Some of the Costs of the U.S. “Wars on Terror”

In the U.S., we tend to think mostly about our own losses, our own wounded and dead. The costs we inflict on other people with our war machine are estimated in Jacob Crosse's article: "Two decades of US “war on terror” responsible for displacing at least 37 million people and killing up to 12 million." An excerpt:

A staggering new report coauthored by Professor David Vine at the Watson Institute at Brown University conservatively estimates that 37 million people, equivalent to the entire population of Canada, have been forced to flee their home country, or have become internally displaced within it by nearly two decades of unending US imperialist war. The analysis, published by the Costs of War Project, sought to quantify for the first time the number of people displaced by the United States military operations since President George W. Bush declared a “global war on terror” in September 2001 following the still unexplained attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon.

Professor Vine and his coauthors note that the 37 million estimated displaced is a “very conservative estimate,” with the real number of people displaced since September 2001, “closer to 48-59 million.” That is as much as, or more than, all of the displaced persons in World War II and therefore more than any other war in the last century. It is difficult to articulate the levels of misery, poverty, hardship, strife, pain and death visited upon entire societies and endured by millions of people.

The latest Costs of War report focused on eight countries that have been subjected to major US military operations: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

. . . The authors estimate that 9.2 million people in Iraq and 7.1 million in Syria have been displaced respectively, in both cases roughly 37 percent of the prewar population. . . .Somalia, where US forces have been operating since 2002, has the highest percentage of displaced persons with 46 percent of the country or nearly 4.2 million people displaced.

Throughout the “war on terror,” the authors estimate between 770,000 and 801,000 civilians and combatants on all sides have died in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen since US forces began military operations in those countries. The number of “indirect deaths,” that is, those who weren’t confirmed killed by military weaponry, but died due to lack of healthcare, infrastructure, or food as a result of US military operations, embargoes and blockades may exceed 3.1 million, although the authors noted that credible estimates range in excess of 12 million.

Continue ReadingSome of the Costs of the U.S. “Wars on Terror”

“Online Safety Expert” Cross-Examined by Representative Nancy Mace

Glenn Greenwald:

This is a brilliant exchange by @NancyMace yesterday in Congress. There is a tiny group of hateful left-liberal fanatics whom have been arbitrarily dubbed "Online Safety Experts" and constantly warn hateful rhetoric incites violence. Yet they're the most hateful people around.

Four minutes worth watching.

Glenn's entire thread is worth a read, including his discussion of the important book by Jonathan Haidt and Gregg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind. This video is Exhibit A, introducing us to one of the many adult-sized children who think they are clever to tear down America's institutions while offering nothing in their place. In short, they are purveyors of Chesterson's Fence. They have turned out this way because they have been coddled throughout their lives, never forced to learn how to have adult conversations . . . until now.

Continue Reading“Online Safety Expert” Cross-Examined by Representative Nancy Mace

About the Nord Stream Pipeline

Matt Taibbi comments on the Nord Stream Pipelines:

The massive dual Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines between Russia and Germany were struck by highly suspicious twin underwater explosions, causing a giant environmental disaster and deepening an already devastating European energy crisis. Reactions from Russian, European, and especially American political protagonists ranged from merely unbelievable to abjectly comic. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tsk-tsked that some unknown not-American actor must have committed a “deliberate act.” Not since Shaggy came out with the one-hit-wonder It Wasn’t Me in 1999, or O.J. launched his hunt for the real killers, has American popular culture seen a less convincing cover story. U.S. officials were long ago on record promising to cut off the pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine, with Joe Biden saying in February, “We will bring an end to it.” When asked how, Biden coyly said, “I promise you, we will be able to do it.” The operation, no joke, came in the same week NATO tweeted that ongoing exercises presented “opportunities to test new unmanned systems at sea” (see TWEET HISTORY MAY REMEMBER). A rapid-fire tweet by former Polish Foreign Minister saying, “Thank you, USA” was mysteriously taken down later in the week, inspiring trolls to tease that his hardcore interventionist wife Anne Applebaum made him do it. Meanwhile, mainstream pundits in the U.S. and the U.K. in impressive deadpan argued that Russia had sabotaged its own pipeline, its best and perhaps only source of leverage internationally. The U.K. Spectator for instance suggested Russia did it to “up the ante on the West.” Throughout, three boiling patches of methane, one a kilometer across, poured toxic gases into the atmosphere in an “unprecedented” climate disaster. Fortunately this worries almost no one, since we’re now currently preoccupied with an even bigger fear, of nuclear war.
From Aaron Mate:

Continue ReadingAbout the Nord Stream Pipeline

About Tyrannies

This is a passage from Will Storr's new book, The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It  (2022):

Tyrannies are virtue-dominance games. Much of their daily play and conversation will focus on matters of obedience, belief and enemies. Is the game you’re playing coercing people, both inside and outside it, into conforming to its rules and symbols? Does it attempt to silence its ideological foes? Does it tell a simplistic story that explains the hierarchy, deifying their group whilst demonising a common enemy? Are those around you obsessed with their sacred beliefs? Do they talk about them continually and with greedy pleasure, drawing significant status from belief and active belief? Does it seek to damage and destroy lives, often with glee? Is this aggression made to feel virtuous? That’s probably a tyranny. This might sound melodramatic, but we all contain the capacity for this dreadful mode of play: those cousins are built into our coding. If we’re serious about ‘never again’ we must accept that tyranny isn’t a ‘left’ thing or a ‘right’ thing, it’s a human thing. It doesn’t arrive goose-stepping down streets in terrifying ranks. It seduces us with stories.

Continue ReadingAbout Tyrannies

Freddie DeBoer’s Smallish List of “Good White Men”

Over the past couple of years, I have learned a lot about writing by reading Freddie DeBoer. He's got some incredible chops! His most recent article is a masterclass, especially his psychoanalysis of the ACLU's Chris Strange. Here's an excerpt from his article, "The Good White Man Roster: a database of progressive white men who are thirsty for credit."

These are the guys who have carefully crafted personas as ALLIES, as the good ones, as the right kind of white guy. These are the dudes whose every engagement on social media functions to let you know how very sorry they are, but always seem to come out on top in doing so. These are the guys who always stand behind women, ready to catch them when they fall, which they will inevitably do because of fucking patriarchy, man, and if people would just read their bell hooks maybe we’d be getting somewhere!, please like share and subscribe. These are the guys who think all complaints about identity politics, political correctness, and cancel culture are just the dying gasp of reactionary old men, which is why they lie awake at night praying to god that they never get canceled. These are the guys who put their pronouns in their bios in hopes that doing so might get them a little pussy. These are the guys who will harangue you about how white dudes do this and white dudes do that, speaking to you from their blameless white dude mouths in their righteous white dude faces. These are the guys who look at the discourse about white supremacy and patriarchy and see market opportunity.

Continue ReadingFreddie DeBoer’s Smallish List of “Good White Men”