Turn it off at the pump

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey--recipients of US military aid or military 'transfers' of some sort--it makes no difference to the war profiteers. If they sell directly to the Saudis, high profit. If they sell to the US government at taxpayer expense, high profit. So they apply the pressure, the propaganda, and the persuasion; Congress and mainstream corporate media support military sales and outright bribery, year after year.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian military slaughters their citizens with the military aid we send directly to them. Indeed, this is the primary purpose of the military aid--to be of use against their own citizens. No one believes the Egyptian military can achieve much else. They can't even control Sinai. But they can engage in state terrorism against their own. I mean, check out this list and think about how much good this is doing--and how much disastrous bad (and this doesn't include approved arms sales):

Top Recipients of U.S. Military Aid, FY2010

Country	$U.S. millions
Afghanistan	6,800.3
Israel	2,799.5
Egypt	1,301.9
Iraq	1,006.0
Pakistan	913.9
Jordan	303.8
Somalia	204.0
Colombia	185.8
Russia	126.8
Sudan	104.9
Mexico	96.0
Poland	55.6

The primary way American citizens can help? Force our Congress to cease military aid, military sales, and military transfers of any sort. All that has done for decades is prop up corruption and state terrorists like Hosni Mubarek, Ben Ali, Ariel Sharon, and so many more. It has been used to ethnically cleanse Kurds from Turkey, fund paramilitary terrorists in Colombia, and make sure Palestinians are denied their own nation.

This, to me, is the next seriously needed national civil society campaign in the US. Stop All Military Aid and Arms Transfers. As long as we have a Congress willing to fund dictators and military thugs like we see in Egypt, the American people are complicit in these bloodbaths and other anti-democracy regime activities in the countries to which the US sends arms.

Let no one tell you this would not be effective. "Oh, well, if we cut off aid to Egypt then the Saudis would just send them aid." Really? Not if we cut off aid and weapons sales to the Saudis too. "Oh, but then we'd get reprisals from OPEC."

Bring it on. We need to stop it at the pump. The gas pump, the oil pump, the arms pump. Stop it. The only way it will be stopped is by the largest, most powerful player in that arena--the one with so much latent power it clearly fails to recognize its own strength: American civil society. We could do it. We should do it. Now.