U.S. faces substantial losses if Egypt aid halted: official

[Bosonic]

Source: Reuters

The U.S. government faces billions of dollars in potential costs if it decides to cancel foreign military aid to Egypt, a senior Pentagon official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Richard Genaille, deputy director of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said he hoped the Obama administration reached a decision soon on whether to continue $1.23 billion in U.S. military assistance to Egypt, given the large number of weapons shipments in the pipeline.

"We're kind of antsy about that," Genaille said after a speech at the ComDef industry conference in Washington. "There's a whole bunch of contracts out there. The bills keep coming in and we've got to be able to pay them somehow otherwise we go in default."

...

Washington has already halted deliveries of four F-16 fighters built by Lockheed Martin Corp, and must decide soon on several other large weapons shipments, according to U.S. government officials. Some smaller items covered by the foreign military assistance have been allowed to proceed.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-egypt-protests-usa-aid-idUSBRE98315620130904

[Scootaloo]

1. Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and Mattel ARE NOT "The U.S."

Guess we can't count on our "leaders" to even bother making that little distinction now.

[indepat]

6. Hell, these pissy-assed losses for the MIC can be made up many times over in the first two days of

surgical bombing strikes on an evil-doer nation.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. Oh, you can be sure there will be ZERO losses for them.

Guarantee the contracts fail, the only one holding the bag will be the US Government.

[sulphurdunn]

8. The difference

between big business and government has been a distinction without a difference for a long time.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Mind boggling how out in the open that is...

Just wow.

[Link Speed]

9. Isn't it? Just goes to show that they know

just how incurious Americans are.

I wonder, are the 'baggers cool with their "hard-earned dollars" being handed to another country which will, in turn, hand those dollars back to their employers? Or are they too fucking dumb to think it through?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid

scroll down at link

[DJ13]

3. Welfare Queens

[David__77]

4. Russia might be happy to make up the difference.

Not Saudi Arabia, but Russia. That would be funny, indeed.

[leftyohiolib]

5. it'll be offset by the money we save

[delrem]

7. So the US borrows from China, to give to Egypt, Israel, etc.

to buy US military supplies, to keep US citizens working.

Kind of a weird anti-ponzi scheme, isn't it?
Meanwhile China uses its massive credit to buy production plants, rights to develop resources, and so on, so it can export at a fair profit, which in turn increases their credit balance. Nice position to be in, I'd say.

[grahamhgreen]

11. Well give the money to New Zealand then