The US, Europe and the Gulf states pledged nearly a billion dollars to aid Lebanon yesterday. This just seems like money thrown down a very long drain. The war in Lebanon lasted 34 days. Can the world community afford to throw a billion dollars at countries like Lebanon every time they have a month of increased conflict? And for that matter, is a billion dollars really going to do anything? I mean, if we were giving them a trillion dollars, they could use it to really change things. All a billion dollars is going to do is allow them to rebuild roads that are just going to be destroyed again the next time Israel decides to crush an insurrection.

Some figures from the money given away:

Bush said he would offer $230 Million, but the US ended up giving only $175 million.
The EU gave $54 million.
Qatar gave $300 million.

That's right. Qatar gave nearly twice what we did and nearly six times as much as the European Union. Yes, as a Gulf nation they have a more vested interest in the situation in Lebanon. However, doesn't it seem like if a country like Qatar, which is rich by very small, can give that kind of money to Lebanon that we can do better? All we're doing now is giving a band aid. What we need to be doing is investing heavily in that region so that we can prevent things like this from happening in the future.