Military Aid Spending

As sort of a follow up to the prior post, here is an interesting chart to play around with.  You can sort the columns by clicking at the top of each one.

While the total spending involved on military aid is far less than one percent of federal spending as noted in the sidebar, one can wonder at some anomalies since we seem to be bent on financing the maximum number of arms and bombs on both sides of any conflict that comes along.

Some observations:

• We are pouring money into Israel, that immoral "bad boy" of the Middle East.  They lead the pack for military aid in almost every category no matter how you sort it.  Sorting by 2010 numbers puts our "very good buddy" Afghanistan on top as would be expected, but Israel is head and shoulders above everyone else.
• And, of course Egypt is in second place behind Israel.  We have had a rather bizarre implied deal with Egypt for the last several decades "you don't attack Israel (which we are arming against you) and we will send you arms to attack Israel (only don't tell us you are using them for that)".
• In fact, if you look at the top ten or eleven countries (depending on how you sort them) I would have to say that absolutely none of them are "friends" or reliable allies (including Israel), yet we continue to send them guns, bombs, and warplanes?
• Oddity - why did we ever send aid to North Korea?
• Question - Why are Fiji, Singapore, Bahamas, Jamaica, Finland, Micronesia, China(?) all military aid recipients?
• Why, looking at all the aid from 1946-2010 is Vietnam #2, Egypt #3, South Korea #4, Afghanistan #8 and Iraq #10?  Loser's remorse?