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This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.
After the U.S. invaded Iraq, an estimated half a million Iraqis were killed and at least 9.2 million were displaced. From 2003-2011, more than 4.7 million Iraqis suffered from moderate to severe food insecurity. Over 243,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan war zone since 2001, more than 70,000 of them civilians. Between 4.5 and 4.6 million people have died in the post-9/11 wars.
The U.S.’s “war on terror” also escalated the climate catastrophe, resulting in local water shortages and extreme weather crises that are only getting worse. In 2022, Afghanistan had its worst drought in 30 years and it is facing a […]
This is not the first article on this I’ve seen, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. You can track the US military’s climate and ecological devastation in well documented ways going back to the use of Agent Orange and it’s effects in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Glad someones catching up to the environmental costs of Afghanistan and Iraq. Just mentioning the environmental costs of our current “defense” of Israel is radical. Note, however, that Ukraine is omitted. The environmental costs of a US provoked nuclear war with Russia will dwarf all of the other previous examples. This doesn’t count the economic costs to the US taxpayer. Americans will never be able to enjoy the fruits of life as other developed nations do so long as we support the empire. Think outside the box.
It may be that the Neo-cons running Democratic foreign policy will taste victory. They’ll drink Champaign and eat caviar in their underground fortified bunkers while the rest of us are told to shelter in place while the nuclear fallout descends from the sky. Now I know, I know, what the skeptics will say. – Tactical nuclear weapons are designed for a smaller blast radius and limited radioactive fall out. I trust the scientists to design these weapons implicitly. By the way, does any have a Geiger counter I might borrow?