Cost of war: America's war on terror took a toll on 80 countries and the innocent

The US war on terror killed almost one million people across the world and cost the US some $8 trillion over the past 20 years, estimates The Costs of War Project by Brown University. The report puts the number of people killed between 897,000 and 929,000 as a direct result of the war in more than 80 countries.

The study, published last week examined spending on U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria. Of the $8 trillion, $2.3 trillion is attributed to the Afghanistan-Pakistan war zone, which has seen the Taliban return to power in Kabul after 20 years of U.S.-led war and occupation.

“The war has been long and complex and horrific and unsuccessful,” said joint author of the report Catherine Lutz. Cost of War Project co-founder Neta Crawford noted that the fatalities recorded were a conservative estimate as they did not include indirect deaths, those caused by disease, displacement and loss of access to food or clean drinking water.

“The deaths we tallied are likely a vast undercount of the true toll these wars have taken on human life,” she said.

Researcher Stephanie Savell said: “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.”

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres expressed “grave concern at the deepening humanitarian and economic crisis in the country and the threat of basic services collapsing completely.“Today, almost half of the population of Afghanistan, 18 million people, need humanitarian assistance to survive,” he said.

According to Save the Children, nearly 33,000 youngsters were killed or maimed during the US occupation of Afghanistan. “What remains after 20 years is a generation of children whose entire lives have been blighted by the misery and impact of war,” it said.

(IPA Service

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