MIDDLE EAST - The United States has long been buying weapons for both sides of various conflicts in the Middle East. But now, with multiple financial crises going on at home, the U.S. is looking for ways to reduce the cost of these conflicts. Finally, they landed on a solution: they'll cut out the middleman -- defense contractors -- and just have the countries lob giant sacks of American tax dollars at each other directly.

"Instead of going through the whole rigamarole of buying weapons for them, or letting them buy weapons from us at a discount, or supplying insurgent groups with weapons -- which is all very exhausting -- we'll just hand them a catapult and a bunch of money and let them go to town," said one American general. "It's much more efficient and cost-effective. Plus, we now have to spend less rebuilding the countries we just spent trillions blowing up. Since, you know, the sacks of dollars just kind of land with a thud. They can hurt if they hit you right on the head, but that's hard to do."

Israel quickly invented a "Green Dome" -- paid for with American tax dollars -- that will intercept the bags of money launched at them from Palestine and throw them right back. However, they later admitted the state-of-the-art defense system was just a bunch of trampolines lined up along the border.