According to Brown University a conservative estimate of the direct and indirect deaths during the 20-year war on terror is estimated to be 6 million dead. At 6:20 in the following video the host informs us of this sad fact. Listen, Pause, and Reflect!
Ill have to look into that later. I am curious as to how they measured that number though. For instance, if the Taliban kill a group of people is that being linked to "our empire" via an indirect relationship? Because the Taliban killed people even before we arrived, its a hard argument to make that its because of us. Not sure if this is happening or not, but the "indirect" wording and how loose people are with definitions makes me wonder. It will be a good time finding out.
They didn't measure it at all, how could they? They took a theoretical nose dove into a sea of butterfly effect logic, salted with what I'm sure is no small degree of subjective bias, and flat out guessed at the number of deaths coming out of regions that don't have competent or complete vital statistics records keeping. There's no way they could have done anything but guess.
I’m almost positive that is the case. Another reason why I say studies should often times be taken with a grain of salt on a case by case basis.
I bet their ass will think twice before they murder 3,000 of our people in a terrorist attack again. “Yeah we can take out 3000 of them or so, destroy some buildings and cause short term pain and suffering... but if we do they’re going to come over here, invade our country, devastate our infrastructure, set us back 40 years and kill millions of our people. Nah it’s probably not worth it.”
Now, the 6 million number is highly exaggerated. The REAL number is somewhere between 500,000 and a million. Still staggering, especially considering that at least half of those, if not more, were civilians. But, let's go with your logic: A small bunch of extremists kills 3,000 people in the US. Does that make it okay for us to kill 100,000s of people in foreign countries, even if their only two common denominators with the terrorists are that they have the same religion and live in the same region of the world? Just for the sake of deterrence (how well did shock and awe work, btw)? I'd say there is an ethical problem with this attitude.
There’s no such thing as ethics in war. No matter how hard the Geneva convention may try. The ethics of war are written by the victors who, universally, used unethical actions to win.
Problem is they don’t care if we do any of those things because it will only radicalize more of them. You can’t fight a religious war using state warfare logic.
I always doubt numbers like this, even with Hitler.... sure it was a lot, but biases can easily come into play and exaggerate or underestimate counts
It’s what you do. They kill 10 of you, you kill 100. They fly planes into landmarks, you bomb them into the Stone Age like the animals they are. But it’s very hard to fight a war with people who simply don’t value life or society.
Balderdash! This is a war the US never wanted and fought with the utmost restraint. Blame the terrorists.
