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From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Fueling the Conflict in Lebanon
Message-ID: <1672@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Jul-85 06:44:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.1672
Posted: Sat Jul 27 06:44:39 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 01:58:37 EDT
References: <705@cadovax.UUCP> <860@ihlpg.UUCP>
Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
Lines: 39

> > Fact: In 1982, when Israel first invaded Lebanon, the US was providing Israel
> > with $7,000,000 per day in economic aid.  I don't know what today's figures are,
> > but they most certainly are higher.
> > 				Jeff Fields
> 
> True Fact:  U. S. aid to Israel today is roughly 3 billion dollars
> per year, which is approximately $800,000 per day.  You slipped
> a decimal point.  I trust it was not deliberate.
> -- 
> Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan

Hurra! At last, everybody can calculate the number of days in a year:
   $3,000,000,000/$800,000 per day = 3,750 days.
On the other hand, using more traditional year with 365 days,
   $3,000,000,000/365 days = $8,216,438 per day.

   More to the point, the raw numbers, whatever the decimal digit, 
tell nothing.  One needs to remeber that we are talking about money
spent by a superpower in one of the most critical, and surely
the most violatile area of the world.
   Personally, as a non-zionist Jew, I had followed the Lebanon war 
with very mixed feelings.  First, I was outraged: a fabricated pretext 
for the invasion, broken promises about 25 km limit of the action, 
bombardment of Beirut and lastly, Sabra & Shatila massacres.
   But then, the subsequent massacres between Lebanese - Druse and 
Christian, Sunni and Shia, pro Arafat Palestinians and pro Syrian
Palestinians, Shia and Palestinians, etc, reveled how intractable
place the Lebanon is.  The impression is that in Lebanon one needs
tanks, artillery etc. just to be listended to -- this is the language
that differnt factions there talk to each other.
   In summary, it seems that the Israeli action was justified and 
misguided in the same time.  An objective observer must admit that PLO 
was bragging about its military preparations to figth Israel, and that 
formally Lebanon was (and is) in the state of war with Israel.  Israel 
didn't attack a peaceful neighbor, but rather performed a military 
operation on the teritory of an military adversary.  Thus the action 
was a justifiable one.  On the other side of the picture, the net gains 
do not seem to justify human and economical costs, thus I think that 
the action was misguided.