How hard will YOU lobby to get your $118 back?

After a lot of hand-wringing, congress has finally agreed to raising the debt ceiling, and passing $2.4 billion in cuts to the federal budget.

But not all tax hawks are happy.  They see easy ways to make further cuts.

Well, they're easy until you actually sit down and think about them.

Here's one viral email:

U N B E L I E V A B L E ! ! Read and scroll all the way to the bottom. What is wrong with us??
How they vote in the United Nations: 

Below are the actual voting records of various Islamic States which are recorded in both the US State Department and United Nations records:  

Kuwait votes against the United States 67% of the time 
Qatar votes against the United States 67% of the time 
Morocco votes against the United States 70% of the time 
United Arab Emirates votes against the U. S. 70% of the time. 
Jordan votes against the United States 71% of the time. 
Tunisia votes against the United States 71% of the time. 
Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 73% of the time.
Yemen votes against the United States 74% of the time. 
Algeria votes against the United States 74% of the time. 
Oman votes against the United States 74% of the time.
Sudan votes against the United States 75% of the time.
Pakistan votes against the United States 75% of the time.
Libya votes against the United States 76% of the time. 
Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the time.
Lebanon votes against the United States 80% of the time. 
India votes against the United States 81% of the time. 
Syria votes against the United States 84% of the time. 
Mauritania votes against the United States 87% of the time.  

U S Foreign Aid to those that hate us:
Egypt, for example, after voting 79% of the time against the United States,still receives $2 billion annually in US Foreign Aid.

Jordan votes 71% against the United StatesAnd receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

Pakistan votes 75% against the United StatesReceives $6,721,000,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

India votes 81% against the United StatesReceives $143,699,000 annually.

WHY?WHO IN THE HECK STARTEDTHIS AND WHY?THEY ACTUALLY BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS THEM.
Perhaps it is time to get out of the UN and give the tax savings back to the American workers who are having to skimp and sacrifice to pay the taxes. 
Pass this along to every taxpaying citizen you know.

Of course, when complicated statistics are involved, it's always best to check them.

In the case of these countries' voting records, the viral email author doesn't explain his methodology.  Fortunately for us, Snopes made an attempt to compile the statistics.  Fortunately for our email author, they come to similar results, for roll-call votes.  Most "votes", however, are not by roll call (making it impossible to determine who voted with and against the United States), or are voted in by consent (where no one objects).  So, when someone says, "This country has voted against us x% of the time", they're only counting the most contentious issues, for which a roll call was ordered.  Not that it's unusual to disagree with the United States on the most contentious issues - allied countries such as England and France vote against us about 40% of the time.

Now, as for the notion that we should "get out of the U.N. and give the tax savings back to the American Workers"?  Well, our foreign aid to these countries isn't set by the U.N.  They're decided by congress and approved by the president.

And, quite frankly, when even our allies, in the most contentious issues, are voting against us 40% of the time, it's probably in our best interest to be able to cast veto votes in the United Nations.  A power that we'd lose if we left.  A lesson that the U.S.S.R. once learned the hard way.

And if we explicitly tied our foreign aid to U.N. votes... well, I'd hate to see how that would "spin" against us.

But let's take a look at some of these foreign aid figures:

For Egypt - Yes, we are paying two billion dollars annually in aid.  However, the vast majority of this is military aid.  In exchange for this aid, the United States is getting priority passage through the Suez Canal.  And, unofficially, when we're Egypt's biggest arms dealer, the Egyptians have a very good reason to maintain a peaceful relationship with Israel.

In Pakistan - again, most of the money is for military aid.  In exchange, they've pledged to support our actions in the region.  And, as their support has weakened, so has our aid.

And, in Jordan, we're seeing the same trend.  Most of the assistance is military.  With the expectation that they'll maintain peaceful relationships with Israel, that they will provide logistic support to our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that they will make efforts to stop militants from attacking Israel.

Now, the wisdom of these schemes are certainly areas of reasonable debate.

"But," our viral emailer writes, "American workers are forced to scrimp and sacrifice to pay" for these programs.

