The Futility of War

Seventeen years ago today (Tuesday, 9/11) I received a call from my mother-in-law in California.   She told me something bad was happening in New York City.  I turned on the TV and soon realized something “bad” was happening not only in New York City, but also at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and in the skies over Pennsylvania.  The suicidal attacks were committed by 19 members of the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda (15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia, 2 from United Arab Emirates and 1 from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon).  The coordinated attacks killed 2,996 people, injured another 6,000, and caused over ten billion dollars in damage.  Additional people, on the scene that day,  have died of cancer and respiratory diseases in the years since.  

That infamous Tuesday, seventeen years ago, drastically altered our world. We went to war in Iraq and we went to war in Afghanistan. Why?  The reasons vary, and for me, none of those reasons seem worth the cost in human life.  Not one of the terrorists came from these countries.  Since 2003 it is estimated that 450,000 Iraqis have been killed (military and civilian).  In Afghanistan an estimated 31,000 civilians have been killed and nearly 30,000 wounded.  Over 110,000 (Afghan civilians, soldiers and militants) have been killed. As of July 2018, there have been 2,372 US military deaths and 20,320 American service members wounded in Afghanistan.  Nearly 5,000 US service members have died in Iraq and 32,000 have been wounded. It is estimated that the aftermath of 9/11 has cost the US government $8 trillion dollars in defense and homeland security. Can anyone measure the horrendous human cost?

Bill Watterson, an American Cartoonist (Calvin and Hobbes) had one of his characters ask:  “Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world’s problems?”  Today, I ask a similar question:  “How have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan solved any of the world’s problems or resolved, corrected, or made up for what happened on 9/11?  Indeed, these “wars” have created horrendous new problems for the world that will plague our children and their children for years to come.  All wars have done that!