More $$ to Abbas

I'd really like an explanation for this.

The United States will offer the moderate Palestinian leadership more than half a billion dollars at Monday's international donors' conference in Paris, a US official said Friday.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is seeking a total of 5.6 billion dollars between 2008 and 2010 to help tackle poverty, build a viable Palestinian state and give impetus to a new peace process with Israel.

"The US will make a generous contribution," a government official said on condition of anonymity. "The expectation would be 100 million dollars more than last year's context, in the vicinity of 500 million (dollars) plus."

The figure would still be subject to approval by the US Congress.

The administration of US President George W. Bush had asked Congress to approve 400 million in economic support for Palestinians in the 2007-2008 budget which began on October 1. That amount has not been approved.

And while we're at it, one for this too. All this money buys us nothing. Propping up ruthless governments that hate us and use the money to fuel more hatred?

When Dems start complaining about all the billions of dollars we spend on war and how that money should be used for domestic purposes I roll my eyes. In a perfect world we wouldn't need defense and the government could leave that money in our pockets. But handing over several billion dollars to countries which threaten our security and our allies security seems like the antithesis of a good move. Let France do that.

It seems that our foreign policy with these thugocracies is to delay the pain in hopes it will disappear some time in the future. If we just keep the real radicals out of power for a few more years, perhaps the problem will right itself. If the thugocracies were stamping out the extremists, then anything is possible. But they are funding them, so we are left with a new generation of illiterate, poor, radicalized "youths" to deal with.

I keep hoping there is some deep, well-thought out plan behind all those dollars. That perhaps in 2008, we'll see the fruits of these efforts and suddenly I'll kick myself and say "I get it. How stupid I was!"