Military

The U.S. military cannot fight a pandemic. It is not a war, it’s a public health crisis. And this isn’t the only threat that has a global scope. Rather than preparing for public health crises like COVID-19, governments around the world spent a combined $1.917 trillion on weapons, maintaining their militaries, and fighting wars in 2019. #militaryspending

Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 20 million veterans who have served in World War II through the present day, the plight of veterans today has become America’s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, and left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices. #casualitiesofwar

The so-called War on Terror launched by the United States government in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has cost at least 801,000 lives and $6.4 trillion according to a pair of reports published Wednesday by the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. #stopwars #WarOnTerror

The Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Center says the $5.6 trillion figure—which covers the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan from 2001 through 2018—is the equivalent of more than $23,386 per taxpayer. The “new report,” said Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action’s senior director for policy and political affairs, “once again shows that the true #costofwar represents a colossal burden to taxpayers on top of the tremendous human loss.” #waronterror

After the Gibraltar Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s effort to stop the release of an Iranian oil tanker seized by the U.K. last month, the Justice Department further escalated tensions with Tehran by issuing a warrant on Friday in a last-ditch bid to seize the tanker before it sets sail. #war