1 July 2011

Cost Of Wars In Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan To Reach $3.7 Trillion

The United States will have spent a total of $3.7 trillion on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, costing 225,000 lives and creating 7.8 million refugees, by the time the conflicts end, according to a report released on Wednesday by Brown University. There are many costs of these wars that have not yet been quantified and assessed. Also, there is still much more to know and understand about how all those affected by the wars have had their health, economies, and communities altered by the decade of war, and what solutions exist for the problems they face as a result of the wars’ destruction and the shared acts of the troop contributing nations.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

8 March 2011

Apologies are not enough: on the practical importance of implementing international responsibility

The accidental killing of nine Afghan children by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the beginning of March led to apologies by the ISAF commander General Petraeus. Those excuses were rejected by President Karzai as insufficient. It is indeed expected that in case of military acts breaching international law, the ISAF should provide financial compensation for the injuries caused, not only satisfaction in the form of official apologies. (more…)