Death, destruction, and misery mean nothing to the merchants of war
"Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows // that too many people have died?"
Bob Dylan penned his unforgettable work Blowin' in the Wind in 1962, when the Vietnam War was at its peak. It was a war that forced innocent young men from all over the US to join the brutal and grinding war and participate in history's (until then) worst atrocities. One inscription at Ho Chi Minh city's War Remnants Museum is especially disturbing: "The US Army used not only lethal weapons to cause casualties but also toxic chemicals to destroy the livelihood of Vietnamese people and prevent the advance of their revolutionary armed forces."
From 1961 to 1971, the US-Americans flew 19,905 missions and sprayed 80 million tons of toxins—including Agent Orange, a highly toxic and persistent organic pollutant linked to cancers, diabetes, birth defects, and disabilities. After more than 50 years, large areas in Vietnam remain degraded and unproductive. About three million Vietnamese have been affected, including at least 150,000 children born with serious birth defects, whose images will haunt even the hardest of minds.
Many conscious US-Americans raised their voices against the unjust war. Pete Seeger sang about the loss of young lives: "Gone to graveyards, every one." Boxer Muhammad Ali refused to join the war, saying: "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America."
Strong public opinion forced US citizens to withdraw from Vietnam in 1975. By that time, 58,220 US-Americans had lost their lives. The Vietnamese suffered much more; about two million civilians were killed, not to mention the incidents of rape, arson, chemical poisoning, and carpet bombing. But war never ended. Instead, it spread all over to become a global phenomenon causing more deaths and devastating more lives.
The 1990-91 Persian Gulf War caused as many as 100,000 deaths and displaced five million, making it the single-most devastating event, until then, in the Middle East since World War I. But more conflicts followed. Violent insurgency continued all over Iraq, killing many, including unarmed civilians. Several new terrorist groups became active, including the infamous Islamic State (IS or ISIS). A 2016 study by the University of Maryland found 33,000 deaths linked to IS activities. This group caused many more deaths in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere till its decline in 2019.
The Afghanistan War started in 2001 when US President Bush ordered a large-scale assault leading to the fall of the Taliban in December. He justified it with a promise to end Al Qaeda forever. But in the following two decades, the number of such groups rose from four to at least 20. Brown University estimated that crossfire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), assassinations, bombings, and cluster bombs had killed as many as 157,000 since 2001.
In Ukraine, countless war crimes including extrajudicial killings, torture, and sexual violence, as well as indiscriminate bombings of civilians, schools, hospitals, and residential areas have been reported. Infrastructures, especially energy networks, have been deliberately destroyed, making civilian lives insecure. More than 14 million Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes.
And now the world is witnessing another tragedy unfolding in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' unexplainable "surprise" attack on Israel in October last year. Just what Hamas hoped to achieve is unclear, but it led to a massive retaliation, which was entirely predictable. After the first few days of confusion, Israel's high-tech military machine unleashed an unimaginably brutal attack on the world's most densely populated area with more than two million inhabitants.
On December 20, the BBC reported that the pace of killing in this war has been exceptionally high and indiscriminate. As of January 25, at least 25,700 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, while Unicef reported that a shocking average of more than 480 children are dying each day. A chilling UN Human Rights statement on January 16 said: "Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent. Pregnant women are not receiving adequate nutrition and healthcare, putting their lives at risk. In addition, all children under five are at high risk of severe malnutrition."
How many more deaths will satisfy the war merchants' thirst for profit?
Dr Sayeed Ahmed is a consulting engineer and the CEO of Bayside Analytix, a technology-focused strategy and management consulting organisation.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.