Posts Tagged ‘Congressional Research Service’
Tidbits and notes posted on FB and Twitter. Part 226
Note: I take notes of books I read and comment on events and edit sentences that fit my style. I pay attention to researched documentaries and serious links I receive. The page of backlog opinions and events is long and growing like crazy, and the sections I post contains a month-old events that are worth refreshing your memory
AIPAC’s network of political action committees, nearly all have deceptive names. Who could possibly know that the Delaware Valley Good Government Association in Philadelphia, San Franciscans for Good Government in California, Cactus PAC in Arizona, Beaver PAC in Wisconsin, and even Icepac in New York are really pro-Israel PACs under deep cover?
Anyone can ask one of their representatives in Congress for a chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, that shows Israel received $62.5 billion in direct foreign aid from fiscal year 1949 through fiscal year 1996. Not counting the grants and investment by Evangelical Fundamentalist Zionists
For every dollar the U.S. spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the United States, it spent $214 on an Israeli.
The UN general Assembly declared by a crushing majority that Zionism is a form of racism in 1975. It abrogated it in 1991. Why? US congress has declared Jerusalem Capital of Israel in 1992
Congressional Research Service
On Nov. 22, 1974, the UN General Assembly recognized the right of Palestinians for a sovereign auto-determination
On Nov. 29, 2012, the UN General Assembly attributed to Palestine the status of “Non member State” that allowed it to cease the penal International Court and to sign treaties.
Israeli “Arabs” (Palestinians) who are disloyal to the State of Israel should have their heads chopped off, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at an elections conference at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. “Those who are against us, there’s nothing to be done – we need to pick up an ax and cut off his head,” Lieberman said. “Otherwise we won’t survive here.”
Avigdor Lieberman: “Citizens of the State of Israel who raise a black flag on Nakba Day (displacement of the Palestinians as Israel got recognized as a State in 1948 by a single vote) – from my perspective, they can leave, and I’m very happily willing to donate them to Abu Mazen,” he said, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
You woke up early on a Sunday and spent the day hiking. You returned home exhausted and went to bed, not even finding the energy to wash…How many tasks did you achieve this day?
Suppose you did take pictures for your blog, or did interviews or talked to a few people to describe your trip for your blog to share with readers…How many tasks did you achieve this day?
You are preparing for an exam or working on a homework and did nothing but focusing on these assignments…You ask your mom to prepare you something to eat while studying…How many tasks did you achieve today?
I did the count of the many kinds of task I perform during a day, and I figured out that I finish about 3 tasks per hour, on average, during my waking hours. A few tasks require an hour-long focus, and many are mainly maintenance tasks to survive and keep healthy and alert, and be of some benefit to the household…
Kamal Nader and Hicham Halaoui shared نوبة تود’s post.
The grandest Palestinian kid: shot in the heart by Israel and still standing tall and looking straight at the murderers
US weapon market share: Two-third of world total ($85 bn) and tripled during Obama…
The report on weapon sales was prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress. The annual study, written by Richard F. Grimmett and Paul K. Kerr and delivered to Congress on Friday, is considered the most detailed collection of unclassified arms sales data available to the public.
Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011.
Russia was a far distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.
THOM SHANKER published in the New York Times on August 26, 2012:
WASHINGTON — Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress.
GraphicThe American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” of over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010 and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports.
The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.
A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years. But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — to purchase American weapons at record levels.
These Gulf states do not share a border with Iran, and their arms purchases focused on expensive warplanes and complex missile defense systems.
The agreements with Saudi Arabia included the purchase of 84 advanced F-15 fighters, a variety of ammunition, missiles and logistics support, and upgrades of 70 of the F-15 fighters in the current fleet.
Sales to Saudi Arabia last year also included dozens of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, all contributing to a total Saudi weapons deal from the United States of $33.4 billion, according to the study.
The United Arab Emirates purchased a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, an advanced antimissile shield that includes radars and is valued at $3.49 billion, as well as 16 Chinook helicopters for $939 million.
Oman bought 18 F-16 fighters for $1.4 billion.
In keeping with recent trends, most of the weapons purchases, worth about $71.5 billion, were made by developing nations, with about $56.3 billion of that from the United States.
Other significant weapons deals by the United States last year included a $4.1 billion agreement with India for 10 C-17 transport planes and with Taiwan for Patriot antimissile batteries valued at $2 billion — an arms deal that outraged officials in Beijing.
A policy goal of the United States has been to work with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf to knit together a regional missile defense system to protect cities, oil refineries, pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack.
The effort has included deploying radars to increase the range of early warning coverage across the Persian Gulf, as well as introducing command, control and communications systems that could exchange that information with new batteries of missile interceptors sold to the individual nations.
The missile shield in the Persian Gulf is being built on a country-by-country basis — with these costly arms sales negotiated bilaterally between the United States and individual nations.
To compare weapons sales over various years, the study used figures in 2011 dollars, with amounts for previous years adjusted for inflation to provide a consistent measurement.
Note 1: The weapon purchases of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates are just tacit policies of warehousing weapon reserves for the US military in eventual emergency wars in the Middle-East, instead of planing for aerial bridges to transport expensive and heavy weapons. In any case, it is well-known that oil sales are reverted to the US treasury and for aiding in US covert operations not approved by Congress…Yearly astronomical deals so that the US guarantees the absolute obscurantist regimes in Saudi Arabia and the absolute Gulf Emirates
Note 2: After 4 decades, it is about time that the US desist sub-contructing its foreign policies in the Middle-East to Israel
Adonis Diaries 