THE WISDOM FUND: News & Views
August 3, 2015
MintPress News Desk

America's War On Terror Has Killed 4 Million Muslims

WASHINGTON -- A study released earlier this year revealed the shocking death toll of the United States's "War on Terror" since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but the true body count could be even higher.

Pentagon impact hole closeup Published in March by Physicians for Social Responsibility, the study, conducted by a team that included some Nobel Prize winners, determined that at least 1.3 million people have died as a result of war since Sept.11, 2001, but the real figure might be as high as two million. The study was an attempt to "close the gaps" in existing research, including studies like the Iraq Body Count," which puts the number of violent deaths in that country at about 219,000 since 2003, based on media reports of the time period.

Investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed, writing in April for Middle East Eye, explained some of the ways the previous figures fell short, according to the physicians' research: "For instance, although 40,000 corpses had been buried in Najaf since the launch of the war, IBC [Iraq Body Count] recorded only 1,354 deaths in Najaf for the same period. That example shows how wide the gap is between IBC's Najaf figure and the actual death toll - in this case, by a factor of over 30.

Such gaps are replete throughout IBC's database. In another instance, IBC recorded just three airstrikes in a period in 2005, when the number of air attacks had in fact increased from 25 to 120 that year. Again, the gap here is by a factor of 40." . . .

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Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (2003)

"US Caused More Deaths in Iraq Than Saddam," Agence France Presse, June 25, 2005

"Bush: God told me to invade Iraq," independent.co.uk, October 7, 2005

Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Terrorized by 'War on Terror'," Washington Post, March 25, 2007

James A. Lucas, "Deaths In Other Nations Since WW II Due To US Interventions," countercurrents.org, April 24, 2007

[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.--"Body Count," Physicians for Social Responsibility, March 2015]

[Last month, the Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PRS) released a landmark study concluding that the death toll from 10 years of the "War on Terror" since the 9/11 attacks is at least 1.3 million, and could be as high as 2 million.--Nafeez Ahmed, "Western wars have killed four million Muslims since 1990," middleeasteye.net, April 8, 2015]

VIDEO: Ben Swann, "Ted Cruz said the Middle East was better off with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi in power," CBS46, December 15, 2015

[In Bengal at least 5 million died in 1943 alone, 5.5 million in 1876-78, 5 million in 1896-97--Andre Vltchek, "How the West Creates Terrorism," counterpunch.org, January 22, 2016]

Rebecca Gordon, "Bush and Cheney Belong in Jail: America Must Answer for Its Illegal War on Terror," alternet.org, June 9, 2016

Doug Bandow, "Declaring War on 'Islamist Extremism' Is Nonsense," nationalinterest.org, June 20, 2016

[It would be difficult to find a section that is by definition more hypocritical as many would certainly consider Washington the leading practitioner of state sponsored terror with its claimed authority to go after militant targets anywhere at any time.--Philip Giraldi, "Some Perspectives on the War on Terror," unz.com, December 20, 2016]

John W. Dower, "An American Century of Carnage," commondreams.org, March 28, 2017

John W. Whitehead, "America's Reign of Terror," antiwar.com, May 23, 2017

Thomas S Harrington, "Muslims are Very Strange People," counterpunch.org, June 7, 2017

[Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the United States military has killed some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 82 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries.--David Swanson, "List of U.S. Wars and Hostile Actions," davidswanson.org, September 16, 2017]

Pentagon impact hole closeup

Tom Engelhardt, "76 Countries Are Now Involved in Washington's War on Terror," tomdispatch.com, January 4, 2018

[IT WAS ON September 16, 2001, five days after the 9/11 attacks, that President George W. Bush declared his now-infamous "war on terrorism." Other governments around the world followed suit - but few matched the speed, intensity, and sheer cynicism with which the autocrats in Beijing aligned themselves with the Bush administration.--Mehdi Hasan, "One Million Muslim Uighurs Have Been Detained by China, the U.N. Says. Where's the Global Outrage?," theintercept.com, August 13, 2018]

[deaths during the post-2001 U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen is likely to reach 3.1 million or more - around 200 times the number of U.S. dead.--David Vine, "Reckoning with the costs of war: It's time to take responsibility," thehill.com, November 13, 2019]

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