I think that the real truth of the matter is that somone in the US is going to make a lot of money from this sale and it is too bad if some country hicks(see servicemen) cop it in the neck as collateral.

Unfortunately most serious arms manufactures are becoming multinational for economic reasons(is it true that some of the electronics used in the ASF or F35 are made in China?).

Multinational companies have no borders and no patriotism and their only religion is money.

Posted by: Zathras at June 29, 2006 5:17 AM

So Egypt got 60 billion dollars. That is the exact amount that was pledged by Mr. Prez as aid to pakistan in 2003. One wonders, as any remotely sane person would wonder, why the world would want to support a country that cannot even feed itself, and is the largest exporter of terror to the whole world. All the remotely informed people know what pakistan stands for, yet the policy makers do not see it for what it is.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at June 29, 2006 5:20 AM

The Egyptians are classic examples of degenerate pygmie descendents sitting on the ruins of a great civilization they can't ever rival.

Posted by: Dumbo at June 29, 2006 7:51 AM

Like "cargo cultists", the modern inhabitants of what was once "Egypt" wait for miraculous "stuff" to fall from the skies from those strange creatures in odd clothes who hear their prayers and bring goodies.

Time to cut off the gravy train. Or jizyah airlift.

They are not Berlin in the late 1940's.

They are blockaded by their own beliefs in the Koran.

To paraphrase a French dame:

Let them each mummies.

Posted by: profitsbeard at June 29, 2006 12:04 PM

Sorry, that French gal should have said:

"Let them eat mummies."

Posted by: profitsbeard at June 29, 2006 12:05 PM

Hugh,
60 BILLION Dollars?!? That is outrageous.
What should we, the United States citizens, do, in order to get that "one Senator or one Congressman to tell the truth about this Jizyah, and to demand a halt?"

Posted by: Martin 665 at June 29, 2006 1:52 PM

Call, write, re-call, re-write your Congressman. Call in to Talk Shows. Talk to everyone you know. Demand that the Jizyah stop. Don't stop till it stops. Keep going. Stamina needed, but the argument is not complicated once you grasp the nature and permanent menace of Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at June 29, 2006 5:09 PM

The Middle East is dangerous enough as it is, without the U.S. doing anything right now that could endanger the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979, such as a precipitate cutoff of aid to Egypt. We've got a pretty full plate as it is: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, even North Korea. Let's not rock the Egypt-Israel boat right now.

We'll be better off if we can decisively beat just one of these adversaries, and get ourselves on the scoreboard, rather than dissipating our limited resources opposing them all simultaneously right now.

Posted by: Steven L. at June 29, 2006 5:24 PM

Maybe the US Congress could impose an egyptian accountability act on egypt, just as there is such a US law regarding Syria. Egypt would have to show a great improvement in treatment of the Copts, the stereotypes of Jews on Egyptian tv, etc.

Posted by: Eliyahu at June 29, 2006 5:35 PM

Islam is at War with US and the world, I believe we should be at War with Islam!
Where is the 60 billion contract we second class citizens of US have to pay the enemy Islam and sponsor of the Egyptian Brotherhood's den of evils, et al? Where are the best, Senators, Congressmen, money can buy, to close the borders and tell the truth about this Jizyah with Egypt and other Arab Colonies? Where is the solution for importing and feeding the enemy that well destroy us?
The solution is obvious, the well power is not.

Posted by: ElephantWalker at June 29, 2006 8:59 PM

The money we're spending on Egypt is keeping Egypt pigeonholed right now so that Israel can sweep through Gaza, and deliver a punishing blow to Hamas there. Israel has a free hand without worrying that Egypt will jump into the conflict with their own armed forces. The Muslim Brotherhood said angrily that they know that they can expect no help from Egypt, so why should they even bother asking them?

That's money well worth spent. It's keeping Egypt detached from the Palestinian intifada, and Hugh likes to see Arabs fighting amongst themselves.

Posted by: Steven L. at June 29, 2006 9:28 PM

"The money we're spending on Egypt is keeping Egypt pigeonholed right now so that Israel can sweep through Gaza, and deliver a punishing blow to Hamas there. Israel has a free hand without worrying that Egypt will jump into the conflict with their own armed forces. The Muslim Brotherhood said angrily that they know that they can expect no help from Egypt, so why should they even bother asking them?

