Eisenhower Research Project | War Costs $4 Trillion

A new report out of Brown University estimates that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq--together with the counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan--will, all told, cost $4 trillion and leave 225,000 dead, both civilians and soldiers. The researchers have deliberately used the lowest estimates for the human cost in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. Many studies have estimated even higher numbers.

They have a great web page. With reports and data analysis for the human, economic, social and political costs, as well as sections on who benefits and alternatives and recommendations.

The group of economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists involved in the project estimated that the cost of caring for the veterans injured in the wars will reach $1 trillion in 30 or 40 years. In estimating the $4 trillion total, they did not take into account the $5.3 billion in reconstruction spending the government has promised Afghanistan, state and local contributions to veteran care, interest payments on war debt, or the costs of Medicare for veterans when they reach 65.

The Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, has assessed the federal price tag for the wars at $1.8 trillion through 2021. The report says that is a gross underestimate, predicting that the government has already paid $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

The Costs of War Since 2001: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
Executive Summary
Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University
Eisenhower Research Project, June 2011

Highlight of Costs from Reuters

FINANCIAL TOLL:
* Congressional war appropriations to Pentagon since 2001: $1.3 trillion
* Additions to Pentagon base budget: $362 billion to $652 billion
* Interest on Pentagon war appropriations: $185 billion
* Veterans' medical claims and disability: $33 billion
* War-related international aid: $74 billion
* Additions to Homeland Security base spending: $401 billion
* Projected obligations for veterans care to 2050: $589 billion to $934 billion
* Social cost veterans and military families to date: $295 billion to $400 billion

Future spending requests:
* 2012 Pentagon war spending: $118 billion
* 2012 foreign aid: $12 billion
* 2013-2015 projected war spending: $168 billion
* 2016-2020 projected war spending: $155 billion

ESTIMATED TOTAL: $3.7 trillion to $4.4 trillion

ADDITIONAL interest payments to 2020: $1 trillion

CONSERVATIVE DEATH TOLL ESTIMATES BY WAR ZONE:

Afghanistan: 33,877
Iraq: 151,471
Pakistan: 39,127

CONSERVATIVE DEATH TOLL ESTIMATES BY CATEGORY:

U.S. military: 6,051
U.S. contractors: 2,300
Iraqi security forces: 9,922
Afghan security forces: 8,756
Pakistani security forces: 3,520
Other allied troops: 1,192
Afghan civilians: 11,700
Iraqi civilians: 125,000
Pakistani civilians and insurgents: 35,600
Afghan insurgents: 10,000
Iraqi army during U.S. invasion: 10,000
Journalists and media workers: 168
Humanitarian workers: 266
TOTAL: 224,475

Ways to Count the Dead | Poem by Persis M. Karim

Ways to Count the Dead

“Keeping track of the Iraqi death toll isn’t the job of the United States,” a student said, “and besides, how would we count the dead?”

Take their limbs strewn about the streets—
multiply by a thousand and one.

Ask everyone in Baghdad who has lost
a brother. Cousin. Sister. Child—to speak
their name in a recorder.

Go to every school, stand
at the front of the class, take roll;
for every empty desk, at least two dead.

Find every shop that sells cigarettes—
ask how many more cartons they’ve sold this year.

Go to the bus station and buy ten tickets—
offer them free to anyone who wants to leave.

Go see the coffin-maker. Ask how much
cedar and pine he’s ordered this month.

The dead don’t require much. They don’t speak
in numbers or tongues, they lie silent

waiting—to be counted.

-Persis M. Karim



Persis M. Karim teaches literature and creative writing at San Jose State University. She is the editor and contributing poet to Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (2006). Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including Caesura, Alimentum, Di-verse-city, HeartLodge, and Ravingdove.org. She is currently working on a manuscript of poems, "Ways to Count the Dead".

For more poems visit Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here.

Named for a tenth-century poet and revolutionary who lived in what is now Iraq, Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad was the center of the city’s intellectual and literary life. It was home to booksellers, stationery stores, antiquarian bookstores, and cafes as famous for the ideas that flowed freely as for their pungent coffee.

US Drones Kill 21 in Pakistan | New Report on Drone Strikes & legal Obligations (ORG)

Reuters reports that U.S. drones killed at least 21 people in Pakistan's South Waziristan yesterday.

New Report on Legal Obligations

The Oxford Research Group has just released a second report on the use of drones. Much of the energy that sustains this work comes out of the ground-breaking project Recording Casualties. The effort seeks to “build the political will to record details of every single victim of armed conflict worldwide.