Well, let's take a look.

The IRS says that, in 2009, they processed 144,103,375 individual tax returns.  In 2007, they processed 14,752 corporate returns, and 3,989,893 S-Corporation returns.  And, in 2008, they processed 3,146,006 returns for partnerships.  In total: 151,254,026 entities filed income tax returns.

Okay, not every person or entity filing income tax returns will be required to pay taxes.  Let's suppose that only half of them do.  That would create 75,627,013 taxpayers.

So, if you divide the costs of foreign aid to Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan amongst that tax base - these efforts are costing an average of $118 per taxpayer.

I never said that military hardware was cheap.  But it's not bankrupting too many taxpayers.

Keep Manufacturing Quotes - We May Win in Vietnam!

Here's another email:

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis"
Dante Alighieri
 
WE NO LONGER TAKE THE TIME TO KNOW OUR ENEMY; HOWEVER, FOR A LONG TIME OUR ENEMIES HAVE TAKEN THE TIME TO KNOW US!  THIS SAME TACTIC IS BEING APPLIED TODAY
A REMINDER FROM HISTORY!


General Vo Nguyen Giap


General Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam military. The following quote is from his memoirs currently found in the Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi:


'What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi . You had us on the ropes.  If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two,we were ready to surrender!  It was the same at the battle of TET.  You defeated us!


We knew it, and we thought you knew it. 


But we were elated to notice your media was helping us.


They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields.


We were ready to surrender. You had won!'


General Giap has published his memoirs and confirmed what most Americans knew.


The Vietnam War was not lost in Vietnam -- it was lost at home. The same slippery slope, sponsored by the US media, is currently underway. It exposes the enormous power of a Biased Media to cut out the heart and will of the American public.


A truism worthy of note: ... Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media, for they will destroy your honor.

Even at first glance, this email strains credibility.

Let's say that this quote IS from General Giap's memoirs.  (More on that later.)  Most of the time, memoirs are written in one's own native tongue.  Yet, it quotes the phrases, "on the ropes", and "pressed us a little harder".  These are thoroughly Western phrases - I doubt they'd make much sense to most Vietnamese.

But supposedly, they're published in his memoirs, lovingly kept in the Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi.  Let's take a look at the expansive collections of this memorial:

It's a memorial, sure.  But any research would reveal there's no room for a library here.

Okay.  Maybe someone took some liberties in translating these memoirs for Western audiences.  And maybe the author of this email got a little confused when he tried to remember where he actually read this.  Are there actually a set of memoirs where he might have said something remotely similar?

Well, according to the historian Edward Moise, he's never published any memoirs.

I'm calling this quote 100% bogus.

Oh, and if you were wondering...  My dad enlisted in the National Guard in order to avoid the Vietnam war draft.

Vatican Blames Jews for Coptic Christian Bombings?

You know?  This viral article wouldn't be so bad.  If it weren't for the headline.

