USA

America Needs to Reckon With the Death Toll of Post-9/11 Wars

Afghan men offer funeral prayers near the bodies of civilians killed in a NATO air strike, on the outskirts of Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013. An Afghan official says a NATO strike in the country's east has killed several civilians, but the U.S.-led coalition says that it targeted insurgents and that its initial reports indicate no civilian casualties. Afghan and NATO officials regularly differ as to whether civilians have been hit in attacks. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made denunciations of reported civilian deaths in airstrikes a pillar of his political strategy. (AP Photo/Nisar Ahmad)

Brown University’s Costs of War Project this month released a new estimate of the total death toll from the U.S. wars in three countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The numbers, while conservatively estimated, are staggering. Brown’s researchers estimate that at least 480,000 people have been directly killed by violence over the course of these conflicts, more than 244,000 of them civilians. In addition to those killed by direct acts violence, the number of indirect deaths — those resulting from disease, displacement, and the loss of critical infrastructure — is believed to be several times higher, running into the millions.

via America Needs to Reckon With the Death Toll of Post-9/11 Wars