|
The financial and human
costs of the post-9/11 wars
By Jon Queally
September 06, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House
- "
Common Dreams"
-
With
the final U.S. soldiers leaving Afghanistan
earlier this week after nearly 20 years of occupation and war, a
new analysis released Wednesday shows the United States will
ultimately spend upwards of $8 trillion and that nearly one
million people have lost their lives so far in the so-called
“global war on terror” that was launched after the attacks of
September 11, 2001.
According to Brown University’s Costs of War
Project, which has been releasing reports on the financial and
human costs of the post-9/11 wars at regular intervals since
2010, the total cost of the war and military operations in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and
elsewhere over the last two decades have directly killed at
least 897,000 to 929,000 people — an estimate the researchers
say is conservative.
“The deaths we tallied are likely a vast
undercount of the true toll these wars have taken on human
life,” said Dr. Neta C. Crawford, co-director of the Costs of
War Project, in a statement. “It’s critical we properly account
for the vast and varied consequences of the many U.S. wars and
counter-terror operations since 9/11, as we pause and reflect on
all of the lives lost.”
The study calculates that of the $8 trillion
estimated costs in the wars waged by the U.S. since 9/11:
-
$2.3 trillion is attributed to the
Afghanistan/ Pakistan war zone;
-
$2.1 trillion is attributed to the Iraq/Syria
war zone; and
-
$355 billion was attributed to other
battlefields, including Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere
Above those figures, another $1.1 trillion was
spent on Homeland Security programs and $2.2 trillion is the
estimated obligation for the future care of U.S. veterans who
served in the various wars.
Detailing the
report for The Intercept, journalist Murtaza Hussain
writes:
“The staggering economic costs of the war on
terror pale in comparison to the direct human impact,
measured in people killed, wounded, and driven from their
homes. The Costs of War Project’s latest estimates hold that
897,000 to 929,000 people have been killed during the wars.
Of those killed, 387,000 are categorized as
civilians, 207,000 as members of national military and
police forces, and a further 301,000 as opposition fighters
killed by U.S.-led coalition troops and their allies.
The report also found that around 15,000 U.S.
military service members and contractors have been killed in
the wars, along with a similar number of allied Western
troops deployed to the conflicts and several hundred
journalists and humanitarian aid workers.”
The question of how many people have lost their
lives in the post-9/11 conflicts has been the subject of ongoing
debate, though the numbers in all cases have been
extraordinarily high. Previous Costs of War studies have put
death toll figures in the hundreds of thousands, an estimate
tallying those directly killed by violence.
According to a 2015 estimate from the Nobel Prize-winning
Physicians for Social Responsibility, well over 1 million have
been killed both indirectly and directly in wars in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan alone.
The difficulty of calculating death tolls is made
harder by the U.S. military’s own refusal to keep track of the
number of people killed in its operations, as well as the
remoteness of the regions where many of the conflicts take
place.
The researchers behind the project emphasized
that while the total number of direct deaths caused by the more
recent wars are less than the World Wars and the Vietnam War,
the post-9/11 conflicts are different because of the long-term
damage they have done to the societies that have suffered under
many years of constant bombings, death, and destruction.
“What have we truly accomplished in 20 years of
post 9/11 wars, and at what price?” asked Dr. Stephanie Savell,
co-director of the project, in a statement. “Twenty years from
now, we’ll still be reckoning with the high societal costs of
the Afghanistan and Iraq wars — long after U.S. forces are
gone.”
The
Costs of War Project’s report arrived on the same day as a
similar study unveiled by the National Priorities Project which
showed that overall spending on increased militarization — both
abroad and domestically in the U.S.— has soared since 9/11. In
that study, as Common Dreams reports separately
Wednesday, overall spending on increased military operations,
domestic surveillance, border security is estimated at $21
trillion.
This article is from Common
Dreams.
h
No Advertising - No
Government Grants - This Is Independent Media
Get Our Free
Newsletter Don't
let an Algorithm choose what you read!
Registration is necessary
to post comments. We ask only that you do not use
obscene or offensive language. Please be
respectful of others.
|
