Pressure builds to nix gift of tanks, F-16s to Egypt

For what its worth, I am not so sure about the issue. I am pretty confident that Israel has the technology to disable both the tanks and the aircraft before it is within 25 miles of the Israeli border. Also, I am all in favour of Muslim nations having all the low and mid tech weapons we can get them so long as their maximum effective range is less than a thousandth of the distance to were we live as they tend to make sure that each-other, the various Islamic states,  never rise to much real geopolitical strength using those weapons.

Thinking in those terms, these tanks and planes are a bargain for us compared to the cost of doing it ourselves. The Saudis have this equipment. the Iranians have similar equipment. The Egyptians now will as does Pakistan I am sure while India and Israel both have equipment that eclipses it all.

Seems OK to me. Any objections?

Fox:

Published January 02, 2013

FoxNews.com

  • F16pic.jpg

    Turmoil in Egypt isn’t stopping a shipment of 20 F-16 fighter jets, including this one – already emblazoned with Egypt’s flag. (Courtesy: Carl Richards)

Later this month, the new government in Egypt is scheduled to begin taking delivery of 10 F-16 fighter jets and 200 Abrams tanks – courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

The $213 million deal is part of a foreign aid package signed when American ally Hosni Mubarak was president, but a growing chorus of critics say the Obama administration should pull the plug. They cite Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood government’s mixed signals to the U.S. and Israel, as well as America’s fiscal problems, as reasons for rescinding the deal

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/02/pressure-builds-to-nix-gift-tanks-f-16s-to-egypt/#ixzz2GqMDBQW2

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

11 Replies to “Pressure builds to nix gift of tanks, F-16s to Egypt”

  1. Eeyore your aren’t thinking of the economic costs to Israel, yes they have the weaponweas to take out the tanks and planes, but those weapons are expensive and Israel can’t afford to stockpile enough to fight forever. This means that any weapons we can block that Israel would otherwise be forced to destroy is a savings to Israel and gives them another weapon to use on the Russian make tanks in Syria.

    Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach, well wars are fought with money and factories, anytime you can stop the factory from having to build another bomb or rocket that is a bomb or rocket that can be used on a different target. Yes Egypt can and possibly will uses the weapons to destroy Syrian tanks, but the savings to us will be much less then the cost to Israel if we do give Egypt the weapons.

  2. I would think that an attack force made up of M-1s and F-16s would be pretty hard for anybody to stop? Aren’t those among the premiere fighting machines in the world today? Isn’t this sort of like sending boatloads of weapons to Nazi Germany in 1938? Barrack Obama has got to be a Saudi agent, plain and simple. That’s got to be what’s happening. Everything he does is just exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood wants him to do. He is just too consistent for it to be a coincidence.

  3. Egypt’s economy is worse then a destroyed. News papers are reporting banks zeroing out peoples bank accounts (stealing their money) closing credit cards on people with good credit. Shipping of even food products has nearly come to a stand still.

    At the same time we are selling them these weapons? Isn’t this exactly what dictators do, when all else fails start a war?

    We should be ashamed of this action and stopping him but we are not why?

  4. OxAO the war they are going to start will also provide a means of shutting up the protesters.

    Chris the performance of the jets is suppose to be degraded before they are sold to a third world country, the electronics in both are suppose to be replaced with lower performance equipment. The problem with the tanks is that their armor is still the same state of the art and difficult to penetrate, a Russian weapon took out one during the March to Baghdad and everyone was astonished.

  5. Insanity
    Yup, allowing the cracked Pakis to have the bomb, that sure settled things between the India and the lunatic muslims,
    So, yes, we need the latest in technology and weapons, Israel must be ready for these backward insane lunatics
    and furthermore, who is allowing this to happen, is this one of the hussain barrys moves? Gawwwwd help us until his term is done, if the states doesn’t collapse in teh meantime……

  6. Richard,

    I know they don’t send Egyptians the exact same stuff they use themselves, but M-1s and F-16s are still top-of-the-heap weapons, nonetheless. The tank can still fire accurately while flying over sand dunes at 60 mph and the F-16s are still plenty dangerous. Ironically, the Americans could probably destroy the whole stockpile in a few hours if they wanted to.

  7. Chris the advanced laser targeting system is one of the things that are suppose to be removed from all tanks we sell unless they are being sold to Britain, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. They will still be able to travel at 60 miles per hour, and their armor is suppose to shrug off almost all anti-tank rockets.

    We can kill them but it takes a lot of hard work, those babies are built tough.

  8. morticiaa God help us all, we are going through the worst constitutional crisis that the US has ever experienced, the end result is not known but it probaably won’t be good for anyone. Yes things are going to get very rough for Israel I hope you can survive and don’t have to use your Sampson option.

  9. the Abrams is undoubtedly superior to the Israeli mirkava, only the relatively low ability of Egyptian crews and technical support will tell against them.
    i can’t help but think, that such a transfer of weapons is right in line with obama’s anti Israel policy.

  10. The transfer is also in line with his entire anti-US and anti-Europe policy.

    FYI, while the Abrams is the best tank going it was the worst design submitted to the Pentagon in the 70s, the GM design was the best but they chose the Abrams because Chrysler was going bankrupt and they wanted to bail out that company. Think what the GM and Ford designs must have been like.

  11. If it was a simple matter of them killing eachother with them, then it would be fine by me. But its not. Israel is there, and Europe isnt too far away. The muslims will do what they instinctively do best, train them on Israel while shouting “allah akbar!!!” the entire way. FWIW, those weapons are on par with what Israel uses. The crews aren’t near as good, and Israel has some heavier tanks. But numbers make all the difference. The US won WWII despite fighting most of it with the crappy Sherman. The German stuff was much better, and they still lost in the end. In this case the two armies would have comprable equipment, but vastly asymetric numbers. Its a recipie for complete disaster. It should be painfully obvious that we absolutely should NOT send that equipment.