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Biden admin again bypasses Congress to sell military equipment to Israel
(edition.cnn.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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More info from a different article that provides context:
Bypassing Congress with emergency determinations for arms sales is an unusual step that has in the past met resistance from lawmakers, who normally have a period of time to weigh in on proposed weapons transfers and, in some cases, block them.
In May 2019, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an emergency determination for an $8.1 billion sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan after it became clear that the Trump administration would have trouble overcoming lawmakers’ concerns about the Saudi and UAE-led war in Yemen.
Pompeo came under heavy criticism for the move, which some believed may have violated the law because many of the weapons involved had yet to be built and could not be delivered urgently. But he was cleared of any wrongdoing after an internal investigation.
At least four administrations have used the authority since 1979. President George H.W. Bush’s administration used it during the Gulf War to get arms quickly to Saudi Arabia.
AP Article Link
As others pointed out, this appears to only apply to arms sales, not for aid packages as in the case of Ukraine.
More info from The Intercept for even more context on Bidens efforts to get weapons to israel at all cost. Note that Biden does not have a team like this for Ukraine.
As for the rest of your post, I think the big difference is that those countries actually buy the weapons with oil money whereas israel just gets tens of billions of free dollars from US taxpayers. These "sales" will be refunded to them in a jiffy. They're likely using a loan to fund it anyways.
Biden could probably approve a loan to Ukraine and then "sell" them the weapons or use some other legalese BS if he actually wanted to.
It looks like there's some precedent for workarounds that FDR used to aid the UK when Isolationists didn't want to help during WWII, and that Biden has already been doing a good chunk of it. Without direct cash, I do think there are fewer options, but I'm curious what will happen if an aid package isn't passed by Congress in early 2024 once the current one runs out.
Politico: The WWII Strategy Biden Can Use to Bypass Republicans on Ukraine
...
Yep there we go, good job for finding it out.
The "Biden can't do it" is just plausible deniabilty bullshit. Biden is a Zionist that likes doing Nazi shit more than doing something morally correct.
Israel received $3.18B in FY 2022 compared to $11.8B for Ukraine.
USNews - US Aid history
Edit to add a quote from the link:
It'll be interesting to see what that chart looks like for 2023 and 2024. And hopefully there's less genocide all around, eh?
Israel received 1/4 the money of Ukraine in 2022 when israel wasn't even fighting anyone.
At best they used it to shoot and kill an American journalist and then launch a propaganda campaign to lie that they didn't do it
And of course give all their ZioNazi colonists weapons to terrorize and annex the West Bank with
I found more up-to-date numbers that suggest it's more like 23x the aid (Ukraine:Israel):
How Much Aid Has the U.S. Sent Ukraine? Here Are Six Charts.
In any event, the US appears to have sent substantial aid to Ukraine, and it's in jeopardy only (to my knowledge) if congress can't get more through in early 2024. My understanding is that the war-specific funding (so far) requested by the Biden administration for Israel has been more to the tune of $14B requested for 2023 (e.g. this article), concurrent with a roughly-quadruple $60B+ request for Ukraine (this article).
It seems to me that the Biden administration is strongly in support for Ukraine, and is making (and, historically, getting through) requests for continued aid far in excess of those to Israel (which receives multi-billion-dollar aid from the U.S. every year and under every administration). Biden's only non-standard "funding" here is authorizing sale of arms to Israel, which is in place of any congressional funding due to the unpopularity of the Israel war in the USA (which is unpopular for a variety of, in my opinion, very good reasons).
To be clear: I'm not suggesting that the U.S.A. should blindly fund genocide. I'm simply arguing that continued (substantial) funding for Ukraine hasn't been in jeopardy until recently, and that it is still not a guarantee that extraordinary measures (beyond what Biden has already done with the lend-lease-style "loaning" of US Arms to Ukraine, etc.) will be necessary or helpful, given the broad support in the US Congress (to date) for the war in Ukraine. My expectation is that the Democrats in congress will make some concessions to the Republicans in congress, and a Ukraine funding package will pass early in the new year.
TL;DR: equating the funding of Ukraine to the funding of the war in Israel and using it to suggest the Biden administration hasn't adequately attempted to fund Ukraine doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
Ukraine has been at war since the beginning of 2022. Israel started their genocide only three months ago. Biden is doing everything in his power for israel right now, not for Ukraine. He removed all weapons restrictions for israel on civilian casualties because normally the US wouldn't even be able to give weapons to such a genocide.
The three aircraft carriers next to israel to protect them aren't even counted under their aid package. Nor is America defending israel against attacks from Yemen. Nor is the direct amount of American intelligence israel is receiving.
Israel has barely taken any damage so far and already they are getting 14.3 billion to bombard Gaza with. And israel is getting the high tech stuff not the hand me downs like Ukraine.
If a large scale war would develop because of retaliation against israel, there is no doubt Biden would drop Ukraine in a heartbeat and send everything to israel.
Currently though Ukraine is fighting a world superpower called Russia with a population of 140 million and a massive gas field economy, while israel is "fighting" Hamas, a group of 30.000 members in a population of 2 million on a small strip of land with zero economy.
And they are getting 1/4 the budget for it, direct military aid and priority over Ukraine. Ukraine's budget seems to also go down by the amount given to israel.