Nov 14, 2019, 10:06 am
(This post was last modified: Nov 14, 2019, 10:08 am by Resurgence. Edited 1 time in total.)
Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $6.4 Trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars - an estimated $5.4 trillion in appropriations in current dollars and an additional minimum of $1 trillion for US obligations to care for the veterans of these wars through the next several decades.
The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined, was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al Qaeda and affiliated organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries - becoming a truly “global war on terror.” Further, the Department of Homeland Security was created in part to coordinate the defense of the homeland against terrorist attacks.
These wars, and the domestic counterterror mobilization, have entailed significant expenses, paid for by deficit spending. Thus, even if the United States withdraws completely from the major war zones by the end of FY2020 and halts its other Global War on Terror operations, in the Philippines and Africa for example, the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars will continue to rise as the US pays the on-going costs of veterans’ care and for interest on borrowing to pay for the wars. Moreover, the increases in the Pentagon base budget associated with the wars are likely to remain, inflating the military budget over the long run.
Entire neighborhoods, cities and societies have been shattered by war. The total number of injured and traumatized extends into the tens of millions. In Afghanistan, in 2002, 42 percent of the population showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 70 percent showed signs of major depression. Recent research in Iraq showed one in five suffering from mental illness, with 56 percent of young people exhibiting signs of PTSD. More than 12.5 million have been displaced from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen alone, according to UNHCR. Even more hidden have been the tens of thousands of dead and wounded in the other wars where U.S. troops have fought since 2001, including in Somalia, Libya and the Philippines.
While the United States is obviously not the only actor responsible for the damage done in the post-2001 wars, U.S. leaders bear the bulk of responsibility for launching catastrophic wars that were never inevitable; they were wars of choice.
Consider how the incomprehensible sum of money spent could have been used otherwise - to strengthen the economy, provide for internal security, to reduce the debt burden carried by American citizens, feed the hungry, improve transportation infrastructure, for health care and innumerable other necessary things.
From the Cost of War Project:
* Over 480,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
* It is likely that many times more have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
* 244,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.
* Over 6,950 US soldiers have died in the wars.
* 21 million Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Syrian people are living as war refugees and internally displaced persons.
* The US government is conducting counterterror activities in 80 countries, vastly expanding this war across the globe.
* The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.
* The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
* US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.
* The cost of the Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria wars totals about $5.9 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars, which will add an estimated $8 trillion in the next 40 years.
* Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom.
![[Image: 94f143a36bc62cdde856f70f296ce510.png]](https://extraimage.net/images/2019/11/14/94f143a36bc62cdde856f70f296ce510.png)
![[Image: c87a39d538a636791ef9538bc838a9e6.png]](https://extraimage.net/images/2019/11/14/c87a39d538a636791ef9538bc838a9e6.png)
Etymology - "The War on Terror" becomes an "OCO":
In March 2009, the Defense Department officially changed the name of operations from "Global War on Terror" to "Overseas Contingency Operation" (OCO). In March 2009, the Obama administration requested that Pentagon staff members avoid the use of the term and instead to use "Overseas Contingency Operation". Basic objectives of the Bush administration "war on terror", such as targeting al Qaeda and building international counterterrorism alliances, remain in place.
The "OCO" Appropriations for the Major War Zones:
![[Image: b6207461654b2edd52fb4bc88e1130c3.png]](https://extraimage.net/images/2019/11/14/b6207461654b2edd52fb4bc88e1130c3.png)
Interesting:
On May 2, 2011, the U.S. conducted a raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. President Barack Obama’s operation purportedly led to the death of the extremist leader. However, Obama refused to release images of bin Laden’s body, citing national security concerns. No video footage of the raid has ever been released by the U.S. government.
What video footage might exist of bin Laden’s death, if any, is unclear. CBS News reported in 2011 that 25 helmet cams had recorded the entire bin Laden raid, including the death of the al-Qaeda leader. But a later report from the New Yorker disputed this, saying that officials had watched real-time footage of the target from an unarmed RQ-170 drone.
On May 4, two days after the raid, Obama announced that although the United States was in possession of photos of bin Laden’s body, it would not release them, as they could pose a “national security risk.”
Officials told reporters that bin Laden’s body was buried at sea in accordance with Islamic tradition. Images of the body were shown to members of Congress, who told reporters that the images showed a badly disfigured corpse and who disagreed on whether the photographs should be released.
Attempts to legally force the release of the images have failed. In May 2013, a federal appeals court ruled that the release of postmortem images of the al-Qaeda leader could cause “exceptionally grave harm” to Americans, rejecting the calls of the group Judicial Watch. It is suspected that any photographs of the body may have been deliberately destroyed.
The lack of photographic evidence of bin Laden’s death led to unwanted scrutiny - already intense because of a number of discrepancies in official accounts of the killing that the White House blamed on the “fog of war.” Fake images of bin Laden’s body spread after his death, while a request from Abdullah bin Laden, Osama’s bin Laden's son, for an official death certificate was later denied.
Within two weeks of the raid, the head of U.S. special forces issued orders that all photos of the body be either turned in or destroyed.
In an e-mail dated May 13, 2011, then-Vice Adm. William McRaven wrote the following: "One particular item that I want to emphasize is photos; particularly UBLs remains. At this point - all photos should have been turned over to the CIA; if you still have them destroy them immediately or get them to the [redacted.]"
The e-mail was obtained by Judicial Watch. The e-mail, which was almost entirely redacted, was released under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Days before McRaven's instructions, Judicial Watch had filed a FOIA request for such photos, and hours before, they filed a lawsuit, according to the group's president, Tom Fitton.