Islamists Slaughter Christians, and Jews Are Blamed

It’s about time for the Church to learn from its mistakes in World War II and instead try speaking out against its true enemies – the radical Islamists who seek to cleanse the Middle East of both Jews and Christians.
Posted By Evelyn Gordon On December 27, 2010 @ 8:14 AM In Contentions | http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/evelyn-gordon/385074/print/
The recent wave of deadly attacks on Iraqi Christians must have cast a pall over Christmas celebrations worldwide this year. But one can’t help wondering whether it also prompted any soul-searching at the Vatican.
After all, it was just two months ago that a synod of Middle East bishops proclaimed Israel the main source of Middle East Christians’ woes. As the Jerusalem Post reported [1], it “blamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for spurring the flight of Christians from the Middle East” and “laid much of the blame for the conflict squarely on Israel.” The synod’s president, Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, even implied that Jews had no right to a state here at all and that Israel should be eradicated through the “return” of millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees. And though the Vatican disavowed that comment, Pope Benedict XVI also said [2]that Middle East peace – a term usually synonymous with “Israeli-Arab peace” – was the best way to halt Christian emigration.
In reality, of course, the plight of Palestinian Christians pales beside that of their Iraqi brethren. More than half of Iraq’s Christians – hundreds of thousands in all – have fled their country since 2003, after being targeted in numerous deadly attacks. And not even Al-Qaida has tried to link these attacks to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, though it’s not shy about inventing “justifications”: For instance, it deemed [3]October’s bloody siege at a Baghdad church retaliation for an alleged offense by Egypt’s Coptic Church.
Compare this to the booming business scene [4] in Bethlehem, where tourism is up 60 percent over 2009 despite Israeli “oppression.” One astute Palestinian businessman attributed the boom to the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to reduce violence – a tacit (and correct) acknowledgement that what previously destroyed the PA’s economy was not Israel, but Palestinian terror. Or compare Iraq’s Christian crisis to the fivefold [5]increase in Israel’s Christian population, from 34,000 in 1949 to 152,000 in 2009.
This month, the New York Times reported that [6] many fleeing Iraqi Christians “evoked the mass departure of Iraq’s Jews” after Israel’s establishment in 1948.
“It’s exactly what happened to the Jews,” said Nassir Sharhoom, 47, who fled last month to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, with his family from Dora, a once mixed neighborhood in Baghdad. “They want us all to go.”
It’s eerily reminiscent of Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous statement about the Nazis: “They came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me. And by that time, there was no one left to speak for me.”
But there’s one crucial difference. The Church, as the synod statement shows, isn’t merely remaining silent; it’s actively speaking out against the Jews – and thereby collaborating with its own enemies, the radical Islamists.
It evidently hopes to thereby turn the Islamists’ wrath away from Christians. But as the recent attacks show, appeasement hasn’t worked.
So perhaps it’s time for the Church to learn from its mistakes in World War II and instead try speaking out against its true enemies – the radical Islamists who seek to cleanse the Middle East of both Jews and Christians.

Article printed from Commentary: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs
URL to article: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/evelyn-gordon/385074
URLs in this post:
[1] reported: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=192474
[2] also said : http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/24/pope-mideast-peace-possible-urgently-needed/?page=2
[3] it deemed : http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/al-qaida-threat-on-iraq-christians-linked-to-egypt-1.333187
[4] the booming business scene: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-21/bethlehem-business-reborn-as-christmas-tourism-boosts-statehood.html
[5] fivefold : http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton61/download/st02_02.xls
[6] reported that: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html

Wait... the Vatican is blaming the state of Israel for the recent Egyptian Coptic Church bombing?  Okay, maybe the article doesn't go quite that far.  But the headline certainly does.

Let's take a second look.  Here's the article about the Vatican Synod.

Date of the article: October 23rd, 2010.

Date of the bombing: January 1st, 2011.

So, the vatican synod blamed Israel for a future bombing of the Coptic Christian Church?

I didn't know they had that power.  If they did, I wish that the Vatican would have had the good sense to warn the church.  It would have saved a lot of lives - a laudible goal in the Christian faith.  At least, the last time I checked.

But if you really wanted to see where the Vatican places blame for the bombing, you wouldn't have to look far.  The Pope himself has issued the following public statement:

"Yesterday we heard with great pain of the ferocious attack against the Christian Coptic community in Alexandria. This vile gesture of death, like that of putting bombs near to the houses of Christians in Iraq to force them to leave, offends God and all of humanity, when just yesterday we prayed for peace and started the New Year with hope."     

So, clearly, the Vatican has placed blame for the bombing where it's due: Upon the bombers. And not the state of Israel.

US, Chinese, Israeli, and Turkish Relations Made Way Too Simple.

Here's another "interesting" article from my father:

-----Original Message-----
Subject: Chinese warplanes make Mid East debut in Turkey and Iran

Dear Friends,

As predicted, right after Obama's Cairo speech, Chinese military involvement with Turkey and Iran, is yet another outcome given Obama's reckless foreign policy, putting emphasis on ideological commitments to his mentors rather than real-politics, as in the case of wishing to shatter Israel's security foundations by establishing a non-viable Palestinian state, in addition to the Palestinian Kingdom of Jordan, neglecting the fact America is losing its deterrence, because predators sensed there is no president in the White House.

