the Germans, the Isrealis pay thier bills and have actually managed to win a war in the last century.

Also Ukraine just costs a lot more. America has sent more aid to Ukraine in 2 years than it has sent to Israel in the last 30. Ukraine has gotten as much aid in 2 years as Afghanistan got in two decades. And that’s just from the United States, not counting what Ukraine is getting from Europe.

The numbers are actually pretty close. US aid to Israel is about 4 billion USD per year, so "in the last 30 years" is c. 120 billion (on an inflation-adjusted basis - the headline figure is lower). The total amount appropriated by Congress in Ukraine aid bills is 180-190 billion, but that includes the cost of new-for-old replacement of old weapons delivered to Ukraine - the highest estimate of the actualSo value of the aid (counting the weapons actually delivered, not the newer weapons the US is replacing them with) is 128 billion (not all of which has been spent) according to this CFR report

So given the difficulty of getting a straight answer to either question by googling, "about the same amount" seems accurate.

Just wanted to say that I appreciate the offering of actual data on a question of fact.

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