Rand Paul Bill to Prohibit U.S. Sale of F-16s and M1s to Egypt fails, a most puzzling vote

Sen. Rand Paul’s  (R-KY) proposed bill, S. 201, “A BILL To prohibit the sale, lease, transfer, retransfer, or delivery of F-16 aircraft, M1 tanks, or certain other defense articles or services to the Government of Egypt”, bit the bullet this week as the Senate voted 79-19 to ‘table’ the amendment.

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To me this is an extremely bizarre vote and as Sen. Paul said on the Thursday afternoon broadcast of “Your World” on the FOX News Channel, “if you polled this question, I think 80 percent of the people are with me that we shouldn’t be sending weapons to Egypt, but if you take a vote up here, 80 percent of the Senators voted against me”.

Exactly.

Several things stand out to me.

1. The neocons. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and their ilk that are so “pro-Israel” voted for tabling the Paul bill. Why do these Senators that proclaim their undying support for Israel at all cost want an unstable Egypt to have these weapons?

As Dr. Paul stated on the above broadcast, “This amendment would have stopped the transfer of F-16s and Abrams tanks to Egypt. You’ve seen those pictures of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people rioting in the street. Does that look like a stable country to you?”

“Combine that with some of the comments from President Morsi that were translated to say that Jews were bloodsuckers and descendants of apes and pigs. It doesn’t sound like a country we should be sending our most advanced weapons to.”

Men like McCain and Graham will try to humiliate people like Chuck Hagel for certain statements about Israel, but they will vote to allow to sell advanced war technology to the Mohamed Morsi regime in Egypt?

2. The Democrats. Not one Democratic Senator voted for this bill! Aren’t these the members of the Congress that are supposed to be proponents of peace?

Even the darling of the anti-war movement, Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders voted to table the amendment thus allowing the sale of such advanced weapons of war to go to Egypt.

This just goes to prove something I’ve always said, BOTH the Democrats and Republicans are the parties of war.

Sen. Paul said Friday on the Senate floor, “I think it is a blunder of the first proportion to send sophisticated weapons to a country that allowed a mob to attack our embassy and to burn our flag. I find it objectionable to send weapons, F-16s and tanks, to a company that allowed a mob chanting ‘death to America’ to threaten our American diplomats.”

Sending the Morsi government these weapons just doesn’t make sense. Very puzzling.