The war on terror since the tragic attack on civilians in the US ten years ago is far from finished, instead, it is reproducing itself. In the US, about 3000 people died in those attacks. In the following ‘war on terror’, the human rights were basically stripped to the bone, economies suffered (except for the military industrial complex) but most of all, civilians were killed. I will shortly give some indications for three countries, hit as so-called direct consequence of the US war on terror – though other countries used their own ‘war on terror’ to terrorize civilians in their countries.

However, here some rough informations about some of the civilian casualties of the war on terror:

Iraq

At least 355.000 (but more likely about 650.000) people were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 according to the Lancet study http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties

Other studies find between 60.000 and 1.000.000 casualties.

Nearly 10 percent of the population are internally displaced, and about 5% of the population have sought refuge in foreign countries according to internal-displacement.org.

Afghanistan

Compared to Iraq, Afghanistan has had few casualties, but still nearly 10.000 according to a study by the United Nations, which due to it’s design is prone to underestimation of the true casualty number, as the authors themselves write.

In Afghanistan, more than 3 out of 100 people are internally displaced, were driven from their home by now. About every tenth person has searched refuge outside of Afghanistan.

Pakistan

For Pakistan it is very difficult to estimate the number of Civilians killed – over here you can find a list helping to start research: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/07/18/washingtons-untrue-claims-no-civilian-deaths-in-pakistan-drone-strikes/

About one million (total population about 180 million) people are right now fleeing within Pakistan from the ‘war on terror’ and have thus lost their homes. http://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/pakistan

 Somalia

This country has a sad story, related to war on terror. In 2006  an Islam based social movement called the Islamic Courts Union, described as moderate but with a much more extreme wing named Al Shabaab, tried to take control over a vastly anarchic country. The US supported the warlords in neighbour Ethiopia to invade, a move not only highly unpopular with Somali people but also strengthening the extremist wing of the ICU, giving rise to Al Shabaab taking over its reign of terror over the country. Last year, more than 2000 civilians died. Read more on that here, here and here. A very good ressource with background information is this pdf file by Human Rights Watch from August 2011, called ‘You Don’t Know Who To Blame’.

A bigger picture

The geneva declaration secretariat in Switzerland published a report in 2008 on the ‘burden of armed conflict on the world’.

More than 740,000 men, women, and children die around the world each year as a result of armed violence. The majority of these deaths—490,000—occur in countries that are ostensibly not affected by armed conflict. They are the result of homicides and associated interpersonal violence. For every death, non-fatal injuries due to violence lead to dozens of people hospitalized, hundreds of emergency department visist and thousands of doctor’s appointment.

Their numbers mean, that at least 250.000 people each year are dying due to armed conflicts.

http://www.genevadeclaration.org/fileadmin/docs/Global-Burden-of-Armed-Violence-full-report.pdf

As the original event, the attacks on the US ten years ago, the wars waged in response to it (or, as many would argue, the wars which finally found an excuse to be fought) are causing casualties world-wide. No one on this planet lives safer due to these wars, as I belief no one ever will.

Read more on that here, here, here and here.

For me this is not a war on terror, but a war by terror – regardless of the participating party, if they employ violence against civilians. And one thing I like being actively volunteering for SCI is that we have been working against violence steadily for ninety ears now!

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