9/11 and the National Security Scam
September 13, 2011 Counter Punch
“Considering that all that spending was triggered by a ragtag group of airplane hijackers armed with box cutters on 9/11, something just doesn’t add up.”
In the News
Catherine Lutz: “magical thinking” and the costs of war
September 10, 2011 CBS News
“[A]ll of the lost lives and dollars for Iraq were not even intended as remedy. But we have to ask ourselves: how did that happen, and how does it continue to happen?”
Another 9/11 legacy: Multiple deployments for troops
September 10, 2011 Pilot Online
“Of the roughly 2.3 million service members who have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan… Many have deployed four, five or even six times – numbers that were unheard of before the attacks and subsequent wars.”
9/11: The price paid for the attacks
September 9, 2011 CBS News
“More than $800 billion dollars in Pentagon direct spending has gone towards the war in Iraq. … That’s a far cry from the Bush administration’s early estimate of between $50 and $60 billion dollars."
The Costs of War
September 9, 2011 PBS
“[U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan] have killed about 2,000 people. We don’t know exactly how many, and we don’t know exactly how many of those people were insurgent targets.”
One 9/11 Tally: $3.3 Trillion
September 8, 2011 The New York Times
“Al Qaeda spent roughly half a million dollars to destroy the World Trade Center and cripple the Pentagon. What has been the cost to the United States?”
US response to 9/11 contributed to causes of current debt crisis
September 8, 2011 Christian Science Monitor
“War costs always linger well after the last shot has been fired. But this is especially true of the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts. The $1.6 trillion or so already spent has been financed wholly through borrowing.”
The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux
September 7, 2011 Boston Review
“A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies estimates that the final bill will be $3.2-4 trillion.”
The economic legacy of 9/11
September 6, 2011 Marketplace
“The fact is that we have now spent trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of which has been borrowed. The consequences of that have been, of course, an enormous run-up in our national debt.”
The Costs of War
September 6, 2011 WGBH News
“As in the past, wars are never over when they’re said to be over. So, in the lives of veterans and the lives of civilians in the war zones, recovery takes a very long time, and in some cases, is a lifelong process.”
Assessing The Full Cost Of War
September 6, 2011 Here&Now
“The group also calculated the human and social costs, both in lives lost and the cost of caring for the nearly 100,000 wounded service members.”
9/11: Can we count the real cost?
September 6, 2011 The Independent
“The most comprehensive study of the military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan concluded that the price tag is $4 trillion and rising… The US has already paid $185bn in interest on its debt-funded war spending, and another $1 trillion could accrue in interest alone through 2020.”
Ten years on
September 3, 2011 The Economist
“The costs-of-war project at Brown University thinks that on a ‘very conservative’ estimate about 137,000 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and that the wars have created more than 7.8m refugees in these countries.”
Let's have a budget war on war budgets
August 30, 2011 Star Tribune
“The more disturbing finding, however, is that in the coming years the wars threaten to cost the nation another $2 trillion – in interest payments on war debt as well as continuing medical expenses for 150,000 wounded veterans.”
War costs may top $3.7 trillion
August 21, 2011 Detroit Free Press
“When congressional cost-cutters meet later this year to decide on trimming the federal budget, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could represent juicy targets. But how much do the wars actually cost U.S. taxpayers?”
Post 9/11: the cost of the ‘War on Terror’
August 20, 2011 Euronews
“While Crawford admits that Americans were united in their desire for revenge against the attackers, the choice to go to war was made out of ‘fear and anger.’… And the path of war, she says, is more costly and more bloody than the path of law enforcement.”
Editorial: Pentagon can cut costs without endangering troops
August 19, 2011 The Dallas Morning News
“We were particularly alarmed by reports last week outlining military expenses exceeding $1.3 trillion since the 9/11 attacks. A Brown University study… puts the Iraq and Afghanistan wars’ cost at something closer to $4 trillion.”
US struggles over war expenditures
August 18, 2011 AFP
“Osama bin Laden failed in his lifetime to achieve his goal of ‘bleeding America to bankruptcy,’ but 10 years after 9/11 the United States is still paying a steep economic price.”
Waking Up: Concern over loss of treasured freedoms, big brother state, in US.
August 15, 2011 The Gazette
“Sweeping new policing powers, the tacit acceptance of torture and a backlash against Muslims that has grown fiercer 10 years after the September 11 attacks have made the United States a less free and open society.”