Last week, the co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s argued the U.S. government is looking for a new villain to justify a Pentagon budget increase. This week, it found one — under the worst of circumstances.

You may know some despicable characters, but are they mean enough to apply for this job posting?

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.

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. The Soviets took themselves out of the running years ago. And countries like Iraq — or tough looking trading partners like China — don’t make the cut.

So, I am distributing a job description as widely as possible to help our politicians find the enemy they seek. Even with the help of defense contractors — who spend $50 million on lobbyists annually — our politicians do not possess the creativity to find the right adversary. It’s clear that the old concept of enemy doesn’t work anymore.

The trouble is the Defense Department needs to find an enemy in a hurry. The Bush Administration has proposed to increase Pentagon spending by $33 billion, the largest defense increase since the Cold War.

This inexplicable proposal is under attack by children’s advocates, who would rather use the $33 billion earmarked for the Pentagon to begin modernizing our crumbling public schools and to buy health insurance for millions of U.S. kids and Head Start for the one-third of eligible children who can’t get in because it’s under-funded.

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