be just

Sen. Leahy Seeks to Pull Military Aid from Israeli Special Forces -- News from Antiwar.com In a move that has Israeli officials scrambling, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D – VT) is pushing a bill that does the unthinkable, holds Israel to the same standard as other nations with respect to military aid. The bill would halt aid to certain Israeli “elite forces” units, including the Shayetet 13 unit involved in the attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship, over growing evidence that the units are responsible for major human rights violations in the occupied territories .

Nation & World | Golden decade ending for defense companies | Seattle Times Newspaper NEW YORK — The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, Osama bin Laden is dead, and the federal government is deeply in debt. This spells the end of what was a golden decade for the defense industry. In the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks, the annual defense budget has more than doubled to $700 billion and annual defense-industry profits have nearly quadrupled, approaching $25 billion last year. Now military spending is poised to retreat, and so are industry profits. "We're about to go into the downhill side of the roller coaster here," said David Berteau, a defense-industry analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Congress agreed last month to cut military spending by $350 billion over the next 10 years. The defense budget will automatically be cut by an additional $500 billion over that period if lawmakers fail to reach a deficit-cut...

US Congressman: US Economic Woes Won’t Affect Israel Aid -- News from Antiwar.com U.S. Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said Wednesday that financial challenges “will not have any adverse effect on America’s determination to meet its promise to Israel .” The blunt statement by the second-highest ranked Democrat in the House of Representatives underscored recent news that subsidies to Israel remained untouched by the debt crisis . Hoyer is currently leading a delegation of 26 US Democratic congressmen on a tour of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, funded by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He insisted his message was bipartisan and that a similar message will be brought to Israel next week when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) leads a Republican delegation to the country, numbering 55 congressmen.

America In Decline -- In These Times “It is a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay,” Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly. The theme is indeed widely believed. And with some reason, though a number of qualifications are in order. To start with, the decline has proceeded since the high point of U.S. power after World War II, and the remarkable triumphalism of the post-Gulf War ’90s was mostly self-delusion.