The Costs of War Since 2001: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, June 2011 – Ten Years, 225,000 Killed,
and More than $3.2 – 4 Trillion Spent and Obligated to Date:
“Over this long nearly ten years, the United States launched two major wars and engaged in the largest reorganization of its government since the Great Depression. A new weapon, the remotely piloted “drone” aircraft was sent to kill militants in Yemen and Pakistan. More than 2.2 million Americans have gone to war and over a million have returned as veterans. Some who have returned have been honored, a small number have been tried for war crimes, and too many have committed suicide. Americans debated the costs of civil liberties lost at home and cringed at revelations of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. U.S. generals have switched strategies several times and most recently decided to emphasize “population protection” because they realized that, in the words of the new counterinsurgency manual, “An operation that kills insurgents is counterproductive if collateral damage leads to the recruitment of fifty more insurgents.” But it is the wounded and the dead the latter very conservatively estimated at 225,000 and the great majority civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan who most urgently require that we not simply turn the page. It is appropriate as we approach the ten-year mark to recall some of the costs we may have forgotten and to assess what has not been counted, cannot be counted, and the human and economic costs that will come due in the next decades….The Eisenhower Research Project based at Brown University assembled a team that includes economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts, and a physician to do this analysis.”
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