"Despite there being multiple requests for this information, and a lawsuit for this information, there was a directive that was sent out, to who knows who, to destroy records. It may have been in violation of the law," Fitton said.
"Americans' right to know about what their government is up to should be circumscribed because we don't want to offend terrorists and their sympathizers? That to me is unbelievable," he said. "This is a historic raid. People have a right to this information."
But so far, the courts have not sided with Judicial Watch on that question, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the organization's appeal.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/...onsibility
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/201...ts-wrapper
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/11/polit...bin-laden/
The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined, was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al Qaeda and affiliated organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries - becoming a truly “global war on terror.” Further, the Department of Homeland Security was created in part to coordinate the defense of the homeland against terrorist attacks.
These wars, and the domestic counterterror mobilization, have entailed significant expenses, paid for by deficit spending. Thus, even if the United States withdraws completely from the major war zones by the end of FY2020 and halts its other Global War on Terror operations, in the Philippines and Africa for example, the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars will continue to rise as the US pays the on-going costs of veterans’ care and for interest on borrowing to pay for the wars. Moreover, the increases in the Pentagon base budget associated with the wars are likely to remain, inflating the military budget over the long run.
Entire neighborhoods, cities and societies have been shattered by war. The total number of injured and traumatized extends into the tens of millions. In Afghanistan, in 2002, 42 percent of the population showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 70 percent showed signs of major depression. Recent research in Iraq showed one in five suffering from mental illness, with 56 percent of young people exhibiting signs of PTSD. More than 12.5 million have been displaced from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen alone, according to UNHCR. Even more hidden have been the tens of thousands of dead and wounded in the other wars where U.S. troops have fought since 2001, including in Somalia, Libya and the Philippines.
While the United States is obviously not the only actor responsible for the damage done in the post-2001 wars, U.S. leaders bear the bulk of responsibility for launching catastrophic wars that were never inevitable; they were wars of choice.
Consider how the incomprehensible sum of money spent could have been used otherwise - to strengthen the economy, provide for internal security, to reduce the debt burden carried by American citizens, feed the hungry, improve transportation infrastructure, for health care and innumerable other necessary things.
From the Cost of War Project:
* Over 480,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
* It is likely that many times more have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
* 244,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.
* Over 6,950 US soldiers have died in the wars.
* 21 million Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Syrian people are living as war refugees and internally displaced persons.
* The US government is conducting counterterror activities in 80 countries, vastly expanding this war across the globe.
* The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.
* The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
* US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.
* The cost of the Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria wars totals about $5.9 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars, which will add an estimated $8 trillion in the next 40 years.
* Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom.
Etymology - "The War on Terror" becomes an "OCO":
In March 2009, the Defense Department officially changed the name of operations from "Global War on Terror" to "Overseas Contingency Operation" (OCO). In March 2009, the Obama administration requested that Pentagon staff members avoid the use of the term and instead to use "Overseas Contingency Operation". Basic objectives of the Bush administration "war on terror", such as targeting al Qaeda and building international counterterrorism alliances, remain in place.
The "OCO" Appropriations for the Major War Zones:
Interesting:
On May 2, 2011, the U.S. conducted a raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. President Barack Obama’s operation purportedly led to the death of the extremist leader. However, Obama refused to release images of bin Laden’s body, citing national security concerns. No video footage of the raid has ever been released by the U.S. government.
What video footage might exist of bin Laden’s death, if any, is unclear. CBS News reported in 2011 that 25 helmet cams had recorded the entire bin Laden raid, including the death of the al-Qaeda leader. But a later report from the New Yorker disputed this, saying that officials had watched real-time footage of the target from an unarmed RQ-170 drone.
On May 4, two days after the raid, Obama announced that although the United States was in possession of photos of bin Laden’s body, it would not release them, as they could pose a “national security risk.”
Officials told reporters that bin Laden’s body was buried at sea in accordance with Islamic tradition. Images of the body were shown to members of Congress, who told reporters that the images showed a badly disfigured corpse and who disagreed on whether the photographs should be released.
Attempts to legally force the release of the images have failed. In May 2013, a federal appeals court ruled that the release of postmortem images of the al-Qaeda leader could cause “exceptionally grave harm” to Americans, rejecting the calls of the group Judicial Watch. It is suspected that any photographs of the body may have been deliberately destroyed.
The lack of photographic evidence of bin Laden’s death led to unwanted scrutiny - already intense because of a number of discrepancies in official accounts of the killing that the White House blamed on the “fog of war.” Fake images of bin Laden’s body spread after his death, while a request from Abdullah bin Laden, Osama’s bin Laden's son, for an official death certificate was later denied.
Within two weeks of the raid, the head of U.S. special forces issued orders that all photos of the body be either turned in or destroyed.
In an e-mail dated May 13, 2011, then-Vice Adm. William McRaven wrote the following: "One particular item that I want to emphasize is photos; particularly UBLs remains. At this point - all photos should have been turned over to the CIA; if you still have them destroy them immediately or get them to the [redacted.]"
The e-mail was obtained by Judicial Watch. The e-mail, which was almost entirely redacted, was released under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Days before McRaven's instructions, Judicial Watch had filed a FOIA request for such photos, and hours before, they filed a lawsuit, according to the group's president, Tom Fitton.
"Despite there being multiple requests for this information, and a lawsuit for this information, there was a directive that was sent out, to who knows who, to destroy records. It may have been in violation of the law," Fitton said.
"Americans' right to know about what their government is up to should be circumscribed because we don't want to offend terrorists and their sympathizers? That to me is unbelievable," he said. "This is a historic raid. People have a right to this information."
But so far, the courts have not sided with Judicial Watch on that question, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the organization's appeal.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/...onsibility
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/201...ts-wrapper
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/11/polit...bin-laden/
