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A Short and (In)Glorious History of U.S. Military Aid and Arms Sales

by Derek Davison
With all due respect to Tom Cotton and his efforts to pick a fight with somebody, anybody, in the Iranian government, it’s rare to see the leader of a foreign country engaged in a public spat with a U.S. senator. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) are embroiled in just such a feud, revolving around U.S. military aid. On February 17, Leahy and 10 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking whether U.S. military assistance to Israel and Egypt had violated the so-called “Leahy Law,” which Leahy wrote in 1997. The Leahy Law prohibits the United States from sending aid, including military aid, to any foreign military unit “if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.”
Leahy’s letter asked Kerry to investigate the involvement of Egyptian units receiving American assistance in the 2013 Rabaa Massacre, in which over 800 protesters were killed, as well as in a series of alleged extrajudicial killings and disappearances since then. With respect to Israel, Leahy called on Kerry to look into allegations of the “extrajudicial killings by the Israeli military and police” of at least four Palestinians since last September, as well as charges that Israeli security forces tortured two Palestinians in their custody.http://lobelog.com/a-short-and-inglorious-history-of-u-s-military-aid-and-arms-sales/#more-33764