5 ms·

The Staggering Death Toll of the Post-9/11 Wars

37 points by Reedx 6y ago

troughway 6y ago
Slightly off-topic, but with Glenn Greenwald resigning recently and the reasoning behind it, I feel no desire to read the intercept anymore. I am sure they won't be hurting for viewers to sell their type of "correct" propaganda to.
- Analemma_ 6y ago
  You don't have to trust the Intercept in general, but you're not doing good by Greenwald if you just ignore reports about the death tolls of the post-9/11 wars. His entire crusade against the mainstream media was started by their complicity in said wars.
- cma 6y ago
  What I'd like to see is is Substack paying the initial exclusive authors more beyond what the author's readers will pay in, as a kind of a Silicon Valley subsidy of the early movers, ultimately to be able to take a bigger cut of the late movers with a lot of high prestige early people and network effects? Many of the journalists who have move have said it was a moral thing, but none of the big ones have disclosed any monetary incentives that might have tilted their hand. Do they get stock options as well, in a kind of law firm-partnereseque model?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
protoman3000 6y ago
We feel the damage caused by the lies around the Iraq war and their alleged weapons of mass destruction until today. The Bush/Blair administration pushed for war and claimed to the whole world that they have proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, requiring immediate intervention. But this proved to be a lie. [1] We follow(ed) populists who used the facts that our leaders lied to us and that we did not believe them anymore. We can't combat this pandemic or the climate catastrophe effectively because opportunists sow distrust and they can because we distrust our leaders because they lied to us. The world would be a very different place today (a better one!), if our leaders didn't have lied to us. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1
- everdrive 6y ago
  Well said. A total reversal can lead to new problems which are just as bad as the problems you're fleeing from.
- dahfizz 6y ago
  I'm not sure why you single out Bush as the point where people lost trust in the government. From as far back as the USS Maine, operation northwoods, and more recently the fast and furious scandal, or all the snowden leaks. The government has always lied and has never been worthy of trust, before during or after Bush.
  - Guest42 6y ago
    The article is about 9/11 and the subsequent events.
- mgamache 6y ago
  Bush may have lied, but don't forget that Saddam Hussein used WMDs and wanted his neighbors to think he might have them to project regional power. So the lie was believable and not manufactured from whole cloth. Did they believe it? Some probably did, but other used it to forward a proactive foreign policy to remake the middle east. It's one area where conservatives underestimate the cost of change.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    Who we should have believed is the UN inspection team. That's literally their role in things. But they didn't support the narrative Bush/Blair wanted. I think you'll have a very hard time finding anyone besides the neocon camp that think 2003 somehow reshaped the middle east for the better.
    - mgamache 6y ago
      Saddam played games with the inspection teams (remember the 'presidential sites'). Did Blix get a comprehensive look and verify maybe, but that was after 10 years of obfuscation. Also, you know who thought he might have nerve gas? The Kurds. And I wasn't arguing the invasion was good or bad, I don't think we'll ever know. At least not for a few generations. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4996218 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=499621...
whatshisface 6y ago
The Vietnam war saw an average of 2k KIA deaths per year on the American side, if you take its whole duration into account, or about 4k KIA deaths per year if you start at Johnson's escalation. The peak number of US causalities per year was 16,899 in 1968. The 2k/year and 4k/year averages are both biased due to several years with very low activity that were still considered part of the war. Hopefully these numbers should put the numbers in the article in perspective. >KILLED IN ACTION 40,934 [0] >from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. [1] >Johnson's escalation, 1963–1969 [1] [0] https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casua... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
- freewilly1040 6y ago
  The article is about the number of people killed, not the number of American people killed.
MrPowers 6y ago
Joseph Stiglitz did wonderful research on calculating the staggering financial cost of the Iraq war, estimated at 3 trillion dollars in 2008: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87801279 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=878012... Amazon's market cap is 1.6 trillion to put the 3 trillion figure in context. The financial resources invested in these wars was enormous.
- okareaman 6y ago
  The thought that always comes to mind for me is this: Doesn't most of that money end up in the pockets of American defense workers and American troops in the form of wages and salaries and could be viewed as a huge public works project? It's not like the money disappeared into Russian or Chinese pockets.
  - chungus_khan 6y ago
    I would personally prefer a public works project with fruits that have a little bit more return on them than blowing up Afghani farmers. Plus acquisitions and operations/maintenance eat up much more than personnel costs anyway, and the surplus of that money goes to defense investors (who I personally don't enjoy subsidizing so much).
    - okareaman 6y ago
      Oh agreed, it's terrible in terms of being a public works project. I'd rather put everyone to work building a national high speed rail system.
    - ansible 6y ago
      There was a A Whitney Young video a while back about that. He was going on about "what good are dead Iraqis to me?" basically. And he had a point. Instead of killing people, and destroying their civilization's infrastructure, we could have instead spent that on R&D for our own energy independence. More of that money would have stayed in the country, enriching us all and boosting our own economy rather than producing goods used for destruction. Even not doing R&D, but just putting that money into basic infrastructure in the USA, like roads and bridges, would promote local economic growth.
2Gkashmiri 6y ago
i am not an american but its like the american media has cashed in on the 9/11 over and over again. usually covertly but many times deliberately and even as far as to specifically talk about using it. case in point bosch tv series. the protagonist in the books was a "vietnam war vet" to cash in on that because it came after that. for the Tv series, 9/11 happened. this is now a american culture to say " oh the 9/11" implying so many lives were lost, in order to justify the vile actions TODAY. STOP humans have lost lives because americans get a raging boner around 9/11 and how avenging the lives lost means mass murdering millions and ruining lives of many many generations. STOP i know i will be downvoted for this but i have to say this

37 points by Reedx 6y ago

Slightly off-topic, but with Glenn Greenwald resigning recently and the reasoning behind it, I feel no desire to read the intercept anymore. I am sure they won't be hurting for viewers to sell their type of "correct" propaganda to.

