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Costs of America’s endless wars, Costs of War Project, Costs of War Project Map of USA Counterterror War Locations 2015-2017, Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatchdotcom, USA War of Terror, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Costs of War Project Map of USA Counterterror War Locations 2015-2017
Prepared by: Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs – Brown University
In his article “Mapping a World From Hell,” published on January 4, Tom Engelhardt presents a unique map produced by Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. After more than 16 years since the United States embarked on its war on terror that has transformed entire countries into hell on Earth, we finally have a visual representation of the true extent of our never-ending wars.
After first targeting Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist group back in October 2001, as retribution for the group’s 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, our nation is now militarily engaged in some form in 76 countries. That’s 39 percent of the world’s nations, as indicated in the captioned map.
In places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, U.S. drone or other air strikes are the norm and U.S. ground troops (often Special Operations forces) have been either directly or indirectly engaged in combat. In these and several other countries, American advisers are also training local militaries or militias in counterterror tactics.
The number of U.S. military bases and “lily pads” (small, cooperative security locations) is also impressive. In 2017 alone, the USA deployed American Special Operations forces to 149 countries. We have so many troops on so many bases in so many places worldwide that the Pentagon has trouble keeping track of all of them.
While our gods of war reap the profits and spoils of warmongering, we the American people must pay the bill. In a separate study, released in November 2017, the Costs of War Project estimated a price tag that had already reached $5.6 trillion. That’s more than enough money to put millions of Americans to work again in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.
In the gods of war, we trust. In defense of our nation, we must rain down terror on our enemies. It matters not that our endless wars have created more terrorists and enemies. Next in line to suffer our fire and fury—North Korea. To follow: Iran, Russia, and China. World without end. Amen.
Read more details at Mapping a World From Hell: 76 Countries Are Now Involved in Washington’s War on Terror
Three Worlds One Vision 
These are appalling statistics Rosaliene and show the escalation of terror and war that this so called war on terror has led to. I like your phrase “rain down terror on our enemies.” Too true.
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Denzil, I’m concerned that the American people may be unaware of the extent of human suffering we are inflicting on millions of civilians in the countries under fire.
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It’s not just the American people but their leaders too I think
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True, Denzil. Many of our leaders are busy trying to stay in power by only serving their corporate donors and not the best interests of the people.
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Yes. I’m pretty sure everyone’s unaware of most of this because of several reasons: lack of authentic media coverage, distractions, like social media, and work culture.
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for the reblog, Cyril 🙂
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Pingback: Our Gods of War
Thanks for the reblog, GuyFrog 🙂
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Wow, that map speaks volumes!
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It sure does, Robert. It’s as though America has declared war on the world at large.
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I think it has.
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And we the people are paying the price, economically and socially.
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sad & most important!
another study needed
to show individuals & corps
that benefited financially
from this obscene expenditure
and how much they made 🙂
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David, some companies, like Halliburton and the Blackwater private security service provider, have been highlighted over the years, but I don’t think there has been a comprehensive study like the one you suggest.
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I don’t know what to say except … excellent article. We have graduated from war mongers to a mentally incompetent king which is worse yet.
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Worse yet in the sense that he could well ignite a nuclear World War III.
Thanks for dropping by. Sooner than we may think, we may well need all that survival information you provide on your blog.
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You could solve a lot of your nation’s problems with only a fraction of all that money!
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So true, John. Sadly, there’s far too much misuse and misappropriation of funds.
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💔 A nation of apathetic people has allowed evil and sadistic actions to be done in our name. So, obviously, we need a compassionate, intelligent leader to help us climb out of this pit of hell and make amends. So we elected an evil, sadistic person devoid of intelligence or empathy. 💔
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We’ve dug in deeper.
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Whew, at least New Zealand isn’t on this map. Our collaboration with the US is strictly limited to spying on your trans-Pacific phone calls and emails.
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Rosaliene,
As usual, you speak my mind. I wonder what it will take to stop it. Financial costs aside, I despair at what this belligerence is doing to our national psyche. We have become so contentious in even the small things that rationality and common sense seem lost.
What we were taught to believe about the US of A is turning out to be a lie, and there’s an enormous sense of betrayal. No wonder people are dropping out and giving up, turning to drugs and crime. The US war on the world is more a war on its own people, and so far, it looks like the people have been beaten.
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If you study the history of empires, the pattern you are experiencing is inevitable. Time for Americans to stop thinking that they live in a “nation” and realize they’ve always been in an ever-expanding military empire, from the outset of disgruntled Europeans landing on the shores of North America. America is made up of conquest and enslavement. As an empire reaches entropy and can no longer sustain its far flung and poorly defined or defended borders, it turns on the people who willingly gave it its original impetus and fully accepted its propaganda as, let’s say it, manifest destiny. The elitist apparatus that grew out of Empire wants more, not less. If distant enslaved lands can no longer provide, then the home slaves must. Two ways out of this conundrum. One, the Empire is defeated militarily and the home base is conquered. Two, the home base revolts and there is one, or a series, of violent revolution.
