The Obama administration and Congress are unsure whether or not to send Egypt a scheduled one billion dollars in view of the turmoil in that country before, during and after President Mohammed Morsi’s ouster. When we first heard the figure of one billion, we were taken aback. A bit of research revealed that we’ve been sending them big bucks for many years ($19 billion between 1979 and 2003) to “buy” their support.

They are the second-largest non-NATO recipient of U.S. aid, second only to Israel. And yet Egypt, considered a prominent player in the Arab world, did not support our military intervention in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

We find it hard to understand why the U.S. sends aid to countries all around the world, even if they are not what you would term poor. In most instances, the corrupt leaders are rich, it’s the people who have nothing, and even much of the humanitarian aid we spread around the world never reaches its intended target.

It’s never seemed logical to us that we dole out money to buy support, because it certainly doesn’t translate into buying friends. Many of the recipients of U.S. financial aid hate us with a passion, but they don’t mind taking our money. As for sending financial aid to Egypt right now, it makes no sense whatsoever to us, but then, we’re not a politician.

It’s hard to understand why the U.S. feels it must maintain a presence in so many countries around the world anyway or support them financially in one way or another. We reportedly maintain a military presence in over 125 countries. Some of our bases have been there for years, and originated during times of war or military upheaval. Once there, we never went away.

We’re not sure if we’ve been “invited” to remain in some of these places, or if we just decided on our own to stay, even though many countries (the people themselves, that is) have made it apparent they resent U.S. bases on their soil. Many of the countries where we still maintain bases have a strong military of their own, and don’t appear to need U.S. military in their back yard. If our allies need our support, we can lend it, but is that any reason to continue to fund military bases on foreign soil when there appears to be little justification?

This practice of establishing bases during a time of crisis and never leaving is nothing new. It’s gone on for decades, under many U.S. presidents.

The list of countries where we maintain bases today is readily available, but we’ve never happened to see a rundown of the dollars we send to foreign countries, and the specified purpose, i.e. military, humanitarian, etc. It would be mind-boggling. Maybe Congress should take a good, hard look at this list the next time they’re trying to find ways to bring our budget under control.