Press Release

Drones Don't Allow Hit and Run - If You Use Drones You Must Confirm and Report Who They Killed, Says Legal Team

Key Findings

• There is a legal requirement to identify all casualties that result from any drone use, under any and all circumstances.

• The universal human right which specifies that no-one be "arbitrarily" deprived of his or her life depends upon the identity of the deceased being established, as do reparations or compensation for possible wrongful killing, injury and other offences.

• The responsibility to properly record casualties is a requirement that extends to states who authorise or agree the use of drones, as well as those who launch and control them, but the legal (as well as moral) duty falls most heavily on the latter.

• There is a legal requirement to bury the dead according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged, and this may not be in mass or unmarked graves. The site of burial must be recorded, particularly in the event that further investigation is required.

• A particular characteristic of drone attacks is that efforts to disinter and identify the remains of the deceased may be daunting, as with any high explosive attacks on persons. However, this difficulty in no way absolves parties such as those above from their responsibility to identify all the casualties of drone attacks.

• Another characteristic of drone attacks is that as isolated strikes, rather than part of raging battles, there is no need to delay until the cessation of hostilities before taking measures to search for, collect and evacuate the dead.

PAKISTAN, YEMEN, AND BEYOND

The report also provides a set of specific recommendations addressing the current situation in Pakistan and Yemen, where the issue of drone strikes by the United States and the recording of their casualties is of real and practical urgency. According to the report, while legal duties fall upon all the parties mentioned, it is the United States (as the launcher and controller of drones) which has least justification to shirk its responsibilities.

The implications of these findings go well beyond the particularities of these weapons, these countries, and these specific uses. The legal obligations enshrined as they are in international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and domestic law, are binding on all parties at all times in relation to any form of violent killing or injury by any party.

Elaborating on the report's implications, Dr Breau said: States, individually and collectively, need to plan how to work towards conformance with these substantial bodies of law. Members of civil society, particularly those that seek the welfare of the victims of conflict, have a new opportunity to press states towards fulfilling their obligations under law.

This is not asking for the impossible. The killing of Osama Bin Laden suggests the lengths to which states will go to confirm their targets when they believe this to be in their own interest. Had the political stakes in avoiding mistaken or disputed identity not been so high, Bin Laden (and whoever else was in his home) would almost certainly have been typical candidates for a drone attack.

Commenting on the report, Paul Rogers, ORG's Consultant on Global Security and Professor at Bradford University Peace Studies Department, said:

Armed drones are fast becoming the weapons of choice by the United States and its allies in South Asia and the Middle East, yet their use raises major questions about legality which have been very largely ignored. A key and salutary finding of this report is that drone users cannot escape a legal responsibility to expose the human consequences of their attacks. This hugely important and detailed analysis addresses some of the most significant issues involved and deserves the widest coverage, not least in military, legal and political circles.

Click here to view the full report.

Refugees International | Field Report

Lynn Yoshikawa and Matt Pennington assessed the needs of internally displaced people in Afghanistan in May 2011. This is their report. It is powerful testimony to the impact of the surge and the creation of new militia forces called Afghan Local Police (ALP). Simply put, they find Afghans civilians caught in the middle of an intensifying military campaign against a fractured armed insurgency.

Responsible U.S. Transition Must Address Displacement Crisis
Refugees International | Field Report | 28 June 2011

"Despite the U.S. military’s claims of progress, insurgent attacks are up by 50% over last year, and more than 250,000 people have fled their villages in the past two years. U.S. funded and trained militias are only exacerbating this explosive situation…”

"Since January 1, more than 91,000 Afghans have fled their villages – compared with 42,000 over the same time period last year. This is mostly due to international and Afghan forces’ military operations against the Taliban…”

"Although General Petraeus touts local defense initiatives as successfully thwarting the insurgency, the proliferation of militias is increasing insecurity, especially in the north. Many new militias operate under the guise of the U.S./ISAF-backed Afghan Local Police (ALP) initiative. Internally Displaced People (IDPs), government officials, security analysts and humanitarian actors told RI that the expansion of poorly vetted, ill-trained and unsupervised ALP units and irregular militias are a major threat to civilians and stability. These armed groups have allegedly committed abuses including murder, theft, extortion, bribery and intimidation.”

