War: what the US does best and cares about least

When Washington sees a problem anywhere on the planet its version of a ‘foreign policy’ is to call in the US military

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• • Tom Engelhardt for TomDispatch, part of the Guardian Comment network
  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday 15 September 2012
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Pakistani protestors burn the US flag in response to US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal region in February 2012. Photograph: S.S. MIRZA/AFP/Getty Images

It’s pop-quiz time when it comes to the American way of war: three questions, torn from the latest news, just for you. Here’s the first of them, and good luck!
Two weeks ago, 200 US Marines began armed operations in?

a) Afghanistan
b) Pakistan
c) Iran
d) Somalia
e) Yemen
f) Central Africa
g) Northern Mali
h) The Philippines
i) Guatemala

If you opted for any answer, “a” through “h,” you took a reasonable shot at it. After all, there’s an ongoing American war in Afghanistan and somewhere in the southern part of that country, 200 armed US Marines could well have been involved in an operation. In Pakistan, an undeclared, CIA-run air war has long been under way, and in the past there have been armed border crossings by US special operations forces as well as US piloted cross-border air strikes, but no Marines.

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