Foreign affairs conduct, is just a copycat of Obama's reckless conduct vis-à-vis internal affairs, as in the case of 'health insurance'. Would Obama have waited until US economy stabilizes and only then go for such ideological commitment, following his mother's death at an early age, there could have been an objective discussion about the necessity and feasibility of such major reform.

Putting the carriage in front of the horses though, brought about the dire condition US economy faces presently, suffering from disproportional government expenditures, which could have been postponed to better times.

The problem with Obama seems to be his perception of himself as a one term president, ensuing harsh and sometimes reckless decision-making procedures, which brought about an unprecedented friction between US rival parties, on the one hand and breaking all codes of presidential conducts, on the other hand, or as the saying goes: "Haste makes waste". 

Zeev

Chinese warplanes make Mid East debut in Turkey and Iran
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 12, 2010, 3:33 PM (GMT+02:00)
The arrival of a new Middle East player startled Washington and Jerusalem: debkafile's military sources disclose that when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan met Syrian president Bashar Assad in Damascus Monday, Oct. 11, they talked less about the Kurdish question and more about the role China is willing to play in the military-intelligence alliance binding Syria, Iran and Turkey.
Erdogan took the credit for China's unfolding involvement in the alliance in the role of big-power backer. Two recent events illustrate Beijing's intent:
1.  From Sept. 20 to Oct. 6, the Turkish Air Force conducted its regular annual Anatolian Eagle exercise, this time without US and Israeli participation. Israel was not invited and America opted out. However, their place was taken by Chinese Sukhoi Su-27 and Mig-29 warplanes making their first appearance in Turkish skies.
Our military sources report that the Chinese warplanes began touching down at the big Konya air base in central Turkey in mid-September for their debut performance in the Middle East and Europe.
Konya has served NATO and the United States for decades as one of their most important air bases.
2. Our sources add that the Chinese planes refueled only once on their journey to Turkey in… Iran. When they touched down at the Gayem al-Mohammad air base in central Iran, their crews were made welcome by the Iranian air force commander Gen. Ahmad Migani.
It was the first time Chinese fighter-bombers are known to have visited the Islamic Republic.
The Gayem al-Mohammed facility, located near the town of Birjand in South Khorasan, is situated directly opposite the big American base of East Afghanistan near the Afghan-Iranian border town of Herat. 
The Turkish prime minister painted the military alliance binding Tehran, Ankara and Damascus in rosy colors for Assad's benefit as more central to the region and more powerful than Israel's armed forces after overcoming the IDF's military edge.

So, a key United States ally has heard Obama's speech at Cairo.  They're now seeing the US as weak.  As a result, they're turning to China and Iran as domestic "partners" in their security.

Too bad they've got their sense of events and timing completely wrong.

Even the Israeli press isn't supporting this version of events.  They've reported on the Anatolian Eagle eagle exercises here.

It turns out - last year, the Anatolian Eagle exercises were cancelled.  Turkey refused to allow the Israelis to participate.  In retaliation, the United States and many NATO partners refused to participate as well.

So, now Turkey sees itself without Western partners.  And now we're supposed to be surprised when they're tightening their defense relationships with the East.

Turkish relationships with both East and West are historically complex.  Any student of the rise of Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Ataturk's reforms (tepidly embraced by much of the Turkish population), popular resentment of the corruption of the Military (which had been embraced by the West), and endless dithering regarding Turkey's status in the European Union are all factors leading to some resentment within the Turkish population, and (unfortunately) it's democratically elected government.  I can't cover all of these in one blog article.

But, we can be certain that two things are not factors in Turkey's growing embrace of the East.  Our "tepid" support of Israel, or Obama's overtures to Eastern governments willing to work with us.  And, considering that Turkey has nationalized health care, I doubt that they've even considered the new healthcare bill as an economic burden.