George W. Bush Declares Mission Accomplished. From aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, standing directly under a "Mission Accomplished" banner, President George W. Bush declares, "In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."Photo:amazonaws.com
The compelling evidence of the US Wars of Choice since 9/11, in breach of any values, decency and morality, leading to Untold Suffering and Human Rights Violations and Crises at home and across the globe.
The U.S. has spent six trillion dollars on wars that killed 500,000 people since 9/11: Study
Watson Institute, Brown University, Releases 'Cost Of War' Project
The price for America’s longest wars has surpassed more than $5.9 trillion and at least 480,000 lost lives, according to a new study released by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
What are the costs of the war on terror? There is, of course, the human toll measured in injuries and fatalities, military and civilian. And then there is the financial cost. And a report out this past week tries to put a price tag on that mission set in motion on a fall morning 17 years ago.
The September 11 attacks launched 17 years of American military action abroad and counting. Photo:onthisday.com
Brown University Releases 'Cost Of War' Project
Summary of Findings
Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include:
Photo:Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs/Brown University
- Over 480,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
- It is likely that many times more have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
- 244,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.
- Over 6,950 US soldiers have died in the wars.
- We do not know the full extent of how many US service members returning from these wars became injured or ill while deployed.
- Many deaths and injuries among US contractors have not been reported as required by law, but it is likely that at least 7,800 have been killed.
- 21 million Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Syrian people are living as war refugees and internally displaced persons, in grossly inadequate conditions.
- The US government is conducting counterterror activities in 76 countries, vastly expanding the counterror war across the globe.
- The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
- The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.
- US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.
- The cost of the Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria wars totals about $5.9 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars, which will add an estimated $8 trillion in the next 40 years.
- The ripple effects on the US economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases.
- Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom.
- Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from political power and experience high rates of unemployment and war widowhood.
- Compelling alternatives to war were scarcely considered in the aftermath of 9/11 or in the discussion about war against Iraq. Some of those alternatives are still available to the US.
Photo:Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs/Brown University
HUMAN COSTS The number of people killed directly in the violence of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are approximated here. Several times as many have been killed indirectly as a result of the wars — because, for example, of water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and war-related disease.
Read more: Human Cost of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency
US BUDGETARY COSTS The vast economic impact of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan is poorly understood by the US public and policymakers. This chart and the attached paper estimate the costs of the wars.
Photo:Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs/Brown University
Read more:
Watson Institute, Brown University, Releases 'Cost Of War' Project
Wars and Mayhem Abroad, Abject Poverty and Inequality at Home:
U.S. Wars Abroad Increase Poverty, Inequality and Injustice at Home: Who Foots the Bill for American Hegemony? The Poor for sure!
'The United States is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and by certain fiscal parameters, the wealthiest. It’s richest citizens own roughly 40 percent of the world’s wealth. Yet, about 40 million Americans are living in poverty, and about 20 million are mired in extreme poverty, scraping by on less than $2 a day. At the same time that the top 1 percent are increasing their vast fortunes, the income inequality gap is ever-widening, and the middle class is dissolving. For tens of millions of Americans, the rose-colored portrait of a booming U.S. economy is pure fiction. Instead, they’re spending every waking moment simply trying to survive.'...Listen to the podcast
And now, The Biggest Question: Have these unwise, self harming people learnt their lesson? I say, NO!
Photo: trofire.com
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A Note of warning to amoral and foolish warmongers: ‘How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology’
‘The United States has found itself in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past two decades. Despite frequent opposition by the party not controlling the presidency and often that of the American public, the foreign policy elite operates on a consensus that routinely leads to the use of military power to solve international crises.’
Lest the US Warmongers Forget: ‘In his last days, Adolf Hitler was reported to have declared over and over again that if the German nation could not win the Second World War, it did not deserve to exist. The American ruling class is entirely committed to a course of action that threatens the obliteration of not only much of the world’s people, but of the American population itself.
This is not the madness of individuals, but the insanity of a social class that represents an outlived and bankrupt social order, capitalism, and an equally outlived political framework, the nation-state system. And it can only be opposed by another social force: the world working class, whose social interests are international and progressive, and whose very existence depends on opposing the megalomaniacal war aims of American capitalism.’...Continue to read
...And finally, Is there an alternative to war? YES, for sure: Coventry’s Message of Hope to the World on the Armistice centenary and Remembrance Sunday
This is the Message of Hope and Healing from Coventry Cathedral