So You Think Know About the American Empire? -- 11 Questions to Test Your Knowledge

[unhappycamper]

So You Think Know About the American Empire? -- 11 Questions to Test Your Knowledge
Tomdispatch.com / By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse

September 14, 2010 | Yes, it would be funny if it weren’t so grim. After all, when it comes to squandering money and resources in strange and distant places (or even here at home), you can count on the practitioners of American-style war to be wildly over the top.

Oh, those madcap Pentagon bureaucrats and the zany horde of generals and admirals who go with them! Give them credit: no one on Earth knows how to throw a war like they do -- and they never go home.

In fact, when it comes to linking “profligate” to "war," with all the lies, manipulations, and cost overruns that give it that proverbial pizzazz, Americans should stand tall. We are absolutely #1!

Hence, the very first TomDispatch American Way of War Quiz. Admittedly, it covers only the last four weeks of war news you wouldn’t believe if it weren’t in the papers, but we could have done this for any month since October 2001.

Now’s your chance to pit your wits (and your ability to suspend disbelief) against the best the Pentagon has to offer -- and we’re talking about all seventeen-and-a-half miles of corridors in that five-sided, five-story edifice that has triple the square footage of the Empire State Building. To weigh your skills on the TomDispatch Scales of War™, take the 11-question pop quiz below, checking your answers against ours (with accompanying explanations), and see if you deserve to be a four-star general, a gun-totin’ mercenary, or a mere private.



unhappycamper comment: 11 for 11 heah.

[Junkdrawer]

1. Bad link....

Here's a better one...

http://www.alternet.org/story/148179/

[w8liftinglady]

2. man,that was an eye-opener.

I didn't think I was still that naive(I only scored 8 right)...good reading..

[PADemD]

3. Are you kidding me!?

"the U.S. military may now spend $500 million or more annually on its musical bands"

[unhappycamper]

4. Nope.

There was an article in the military rags this week about the bands.

[Octafish]

10. You should see their golf courses.

All around the world...and no greens fees.

[blueworld]

11. If they send a few DJ's w/speakers instead can we afford Social Security? n/t

[Scuba]

5. Mandatory reading. Thanks.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

6. As they say; the truth is stranger than fiction.

I missed three. Thanks for the post, it was both illuminating and deeply disturbing.

Money, lives, livelihoods, destruction of infrastructure, genocide and any other manner of evil seems to have been lost on many Americans. As long as the teabaggers chant USA USA USA, then everything must be just peachy keen I guess.

I think that it's a safe bet that we can forget about winning the hearts and minds game.

Oh well, as long as the MIC and our politicians are making lots of money then I suppose all of this madness has been and will continue to be a "success" well into the future.

This country is so morally bankrupt that it's just mind numbing.

[VMI Dem]

7. Petraeus has said that if Afghan insurgents believe the US will leave July 2011...

they are sorely mistaken.

[LWolf]

8. 11 for 11.

:(

I am sick to death of wars, of the MIC, and of those who support and promote them.

[Octafish]

9. Katy Couric must've missed these stories.

And all the rest of Corporate McPravda missed them, too, for some reason.

Anyone else remember when Gore Vidal used to be on the tee vee talking about "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace"?

[sinkingfeeling]

12. Your link didn't work for me, but I took that quiz a few days ago. Got every one of them right.

http://www.alternet.org/story/148179/so_you_think_know_about_the_american_empire_--_11_questions_to_test_your_knowledge/

[lonestarnot]

13. K and fucking R!

[The_Commonist]

14. I just picked the worst possible answer...

...and got them all right.