Americans are a war loving, martial people. This is made clear by their growing support of their flesh eating corrupt military and security forces, and by their love of guns. The end of such a system can only be violently bloody. America cannot, and will not, escape the judgement of history. At this time you don’t see thousands upon thousands of crucified slaves along some Appian way. You don’t see the gulags of Stalinist Soviet Russia. But the victims of overt oppression exist nonetheless: in American prisons and torture “black sites.”
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Sha’Tara, your assessment is painfully accurate. “Draining the swamp,” a promise our president has yet to fulfill, will be a long and painful process.
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Sha’Tara,
You are recounting history, but you forget one thing, and that is the growing social consciousness represented by women. Women have a civilizing effect on men and are beginning to come into their own.
Part of the US’ militaristic past can be directly attributed to the testosterone poisoning brought over by the Europeans. The drive to dominate and control is, indeed, a part of our heritage, but it doesn’t have to remain that way. From what I understand, the Native Americans were matriarchal, and the grandmothers decided when war was justified.
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I would so like to be able to agree with you on this comment about the effect of women in politics particularly. But…. Women in western “democracies” have had the vote for about a hundred years. During that crucial 20th C, the world experienced two horrid world wars. Women have always formed 50% of the population, more so after a war where so many men died. Women could have taken over governments and business, but those who chose a path of power went along nicely with the patriarchy and women continue to support patriarchal religions, politics and businesses. Women owed businesses of any worth follow the book of patriarchal exploitation and oppression to a tee. Do you think that if billionairess Oprah Winfrey becomes president of the US, it will change the killing path that empire is on?
Here’s how I see it: it will not be any recognizable group or collective that will change to world and make it humanly liveable. It will not be “women” or “blacks” or “young people” or whatever power group you can name. It will come (or there won’t be a planet to inhabit) when individuals choose to take responsibility for themselves, as in, self empowerment. No class, no race, no age, no gender: just individual choice of self empowerment. That self empowerment, ideally, will choose compassion as its modus operandi, and that, to paraphrase Robert Frost, will make all the difference. If I want a different and better world, I have to create it myself. Here… and now. I see no other option. I don’t think there is any other option.
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Sha’Tara,
I’m looking at the long term and claim the social awakening of women is in its infancy. While I agree with you about the importance of individual responsibility and compassion, I believe each individual has to come to it in his or her own way. Also, as each person achieves higher levels of awareness, s/he transmits it to others so that it grows on itself. At some point, it is possible that critical mass will be reached. Like a chicken pecking its way out of an egg, the entire picture will look different, with vistas of hitherto unrecognized potentials opening up.
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OK, critical mass for change. I’m assuming here that your example could be the awakening that took place during the European Renaissance? Yes those movements do happen. But the Renaissance was fed by unimaginable riches raped from the world at large by nascent European empires. Eventually it led to the dystopian worlds of revolution, war, and in England, the world of Charles Dickens we know about, and the totally preventable Irish potato famine. While such things did create quasi-democracies, such movements that stand out in history never last. They do not last because they rely on “movements” or group-push. Another example of a recent critical mass: the hippie movement. A “critical mass” never represents reality, but an artificial reality imposed upon the main reality by elitist, powerful, rich, entitled, spoiled, sometimes educated people. For example, today you are seeing an end to the holding power of the critical mass that invented the USA. The “will” of the masses is being asserted, not from any leadership input, but from its own dogged ignorance and ineptitude at understanding systems, or “the System.” Masses always regress, they are incapable of moving forward simply because they have no vision. Nothing much matters to them beyond satisfying their immediate hungers and urges. If these aren’t met then the masses turn into mobs. Opportunistic psychopaths then put leashes on those mobs by the carrot and stick method and use them to establish themselves in power. The wheel turns. The wheel, however, does not direct or crush the self empowered: they aren’t in it, nor standing in its path.
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Katharine, the good thing is that more and more Americans are awakening to the lies.
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Rosaliene,
I see that, too, but we seem to be moving into a phase of not trusting anything or anybody. At least I am, and I don’t know what to do about it.
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Katharine, creating mistrust among the body politic is a deliberate strategy of the power elite to keep us divided and thereby maintain their domination.
We can built trust by one on one contact with others who are different from us, be it ethnicity, religion, social status, gender orientation. I find such opportunities while waiting at the bus stop. A simple smile can be disarming.
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Rosaliene,
You are absolutely right, and you are one of the people whose world-views I trust. And. like you, I try to set an example of friendliness in my daily routine.
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Thanks, Katharine. I also trust your world-view.
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Thanks, Rosaliene. It shows, and I appreciate it. So few people do, at least openly. It seems lots of people are stingy with genuine support, even if they feel it, but when it’s sincerely given, it goes a long way.
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Thank you so much for sharing a very important and sobering global overview, Rosaliene.
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So very clearly laid out. Fear of terrorism has been exaggerated and exploited. The military industrial complex will have it’s piece of pie.
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And if they can have the whole pie, they will take it.
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Yes, not even up for debate.
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Interesting how nations maintain national myths of virtue and exceptionalism. The story is always a temporary. The dominating empire, be it Rome or the British, falls. We see our errors too late.
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Dr. Stein, we ignore the lessons of history at our own peril.
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