They provide five policy recommendations

“The incoming ISAF commander should issue a directive to all forces under his command to reduce displacement and share information on displacement with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The U.S. Congress should withhold payments to the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program until the Secretary of Defense certifies that adequate recruitment, vetting, discipline and command/control structures have been established, as well as a clear timeframe for the program’s integration into the Afghan National Police.

UNHCR and OCHA should request funding to double their protection and humanitarian affairs officers in critical regional offices to meet growing humanitarian needs.

The UN should immediately appoint an experienced candidate to the Humanitarian Coordinator post.

The U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP) should work with the Afghan government to develop an inter-agency plan to address forced displacement.”

Gilles Dorronsoro | Impossible Transition

Afghanistan: The Impossible Transition
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (June 2011)

Gilles Dorronsoro lays out the need for a dramatic new U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Arguing that “… Western withdrawal requires a political agreement with the Taliban leadership, which implies abandoning the coalition’s reintegration policy.”

“A combination of two critical problems threatens to undermine the mission of the United States–led coalition in Afghanistan: the failure of the counterinsurgency strategy and a disconnect between political objectives and military operations. If anything, the current strategy is making a political solution less likely, notably because it is antagonizing Pakistan without containing the rise of the armed opposition. That has put the coalition in a paradoxical situation, in which it is being weakened militarily by a non-negotiated and inevitable withdrawal while at the same time alienating potential negotiating partners.”

Introduction

“The U.S. strategy is hard for the public to understand; in fact, despite ambiguities stemming from varying assessments within the Obama administration, the United States is banking, at least as far as we can see on the ground, on a military victory. Targeted strikes against Taliban fighters are the weapon of choice to destabilize the insurgency and force the fighters to surrender. The “reintegration” program, to which the United States has already allocated some $50 million, represents the institutional cornerstone of this policy. Contrary to what is often said about local and national approaches complementing each other, reintegration is fundamentally contrary to any negotiation process because it assumes the progressive weakening of the insurgency. Likewise, operations in the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand must succeed for the coalition to change perceptions in Afghanistan and in the West and to disrupt the Taliban movement in areas where it is strong. Military progress would then allow the coalition to gradually withdraw. This strategy assumes that sufficient time and money have been allocated, which explains why the importance of July 2011—the withdrawal’s scheduled beginning date—is being played down in favor of 2014, the slated end of the transition. In effect, the U.S. army plans to maintain military pressure on the Taliban during the next three years while security responsibilities are transferred to the Afghan army.”

Gilles Dorronsoro, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, is an expert on Afghanistan, Turkey, and South Asia. His research focuses on security and political development in Afghanistan, particularly the role of the International Security Assistance Force, the necessary steps for a viable government in Kabul, and the conditions necessary for withdrawal scenarios.

He is the co-founder and editor of the South Asian Multidisciplinary Academic Journal and the European Journal of Turkish Studies. He is the author of Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (Columbia University Press, 2005), and La révolution afghane, des communistes aux Taleban (Karthala Publishers 2000), and editor of La Turquie conteste. Régime sécuritaire et mobilizations sociales (Editions du CNRS, 2005).

Jimmy Cliff | Afghanistan | Stop the Wars

Jimmy Cliff sang this at the Glastonbury Festival on 24 June 2011, changing the title of his 1960s anti-war hit Vietnam to Afghanistan. His uncompromising anti-war message was broadcast to a huge TV audience.

From: Stop the War Coalition


Lyrics

Hey, Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan

Yesterday I got a letter from my friend fighting in Afghanistan
And this is what he had to say
"Tell all my friends that I'll be coming home soon
My time'll be up some time in June"
"Don't forget", he said, "To tell my sweet Mary
Her golden lips are sweet as cherry"

And it came from, Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan

It was just the next day his mother got an email
It was addressed from Afghanistan
Now Mistress Brown, she lives in the USA
And this is what they wrote and said
She said "Don't be alarmed", she told her the email said
'But Mistress Brown, your son is dead'

And it came from Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Afghanistan, hey, Afghanistan
Somebody please stop that war now
In Iraq, in Jerusalem, in Libya, in Syria
In Pakistan, in Sudan
People got to stop the war
People got to stop the war

I remember Vietnam, I remember Vietnam
I remember Vietnam, I remember Vietnam
Somebody stop the war, stop the war, stop the war

Organizing 101 | Windows and Mirrors

Next Friday the Windows and Mirrors exhibit will open in Chicago.

This clip is from the March and April venues in Greensboro NC. It is all about organizing and action. I think you will enjoy it.

Here is the schedule for the rest of this year.