U.S. not exactly innocent when it comes to civilian deaths as a result of the military industrial complex (MIC)

While the world is shocked at the daily news from Gaza about the extent of civilian deaths it is important to remember that Israel's greatest ally, the US, is not exactly supporting them with clean hands.

The U.S. post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of September 2021, an estimated 432,093 civilians in these countries have died violent deaths as a result of the wars. As of May 2023, an estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones. The total death toll in these war zones could be at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting, though the precise mortality figure remains unknown. Civilian deaths have also resulted from U.S. post-9/11 military operations in Somalia and other countries.

People living in the war zones have been killed in their homes, in markets, and on roadways. They have been killed by bombs, bullets, fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and drones. Civilians die at checkpoints, as they are run off the road by military vehicles, when they step on mines or cluster bombs, as they collect wood or tend to their fields, and when they are kidnapped and executed for purposes of revenge or intimidation. They are killed by the United States, by its allies, and by insurgents and sectarians in the civil wars spawned by the invasions.

War can also lead to death weeks or months after battles. Many times more people in the warzones have died as a result of battered infrastructure and poor health conditions arising from the wars than directly from its violence. For example, war refugees often lose access to a stable food supply or to their jobs, resulting in increased malnutrition and vulnerability to disease.

The Costs of War reports document the direct and indirect toll that war takes on civilians and their livelihoods, including the lingering effects of war death and injury on survivors and their families.

Key Findings

• 432,093 civilians have died violent deaths as a direct result of the U.S. post-9/11 wars.
• An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.
• More than 7.6 million children under five in post-9/11 war zones are suffering from acute malnutrition
• War deaths from malnutrition and a damaged health system and environment likely far outnumber deaths from combat.

Afghanistan

• As of March 2023, more than 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians are estimated to have died as a direct result of the war.
• The United States military in 2017 relaxed its rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan, which resulted in a massive increase in civilian casualties.
• The CIA has armed and funded Afghan militia groups who have been implicated in grave human rights abuses and killings of civilians.
• Afghan land is contaminated with unexploded ordnance, which kills and injures tens of thousands of Afghans, especially children, as they travel and go about their daily chores.
• The war has exacerbated the effects of poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care, and environmental degradation on Afghans’ health.

Iraq

• There have been between 280,771-315,190 Iraqi civilians killed by direct violence since the U.S. invasion.
• The actual number of civilians killed by direct and indirect war violence is unknown but likely much higher.
• Life-threatening damage to Iraqi health care and other infrastructure has not been repaired: civilians are still dying in significant numbers.

Pakistan

• The U.S. began its semi-covert campaign of drone strikes in 2004 to kill Al Qaeda and Taliban forces based in Northern Pakistan. The strikes are obscured by secrecy and are of questionable legality. There is also a debate about who and how many have been killed in the strikes. According to the highest estimates, these strikes have killed thousands of people.
• Approximately 66,650 Pakistanis – civilians and opposition fighters – have been killed since 2001. Of these, about 24,099 are civilians.

War crimes

Additionally, the US has a terrible history of committing war crimes. There is a legal body specifically set up to prosecute cases of genocide, war crimes and other serious international crimes. It's the International Criminal Court, or ICC. But here's the rub. The U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of this legal body. The United States is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute), which founded the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002. As of March 2023, 123 states are members of the Court.

On April 2, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement maintaining the country's "longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-States Parties such as the United States and Israel"; however, he added that "our concerns about these cases would be better addressed through engagement with all stakeholders in the ICC process rather than through the imposition of sanctions". 

Hypocritically, although not a member, Biden has welcomed the ICC's decision for the arrest warrant of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova on March 18, 2023 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine after it was discovered that Russia had deported children from Ukraine.

Israel is also not a member of the ICC and disputes its jurisdiction on the basis that Palestine is not a sovereign state capable of being a party to the Rome Statute, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly condemned the allegations and investigation.

How is this paid for?

Two words: Tax dollars. Yes, citizens (who pay tax) are funding war crimes and massive numbers of innocent civilian deaths.

The United States consistently allocates most of its federal discretionary budget to the military. As a result, the military industry continues to gain disproportionately large amounts of power in the U.S. economy and political sphere, which in turn ensures continued growth in the military budget. This has the effect of squeezing out the resources and power of other sectors, and weakening the United States’ ability to perform core functions such as healthcare, infrastructure, education, and emergency preparedness. This perpetuates a vicious cycle: high military spending means the strong military sector will only continue to get political power and gain public trust, which will in turn ensure it receives disproportionate resources at the expense of other sectors, which means the military will take on roles that should go to other agencies, and the cycle repeats.

• For Fiscal Year 2022, more than half of the discretionary budget went to national security spending.
• Of the money allocated to the Department of Defense, about half went to military contractors. About 30% of that went to the “Big 5” alone: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.
• In 2022, the Department of Defense accounted for 34 percent of the civilian federal workforce, and Veterans Affairs made up another 20 percent, so that more than half of federal civilian employees are devoted to the military and veterans.
• The federal government workforce is comprised of about 3.5 million workers, if we include both civilians and uniformed active-duty personnel. Of this, about 72 percent is defense-related employment, including Department of Defense civilians, uniformed military personnel, and those working in Veterans Affairs. By comparison, the Department of Health and Human Services made up 4 percent of federal employees, and the Department of State only 1 percent.
• Dollar for dollar, spending on other sectors creates more jobs than spending on the military. Spending on other priorities such as clean energy, health care, or public education would create between 9 percent and 250 percent more jobs than the same amount of spending on the military

The bottom line:

In the same way that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, continuing to spend in this way will ensure that the military industrial sector grows at the expense of other, more generative economic sectors. This is a missed opportunity: reducing the military budget and funding other priorities such as healthcare, education, clean energy, and infrastructure will help increase other forms of security – the kind of meaningful human security rooted in good health, good living conditions, and a productive and well-educated society – while also increasing employment nationwide. More here.

You know, all the good things that citizens were thinking (hoping) their tax dollars would be spent on.

In the meantime the billionaires who profit from the MIC are laughing all the way to the banks (that they also own).