> Mark Ames from The Exile just stated on Democracy Now! that Georgia, for
> the past ten years, has been second in reception of American foreign
> funding after Israel.
>
> Anybody know if this is true?
It's not quite true, but it's surprisingly close. The 10 years is clearly an exaggeration. And I don't think Georgia has ever literally been second. Second is almost always Egypt (although back in the cold war days it was sometimes Turkey).
Admittedly, counting up foreign aid is a very dodgy business, since lots is loans, or is provided indirectly through UN or other multilateral agencies, or in kind, or subsumed under other budgetary heads, or classified, or disbursed in different years than approved, or what have you. But with all those caveats (and there are lots more), this State Department fact sheet for last year:
seems to indicate that Georgia got about $1.5 bln in US foreign aid last year, which I would wager was its biggest year, since (a) a lot of that is heating and electricity support that was tied up with subsidizing US companies taking over its power services -- and all those companies just gave up and went home; and (b) a lot of the rest of it was tied up with the Pankisi Gorge support campaign, which started a a couple of years ago and due to expire.
And afaict, $1.5 bln would put Georgia third in line behind the perennial 2nd, Egypt, which I think it still getting around $2bln total annually. Five years ago it was probably behind Colombia and Turkey as well. 10 years ago I don't think we gave them much at all.
Still, the basic point is right: Georgia gets a very surprisingly large amount of US foreign aid.
Michael