That's money well worth spent. It's keeping Egypt detached from the Palestinian intifada, and Hugh likes to see Arabs fighting amongst themselves."
-- from a posting above

The poster above continues to insist that the nearly $2 billion a year that the American taxpayers are forced to turn over to the government of Egypt is justified, because it keeps Egypt from making war on Israel. No. What keeps Egypt from making war, in the military sense -- in every other sense Egypt has not stopped making war against Israel even for a second -- is fear of Israeli counter-attack, and fear of losing, and never getting back, the Sinai. That's all. There is no need to give Egypt anything. Egypt will not attack Israel just so long as Israel can inflict great, undoubtedly greater, damage in return. That is what keeps the peace between Egypt and Israel. The United States should not, in addition, be bribing Egypt, a corrupt despotism and center of both world antisemitism and, more to the immediate point, a center of anti-Americanism for the entire Muslim world.

Posted by: Hugh at June 29, 2006 10:32 PM

"Egypt, ... a center of anti-Americanism for the entire Muslim world."

Manifested, among other things, by the barbaric and regressive teachings and edicts coming out of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, perhaps the closest thing to a Vatican the Sunni Muslim world has.

Posted by: Television at June 30, 2006 12:30 AM

"...barbaric and regressive teachings and edicts coming out of Egypt's Al-Azhar University...."

See the 700-page collection of anti-Jewish writings in Islam, lovingly collected and presented by then Sheikh al-Azhar Tantawi. Why, he even includes that antisemitic sentiment, falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, that antisemites everywhere have always found a particular favorite.

Somehow the contents of the Tantawi volume must have escaped Bernard Lewis's notice, for he so often insists that Muslim antisemitism is a new phenonomenon, an "import" from Europe. This is untrue.

Posted by: Hugh at June 30, 2006 1:10 AM

Hugh .. once you grasp the nature and permanent nature of Islam.

Elephantwalker..I believe we should be at WAR with Islam.

Both absolutely true statements. The world is permanently at war with Islam. The Qur'an says that a good Muslim wages the war of Jihad. A bad Muslim is one who doesn't kill infidels.
For some unknown reason, the government of the U.S. insists on a war on terror.
It isn't a war on terror, it is a war against terrorists, against Islam; against Muslims who follow the Qur'an to murder, rape, torture, and mutilate in the names if Allah and Muhammed.
Giving money to Egypt is like giving those rifles to the Palestinians. Stupid and insane; stupid being dumb on purpose.
We have been at war with Islam for at least 20 years. It is time Bush & co. to wake up!

Posted by: cactus at June 30, 2006 10:58 AM

Hugh writes: "What keeps Egypt from making war, in the military sense -- in every other sense Egypt has not stopped making war against Israel even for a second -- is fear of Israeli counter-attack, and fear of losing, and never getting back, the Sinai. That's all."

No it's not. That never stopped them before. They got totally clobbered by Israel in 1967 but that didn't stop them from trying for a rematch only six years later in 1973. And with their surprise attack, they very nearly succeeded that time.

Beyond that, the effect of the peace treaty has been to keep Egypt from actively supporting the Palestinian intifada. The Egyptian government knows what the implicit quid pro quo is for U.S. aid, and they've given us that over the years. This week, the Egyptian parliament has voiced its "concern" over Israeli actions in the Gaza strip but that's about all, and that's remarkably mild. Egypt could make things very tough for Israel and the U.S. by actively aiding the Palestinian intifada as Iran has done, and/or by joining in anti-Israel alliances with other Muslim states, just like they used to do before the 1979 treaty. But they haven't.

Hugh, your position here is inconsistent. You say that you want to see Muslim factions (Shi'a, Sunni, insurgents, governments, etc.) disunited amongst each other because it may weaken the overall Islamic jihad against us. Fine. If it costs billions to bribe some of these Islamic factions to keep them from uniting and maybe even turn them on one another, that's money well spent. It's a fraction of what we've spent to build "democracy" (whatever that means) in Iraq.

Posted by: Steven L. at June 30, 2006 3:21 PM

"Hugh writes: 'What keeps Egypt from making war, in the military sense -- in every other sense Egypt has not stopped making war against Israel even for a second -- is fear of Israeli counter-attack, and fear of losing, and never getting back, the Sinai. That's all.

