US wars launched since the attacks of September 11, 2001, have left 225,000 dead and cost up to $US4.4 trillion ($4.12 trillion), according to a new study by university researchers.The Americans have hardly used 'brute force' as these academics put it. A couple of nuclear strikes would have had this all over by now with fewer allied deaths and the terrorists' supporters would be reconsidering their own alliances.
The study published by Brown University this week focused on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and counter-terrorism campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen, which came in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
The authors argued that governments almost always go to war underestimating the potential duration and costs of a conflict while overestimating "the political objectives that can be accomplished by the use of brute force".
Instead, Western squeamishness means the death toll continues to rise.
When you have a cancer, you cut it all out at once.
-- Nick
No comments:
Post a Comment