While agree it's a shame that our government wastes so much money, I don't think Ben Cohen's global politics for dummies lesson is a good source for perspective. This is the same guy who wrote the article below ONE WEEK before September 11th 2001 in a stunt to show that America faces no enemy threats.
"ENEMY WANTED. Serious enemy needed to justify Pentagon budget increase. Defense contractors desperate. Interested enemies send letter and photo or video (threatening, ok) to Enemy Search Committee, Priorities Campaign, 1350 Broadway, NY, NY, 10018."
He then started the article with this:
"Here's the deal: We know our politicians have their work cut out for them. They need to find an enemy to justify maintaining the Pentagon budget as if the Cold War never ended. But the pool of credible enemies is evaporating. North Korea is even going diplomatic...."
In the animation, he argues that world hunger could be solved with just a little more money. He must have forgotten about Somalia and Rwanda where the hunger problem is caused by violence and cannot be solved by simply buying more food and mailing it over there. He may be surprised to find out that many of the 40 oreos in the Pentagon's budget go to peacekeeping missions where our military ensures food actually gets to the people who need it.
Jeff, I did not state or imply that $40 billion (or anything else) would have prevented 9/11 and I agreed with you that our government wastes a lot of money. Believe me, wastes of tax dollars infuriate me too whether it's in the military or one of the many domestic 'pork' projects. I'm not sure why I'm being accused of turning and looking the other way.
My point was that Ben Cohen was dead wrong about America's lack of enemies in 2001 and is now oversimplifying world hunger to say that it could be solved by cutting the Pentagon's budget by a couple billion dollars. I'm not saying we shouldn't help people in need around the world. I've spent several months in third world parts of Mexico building homes for such families, myself. I'm just giving my perspective on Ben Cohen's assertions that the world's problems could be solved by cutting the Pentagon's budget.