A report issued by the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) claims that US military operations launched after 9/11 known as "The War On Terror" have led to the deaths of as many as two million people. The report includes data from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as information related to drone strikes and other actions in Pakistan.
PSR calculated the number of dead by aggregating data and statistics compiled and presented by the UN, governments and NGOs. The numbers for Afghanistan and Pakistan are murkier than the numbers for Iraq which has had multiple reviews conducted.
PSR arrives at a firm number of 1.3 million killed directly or indirectly by US combat operations but suggests that based on their research the actual number could surpass two million:
This investigation comes to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million. Not included in this figure are further war zones such as Yemen. The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated by the media and major NGOs. And this is only a conservative estimate.
The total number of deaths in the three countries named above could also be in excess of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.Adding to the horror of these figures is the understanding that the vast majority of those killed were civilians who had nothing to do with terrorism - they were just in the way.
OK. So we've killed roughly two million people, is the bloodlust from 9/11 now satiated? Al Qaeda left Afghanistan in the first six months of the war and Iraq had nothing to do with the attack yet their populations have drowned in blood for a decade thanks in part to our efforts - feeling better?
How many random innocent people have to die before we say enough and start getting back to rational policymaking?
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