No it's not. That never stopped them before. They got totally clobbered by Israel in 1967 but that didn't stop them from trying for a rematch only six years later in 1973. And with their surprise attack, they very nearly succeeded that time."
-- from a poster above

That "never stopped them before"? In May 1948 the Arabs attacked the nascent state of Israel, 600,000 Jews with no arms (the rifles they had had, given them by the British during the war because the British knew that the Jews of Palestine would help fight the Germans, and they did, volunteering for the most dangerous, suicidal missions in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, were taken back by the British after the war), and certainly thought they would win. They learned a lesson. That lesson, which was to avoid all-out assault, was then over time unlearned, and in May 1967 Nasser showed that he believed that this time the assault would be successful. The Arab fiasco that followed kept the peace, for a while -- until 1973. And in that case, Israel pulled things out only after a few days and heavy losses, but that it did pull things out, that it could, without the Nixon-Kissiner saving of Egypt's Third Army from complete destruction by Sharon, taught Sadat a lesson. The lesson was to use wiles and smiles to win what could not be won by war, and that is exactly what he did in offering that "peace" that consisted of Israel handing over tangible assets, the Sinai, and Egypt promising merely to refrain from hostile acts and to encourage friendly relations which, of course, the Egyptian government had no intention of doing, and never did.

Israel's military might "has never stopped them [the Egyptians]before?" Are you crazy? Do you really think that the defeat of 1967 did not, for a long period, stop not only Egypt but the rest of the Arab countries, from attacking, did not make them realize that they would have to be more patient, try to wear Israel down with an economic, diplomatic, and every other kind of siege, but not with an all-out military assault? A lesson can be learned, and was, but that doesn't mean that it remains vivid, and the lesson was not "we must never attack Israel again" but rather, "we must not attack Israel until we have sufficiently weakened it so as to have a chance of success." By 1973, Sadat and the Syrians thought they had a reasonable chance of success if they launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur. And they were right. They almost pulled it off.

For you to keep telling me, and others, that you think Egypt has deserved its $60 billion, for you to deny the obvious malevolence of Egypt toward Israel, not merely in its television programming (a multi-part series based on "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is not exactly fulfilling the solemn commitments under the Camp David Accrods), but in the thousands of rifles, and explosives and other materiel smuggled, without the Egyptians being perfectly aware, for years, through tunnels dug from Egyptian-controlled Sinai right into Gaza, and in the refusal to allow Egyptians to travel to Israel, Mubarak's refusal to meet with his Israeli counterpart in Israel, and in so many other ways, all shows that Egypt has failed to live up to its quite modest promises under those Accords.

Egypt in 2004 was the third largest spende on foreign arms, after China and India. Why did Egypt buy $7.5 billion in arms? Why does Egypt continue, if its people are so impoverished, to spend billions on arms? You tell me why.

Why are we supporting a corrupt and vicious regime, one that has locked up Ayman Nour, that closes blogs and arrests the bloggers, that permits assaults on Copts, that protects the Sudan from any effective intervention in Darfur? What is it you think that $60 billion has bought us? Has it bought Egypt's honoring the Camp David duties? Has it changed Egypt's attitude toward Israel, official and unofficial, in the press and in the poopulation? Suppose back in 1979 the Egyptians really had decided to end hostile propgaganda and to try to encourage friendly relations toward Israel, as it was supposed to, as it was required to, and had done that for the past 27 years?

And what about the fact that Egyptians are among the most anti-American people in the entire Middle East-- far more so than the Iranians, who get nothing from us? In fact, only in Jordan, the other big recipient of American aid, is the hatred of Americans more widespread.

A lesson here, perhaps? Since Arab states are all despotisms (save for Iraq, but in Iraq the returns are not yet in, the government not yet settled), anyone who gives aid to that government will be contributing to that despotism. And besides, Muslims do not react as non-Muslims do to American aid. They are not grateful for it. They expect it. They demand it. They are outraged if the Infidels even so much as hint at cutting it. And it is for that reason alone, that all aid to malevolent Egypt should not be cut, but eliminated entirely.

