Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:57

US wars abroad cost $4 trillion for American taxpayers


English Radio correspondent Mehdi Geramifard has interviewed William Scott Lucas; professorof U.S. foreign policy at the University of Birmangham.

The interview is about the US wars abroad which have cost four trillion dollars for the American taxpayers.

QUESTION: According to a new study release by Brown University the US involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan has cost the United States 4 trillion dollars over the last decade. More than 20 economists, political scientists and other experts contributed to this study. What is your thought on that and what is the necessity behind such costly wars that the US in involved in? Why is the US continuing the wars?

ANSWER: I think the United States has involved in very expensive interventions that have different reasons. The intervention of Afghanistan initially was the persuade of Al-Qaeda after the attacks of 9/11 and that very quickly became the effort to remove the Taliban from the power and as you know the fight with Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan continues still now and the real shift and the real war escalation was when the Bush administration decided that the United States had to remove Saddam Hussein from power and that it would do so by military means and the reason that why it was so expensive is that it wasn’t a simple matter of removing of Saddam from power because of the insurgency that follows and then as you mentioned the conflict in Afghanistan was never simply a conflict in Afghanistan and it has gone to Pakistan and the United States effectively has put itself in the middle of that fighting various means not only the forces and special troops but also drone aircrafts and now I don’t think that it has worth, because I don’t think it is a clear resolution for this conflict, but the fact is that the United States has decided that it wants to alter the situation of these countries and I think that about two or three of these countries and at least the Iraq and Afghanistan there has been a shift in strategy and the United States probably has spent so much money and now it wants to change its involvement to a less expensive approach and they will not have many troops on the ground and I think that the United States has spent so much money not only in these countries but also in other countries across the Middle East over the past decade.

QUESTION: Scientists also estimate that at least 225000 people including civilians, troops and insurgents have died as a result of the conflict of that number an estimated 6000 were uniformed US military personnel millions of people have also been displaced indefinitely and are leaving in grossly inadequate condition. How do the American people think about the nature of these wars?

ANSWER: I think the Americans are misguided and they are not aware of what happens in these countries. In fact the Afghanistan is in a decade civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people have died that there has been instability in Pakistan for decades and indeed in Iraq even thought the Americans have withdrawn there is a high level of instability and it shows that the American presence is not the only cause of the instability and I think it is important to notice that when you talk about the situation such as in Libya there is a tendency of Latin Americans in all cases when in this case in fact it causes the instability and violence of the Kaddafi regime and the way that it responded to the protests in 2011. The Americans did not want to involve in Libya and I think they do not know much about the policies of the government and also there are some other reasons for their silence and then in certain cases such as in Libya in fact the violence give away to the other country.

QUESTION: Most Afghan officials say that the Afghan society is concerned about Washington’s lack of commitments to Afghanistan. What are the most important Washington’s commitments to Afghanistan and its people?

ANSWER: I think there are concerns among Afghan people in terms of who is going to provide security that if the American military has not provided it and if they leave what happens then and can Afghan local forces provide that security or can other outside force provide the security or not and I think there are the concerns in terms of development and who is going to develop schools and who is going to develop roads and who is going to help rebuild the country and if you simply say the Americans to go away would be other international forces to get involved, so I think it is not just a simple matter and you cannot decide America is in or American is out.

QUESTION: How do you explain the position of the US congressional lawmakers with regard to the wars abroad? Do they support the wars or they want to stop these wars? Is there any division among the congressional lawmakers to put the war aside or not?

ANSWER: I think the pattern has been over the last 12 years that if congressmen believe that a war was being thought for American national security and the war is in thousands of miles away, so they certainly supported the initial war in Afghanistan, because they see it as a fight against terrorism and they certainly supported the initial war in Iraq, because they see it as a fight against the threat of Saddam Hussein and they certainly have accepted the drone warfare in Pakistan and in Yemen and in parts of North Africa, because they see it as a fight against extremists. The Congress only turns against the war when it becomes a long fight which is what happened with Iraq and to a extent with Afghanistan, but by a large it is not the Congress who has ordered the US military to come out of these countries and it is President Obama who had to impose the withdraw of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last four years.



english.irib.ir/analysis

who are we at war with?

The world at large and its citizens.

We are controlled by a military industrial complex, corporations and banks who prosper, thanks to the powers they hold over corrupt (decision makers) governments.

Remove the profits of war and you remove the problem. Since that will never happen....we are at war with the world!

Sojourning_Soul
You are one who really knows whats going on here.

thats considered a "police action" or police state, we have not declared war on any nation... lately...