[Vision2020] Global Research, 6-24-17 : "US Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since World War II"

[Ted Moffett]

I received the following from a Friendship Square, Moscow, Friday 5:30-6:30
PM Peace Vigil (ongoing since 2002, every Fri.) participant.

I only pasted in the top portion of the very long web page that the URL
below displays.  The full web page offers nation by nation discussion of
the deaths.

And the US is waging a "War on Terror," as if we are major victims of
violent ideologies?  How many US citizens have been killed as a result of
"terrorism" domestically, not counting our soldiers killed on foreign soil,
compared to the citizen death toll from, lets just say, the US led wars in
Vietnam and the invasion of Iraq?

I am not claiming to have factually vetted the death tolls listed below,
and I suppose some of the violence in some of the nations listed can be
questioned regarding US culpability.
---------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

US Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since
World War II
By James A. Lucas <http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/james-a-lucas>
Global Research, June 24, 2017
Popular Resistance
<https://www.popularresistance.org/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-in-37-nations-since-wwii/>
27 November 2015

First published in November 2015

*After the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and
a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the
American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a balanced
perspective by pointing out that the United States had also been
responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other nations, but
they produced hardly a ripple. Although Americans understand in the
abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the
suffering of one another, such a reminder of wrongs committed by our nation
got little hearing and was soon overshadowed by an accelerated “war on
terrorism.”*

*But we must continue our efforts to develop understanding and compassion
in the world. Hopefully, this article will assist in doing that by
addressing the question “How many September 11ths has the United States
caused in other nations since WWII?” This theme is developed in this report
which contains an estimated numbers of such deaths in 37 nations as well as
brief explanations of why the U.S. is considered culpable.*

The causes of wars are complex. In some instances nations other than the
U.S. may have been responsible for more deaths, but if the involvement of
our nation appeared to have been a necessary cause of a war or conflict it
was considered responsible for the deaths in it. In other words they
probably would not have taken place if the U.S. had not used the heavy hand
of its power. The military and economic power of the United States was
crucial.

This study reveals that U.S. military forces were directly responsible for
about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the
two Iraq Wars. The Korean War also includes Chinese deaths while the
Vietnam War also includes fatalities in Cambodia and Laos.

The American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even
less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also responsible.
In the latter wars there were between nine and 14 million deaths in
Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor,
Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan.

But the victims are not just from big nations or one part of the world. The
remaining deaths were in smaller ones which constitute over half the total
number of nations. Virtually all parts of the world have been the target of
U.S. intervention.

The overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has
been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million
people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world.

To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference
whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the
provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as
economic pressures applied by our nation. They had to make decisions about
other things such as finding lost loved ones, whether to become refugees,
and how to survive.

And the pain and anger is spread even further. Some authorities estimate
that there are as many as 10 wounded for each person who dies in wars.
Their visible, continued suffering is a continuing reminder to their fellow
countrymen.

It is essential that Americans learn more about this topic so that they can
begin to understand the pain that others feel. Someone once observed that
the Germans during WWII “chose not to know.” We cannot allow history to say
this about our country. The question posed above was “How many September
11ths has the United States caused in other nations since WWII?” The answer
is: possibly 10,000.

*Comments on Gathering These Numbers*

Generally speaking, the much smaller number of Americans who have died is
not included in this study, not because they are not important, but because
this report focuses on the impact of U.S. actions on its adversaries.

An accurate count of the number of deaths is not easy to achieve, and this
collection of data was undertaken with full realization of this fact. These
estimates will probably be revised later either upward or downward by the
reader and the author. But undoubtedly the total will remain in the
millions.

The difficulty of gathering reliable information is shown by two estimates
in this context. For several years I heard statements on radio that three
million Cambodians had been killed under the rule of the Khmer Rouge.
However, in recent years the figure I heard was one million. Another
example is that the number of persons estimated to have died in Iraq due to
sanctions after the first U.S. Iraq War was over 1 million, but in more
recent years, based on a more recent study, a lower estimate of around a
half a million has emerged.

Often information about wars is revealed only much later when someone
decides to speak out, when more secret information is revealed due to
persistent efforts of a few, or after special congressional committees make
reports

Both victorious and defeated nations may have their own reasons for
underreporting the number of deaths. Further, in recent wars involving the
United States it was not uncommon to hear statements like “we do not do
body counts” and references to “collateral damage” as a euphemism for dead
and wounded. Life is cheap for some, especially those who manipulate people
on the battlefield as if it were a chessboard.

To say that it is difficult to get exact figures is not to say that we
should not try. Effort was needed to arrive at the figures of 6six million
Jews killed during WWI, but knowledge of that number now is widespread and
it has fueled the determination to prevent future holocausts. That struggle
continues.

The author can be contacted at *jlucas511 at woh.rr.com <jlucas511 at woh.rr.com>*
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