Analemma_ 6y ago
You don't have to trust the Intercept in general, but you're not doing good by Greenwald if you just ignore reports about the death tolls of the post-9/11 wars. His entire crusade against the mainstream media was started by their complicity in said wars.
cma 6y ago
What I'd like to see is is Substack paying the initial exclusive authors more beyond what the author's readers will pay in, as a kind of a Silicon Valley subsidy of the early movers, ultimately to be able to take a bigger cut of the late movers with a lot of high prestige early people and network effects? Many of the journalists who have move have said it was a moral thing, but none of the big ones have disclosed any monetary incentives that might have tilted their hand. Do they get stock options as well, in a kind of law firm-partnereseque model?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

protoman3000 6y ago

We feel the damage caused by the lies around the Iraq war and their alleged weapons of mass destruction until today. The Bush/Blair administration pushed for war and claimed to the whole world that they have proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, requiring immediate intervention. But this proved to be a lie. [1] We follow(ed) populists who used the facts that our leaders lied to us and that we did not believe them anymore. We can't combat this pandemic or the climate catastrophe effectively because opportunists sow distrust and they can because we distrust our leaders because they lied to us. The world would be a very different place today (a better one!), if our leaders didn't have lied to us. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1

everdrive 6y ago
Well said. A total reversal can lead to new problems which are just as bad as the problems you're fleeing from.
dahfizz 6y ago
I'm not sure why you single out Bush as the point where people lost trust in the government. From as far back as the USS Maine, operation northwoods, and more recently the fast and furious scandal, or all the snowden leaks. The government has always lied and has never been worthy of trust, before during or after Bush.
- Guest42 6y ago
  The article is about 9/11 and the subsequent events.
mgamache 6y ago
Bush may have lied, but don't forget that Saddam Hussein used WMDs and wanted his neighbors to think he might have them to project regional power. So the lie was believable and not manufactured from whole cloth. Did they believe it? Some probably did, but other used it to forward a proactive foreign policy to remake the middle east. It's one area where conservatives underestimate the cost of change.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Who we should have believed is the UN inspection team. That's literally their role in things. But they didn't support the narrative Bush/Blair wanted. I think you'll have a very hard time finding anyone besides the neocon camp that think 2003 somehow reshaped the middle east for the better.
  - mgamache 6y ago
    Saddam played games with the inspection teams (remember the 'presidential sites'). Did Blix get a comprehensive look and verify maybe, but that was after 10 years of obfuscation. Also, you know who thought he might have nerve gas? The Kurds. And I wasn't arguing the invasion was good or bad, I don't think we'll ever know. At least not for a few generations. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4996218 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=499621...

whatshisface 6y ago

The Vietnam war saw an average of 2k KIA deaths per year on the American side, if you take its whole duration into account, or about 4k KIA deaths per year if you start at Johnson's escalation. The peak number of US causalities per year was 16,899 in 1968. The 2k/year and 4k/year averages are both biased due to several years with very low activity that were still considered part of the war. Hopefully these numbers should put the numbers in the article in perspective. >KILLED IN ACTION 40,934 [0] >from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. [1] >Johnson's escalation, 1963–1969 [1] [0] https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casua... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

freewilly1040 6y ago
The article is about the number of people killed, not the number of American people killed.

MrPowers 6y ago

Joseph Stiglitz did wonderful research on calculating the staggering financial cost of the Iraq war, estimated at 3 trillion dollars in 2008: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87801279 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=878012... Amazon's market cap is 1.6 trillion to put the 3 trillion figure in context. The financial resources invested in these wars was enormous.

okareaman 6y ago
The thought that always comes to mind for me is this: Doesn't most of that money end up in the pockets of American defense workers and American troops in the form of wages and salaries and could be viewed as a huge public works project? It's not like the money disappeared into Russian or Chinese pockets.
- chungus_khan 6y ago
  I would personally prefer a public works project with fruits that have a little bit more return on them than blowing up Afghani farmers. Plus acquisitions and operations/maintenance eat up much more than personnel costs anyway, and the surplus of that money goes to defense investors (who I personally don't enjoy subsidizing so much).
  - okareaman 6y ago
    Oh agreed, it's terrible in terms of being a public works project. I'd rather put everyone to work building a national high speed rail system.
  - ansible 6y ago
    There was a A Whitney Young video a while back about that. He was going on about "what good are dead Iraqis to me?" basically. And he had a point. Instead of killing people, and destroying their civilization's infrastructure, we could have instead spent that on R&D for our own energy independence. More of that money would have stayed in the country, enriching us all and boosting our own economy rather than producing goods used for destruction. Even not doing R&D, but just putting that money into basic infrastructure in the USA, like roads and bridges, would promote local economic growth.

2Gkashmiri 6y ago

i am not an american but its like the american media has cashed in on the 9/11 over and over again. usually covertly but many times deliberately and even as far as to specifically talk about using it. case in point bosch tv series. the protagonist in the books was a "vietnam war vet" to cash in on that because it came after that. for the Tv series, 9/11 happened. this is now a american culture to say " oh the 9/11" implying so many lives were lost, in order to justify the vile actions TODAY. STOP humans have lost lives because americans get a raging boner around 9/11 and how avenging the lives lost means mass murdering millions and ruining lives of many many generations. STOP i know i will be downvoted for this but i have to say this