War versus food. War wins.

We’re spending a billion dollars a day on the Iraq war. Elsewhere in the world, we’re having food riots, because poor people can’t get enough to eat. The U.N.’s World Food Programme estimates the food gap at $500 million. That’s half a day’s worth of the Iraq War to keep millions of people from starving to death.

You can argue all you want about whether it’s our job to feed the world, but as long as we’re racking up a $7 trillion dollar debt spending money on other countries, you’d think we could spare a few hours’ worth of our war budget for humanitarian causes.I feel rather sad that my childhood image of America as a prosperous country that was a world protector and helper doesn’t resonate with our current policies(*).

I guess we all have to stop believing in Santa Claus sometime…

(*) Heck, the chairman of Bear Sterns could fund a significant chunk of that world hunger policy just with the money he took home from the sale of his company at $2 per share. Or John McCain (reported net worth: $100 million). Then there are all our wonderful folk heros who could pick up the tab personally and never even notice: our much-ballyhoo’d Google founders, Larry Ellison, John Kerry, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or any of our other iconic multi-multi-billionaires.