It is importnat for Infidels and Muslims alike that all examples of the Jizyah be ended. Important to establish a healthy relationship, one that does not inadvertently mimic, even re-establish, the 1350-year-old Jizyah paid by dhimmis, non-Muslims subjugated to Muslim rule. It is important for Muslims to earn their own living, and not, in Dar al-Harb or Dar al-Islam, to be allowed to soak the Infidels. Not by exploiting, as in the countries of Western Europe, all conceivable benefits offered by the state, and then some. Not in the Muslim countries themselves, by managing either to impose a disguised Jizyah on non-Muslims, as happens in Malaysia, or by extracting from non-Msulim taxpayers in Infidel lands foreign aid which is merely a different kind of disguised Jizyah.

The very idea that it is money that is buying Egypt's "peace" is not only false, but raises a different question. If the only way that we can buy "peace" from Egypt, and prevent it from attacking Israel by bribing it, what does that tell us about Egypt? Anything? Nothing? What does that say about Egypt as a "peaceful" country, as a country that honors its treaty commitments?

Posted by: Hugh at June 30, 2006 4:28 PM

"Hugh, your position here is inconsistent. You say that you want to see Muslim factions (Shi'a, Sunni, insurgents, governments, etc.) disunited amongst each other because it may weaken the overall Islamic jihad against us. Fine. If it costs billions to bribe some of these Islamic factions to keep them from uniting and maybe even turn them on one another, that's money well spent. It's a fraction of what we've spent to build "democracy" (whatever that means) in Iraq."
-- from the same poster, and same post, above

What kind of "bribe" is necessary to make the Shi'a resent their treatment, under Saddam Hussein, before Saddam Hussein, all the way back to the beginning of modern Iraq, when Shi'a tribes were in revolt, against the idea of being ruled by what was essentially a Sunni-run govenment? What kind of "bribe" would be needed to cause the Sunni (Wahhabi) rulers of Saudi Arabia, and its people, to despise the Shi'a, to regard them as inferior, to treat them the way those Shi'a have been treated in Al-Hasa province? What kind of "bribe" would be necessary to get Osama bin Laden to praise Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Sunni Arab "warrior," who repeatedly urged Sunnis to treat the Shi'a as "rafidite dogs" and "Infidels"? What kind of "bribe" would be necessary to get the Shi'a who constitute 70% of the population of Bahrain to chafe at the Sunni Arab ruler who presumes to rule? What kind of "bribe" would force the Sunnis in Lebanon to begin to look with fear and horror at the Shi'a Hezbollah, with their black balaklavas and Kalashnikovs, and their threat to overturn the old political arrangements in Lebanon? What kind of "bribe" would be necessaary to force the Sunnis in Afghanistan to attack the Shi'a Hazara? What made them do so under the Taliban -- was someone bribing them? And what about all the attacks on Shi'a mosques and other institutions, and even individuals, by Sunni terrorists who have been targetting Shi'a for years? Did they need a "bribe" to do that? Tell me what bribes, by whom, where and when.

And it is the same for the ethnic divisions presented by Islam, a belief-system that has universalist pretensions but really is a vehicle for Arab supremacism. What kind of "bribe" was necesary for Saddam Hussein and his Arab army to massacre 182,00 Kurds? What "bribe" was required to force the Arab League, and all the other supposedly indignant Arab rulers, to shut up entirely, to say not a word, in protest against those massacres? What kind of "bribe" was necessary to force Arab Muslims to kill non-Arab Muslims in Darfur? What kind of "bribe" was necessary to make the Arabs in Algeria treat the Berbers with contempt, and deny them the right (until recently) to speak their own, Berber, language, to maintain their own, Berber, customs, and to get a reasonable share of the wealth in a country which, after all, once was inhabited by Berbers, and invaded by Arabs?

No "bribes" are necessary at all. You are ignoring 1350 years of Islamic history. For the division between Sunni and Shi'a goes back to the late 7th century. And Arab supremacism (the taking of an Arab name by converts, the prostrating toward Mecca, the emuliating in every way the customs, manners, and behavior of 7th-century Arabs, and above all one particular Arab, is not a later addition to Islam -- it is part of Islam itslf.

Posted by: Hugh at June 30, 2006 4:48 PM