By Andrea Germanos | Common Dreams
A new analysis offers a damning assessment of the United States' so-called global war on terror, and it includes a “staggering” estimated price tag for wars waged since 9/11—over $5.6 trillion.
The Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Center says the 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.”
Does the $24,000 you spent on the #Iraq, #Afghanistan, etc. wars make you feel safer? The @WatsonInstitute’s new report once again shows that the true #costofwar represents a colossal burden to taxpayers on top of the tremendous human loss. #EndEndlessWarhttps://t.co/bVwVIQVWjO
— Paul Kawika Martin (he/him/his) (@PaulKawika) November 8, 2017
The center's figure is far greater than the $1.5 trillion the Pentagon estimated (pdf) in July for the costs of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, as it gives a fuller picture by including “war-related spending by the State Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security,” writes Neta C. Crawford, a professor of political science at Boston University.
“As obscene as it is to waste so much money, it is more obscene to waste human life.”
—Win Without WarHer report notes that even the $5.6 trillion tally underestimates the true figures, as it doesn't capture “every budgetary expense related to these wars,” such as state and local costs to take care of veterans; nor does it take into account the funds used for military equipment “gifts” to countries involved in the conflicts.
“In sum,” it states, “although this report's accounting is comprehensive, there are still billions of dollars not included in its estimate.”
In addition, as the Washington, D.C.-based organization Win Without War notes, “let's not forget that when we talk about what war costs there are also human costs. As obscene as it is to waste so much money, it is more obscene to waste human life.”
And let's not forget that when we talk about what war costs there are also human costs. As obscene as it is to waste so much money, it is more obscene to waste human life. #EndEndlessWar https://t.co/Q75oAuKjBx
— Win Without War (@WinWithoutWar) November 8, 2017
Crawford's report hammers home that point:
Moreover, a full accounting of any war's burdens cannot be placed in columns on a ledger. From the civilians harmed and displaced by violence, to the soldiers killed and wounded, to the children who play years later on roads and fields sown with improvised explosive devices and cluster bombs, no set of numbers can convey the human toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or how they have spilled into the neighboring states of Syria and Pakistan, and come home to the U.S. and its allies in the form of wounded veterans and contractors. Wars also entail an opportunity cost—what we might have done differently with the money spent and obligated and how veterans' and civilians' lives could have been lived differently.”
New @CostsOfWar study predicts the U.S. budgetary costs of post-9/11 wars will reach $5.6 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2018 #costsofwar https://t.co/3BsicZeFEc pic.twitter.com/hBBC1UiT3H
— Watson Institute (@WatsonInstitute) November 8, 2017
Echoing a point made by other observers of failed U.S. counter-terrorism strategies, the report states that “the more people the U.S. kills, the more seem to join the organizations the U.S. was already fighting, even as new radical groups spring up.”
The report also suggests the war costs will only continue to pile up: “There is no end in sight to the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and the associated operations in Pakistan. Similarly, despite recent gains, there is little clear sense of how long the U.S. will be engaged in Iraq and Syria.”
Reacting to the news report, William D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, writes in an op-ed at The Hill: “Was this huge expenditure of blood and treasure worth it? Did it substantially reduce the risks of terrorism, or reduce the likelihood of future conflicts? The short answer is no.”
I have read that the Rothschild family is the cause of all these wars because they think a one world government/religion is the best for all. They think they have to bomb countries to take their resources as a part of this plan.
I learned this because I was severely abused as a child by this Rothschild plan.
That person that was supposed to be my mother was so stressed out from just living in the U.S. that she was violent and distant. She went through the 1929 stock market crash, which I understand to be the creation of the Rothschild family.
This Rothschild family and everyone that agrees with them, wants to take over the world. They have been the only reason there have been any wars and any stock market crashes. These greedy people don’t care who they have to hurt to add to their trillion dollar bank accounts. People call them illuminati, Satanists, the cabal, Nazis, etc.
These greedy people think that 95% of the world’s population should be gone. My understanding is that all the false flags that lead to wars are their creations. That includes 9/11. Barbara Honegger has created youtubes explaining this to us. Watch “Behind the Smoke Curtain: The 9/11 Pentagon Attack”. She names the Nazis that bombed the pentagon. Seems like they were trying to hide the records of the 9.1 trillion dollars they have stolen from America’s people. Judy Wood wrote the book “Where Did the Towers Go? Evidence of Directed Free Energy Technology on 9/11” Do nuclear bombs explain the dustification of all those steel beams? I think that since her book was deleted from Wikipedia, then this means she knows exactly what happened. How about all those fires in northern California this past October 2017? The pictures look like the houses were taken down with laser beams. Too many green trees were left for there to have been a forest fire. Cars were melted and flipped like the ones during 9/11.
My life has been hell because of these greedy people. Medicaid does nothing to help me. I am 63, one of the useless eaters on social security. I heard about “useless eaters” in the utube documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”.
I wish I had never been born.
The only reason I am still here on earth is because I thought I had something to give. In my 20’s I learned to heal myself and others real fast by changing my thoughts to positive instead of negative. I have read about 200 books on quantum physics and healing. But I have found no family, so I think that nobody wants me. I have learned that we are not solid. What is called solidity is actually energy that pulsates, rotates, oscillates, spins, coils, resonates and bursts forth as quarks spinning billions of times a second as 3 points of light, forming what are called protons and neutrons. I read these words in the book “The Quantum World” by Ford. Then there is the book “Hands of Light” written by the NASA physicist Barbara Brennan. She says we are eternal, multidimensional, electromagnetic, holographic energy/light/love beings. I would have gone to this college, but I could find no grants.
Chasing around the world for evasive, possibly even fabricated culprits using our funds. absurdity.