The Costs of War Project is a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2011. I highly recommend this Project of the Watson Institut for International and Public Affairs as a source for the conflicts and wars to come for photo-journalists and reporters. The Costs of War Project is not a no aquarium of vanities for political activists such as the International Crisis Group.

Of course, Peter Scholl-Latour’s book, "Allah is with the Steadfast (Allah is with the Steadfast)" was a standard repertoire for any student of journalism. I read the book for the first time when it was published in 1983 and I felt Scholl-Latour's "Crescent Theory" - Islam had established itself from the Philippines to Morocco a bit “risky”.

At that time I thought he had deliberately exaggerated this thesis because at the time so much was being ranted about the Ayatollahs in Iran. The Saudis were still considered as nice little nomads playing in the sandpit. They were described by our MainstreamMedia of the pre-internet area as dear, super-rich camel riders, as new-rich, uneducated nomads, the orientalist romance story. The rabid Wahhabi regime was completely hidden from the reality.

A very naive assumption, such as the later disclosed involvement in the financing of the Taliban and the fact that 19 Saudis were the assassins of the 9/11 attack. And even today, such people as Benjamin Netanyahu in the same chorus with Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud are blaming Iran for everything ... This lie is untenable, whether Netanyahu sees ducks waddling in his sleep or illegally bombing so many Syrian airfields. Its a plain lie!

This lie is so costly that it seems it is ruining the Western democracies as much as it was Zbigniew Brzezinski's plan to ruin the Soviet Union until its final implosion. And, that this plan was a revenge for Soviet interference in the Vietnam War is certain. This very much suggests that we initiate war because of a war. A vicious circle now based on the biggest lie of the century: George Bush's weapons-of-mass-destruction-lie and its result the war on Iraq. Since then we find ourselves in the self-destructive circle of the "war on terror “, or “generational wars”. 

Now, the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University has now presented a project and provided on its website extensive information for anyone who can not be deported as "fake news". Its “The Costs Of War”.

76 Countries Are Now Involved in Washington’s War on Terror 

SUMMARY

• Over 370,000 people have died due to direct war violence, and at least 800,000 more indirectly
• 200,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting at the hands of all parties to the conflict
• 10.1 million — the number of war refugees and displaced persons
• The US federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is about $5.6 trillion dollars
• The US military is conducting counterterror activities in 76 countries
• The wars have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the US and abroad

A short look at the map tells you that the war on terror, an increasingly complex set of intertwined conflicts, is now a remarkably global phenomenon.  It stretches from the Philippines through South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and deep into West Africa where, only recently, four Green Berets died in an ambush in Niger. 

BROWN UNIVERSITY WEBSITE: http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

​Stop With Funny

The New Year brought us the full blast of Iran bashing presented by our beloved propaganda industry and lobby groups. Like they would care what is happened with poor people in Iran. But it is showing all their hypocritical coarseness and rudeness. We saw it all already in 2011 while they were twaddling about “moderate” rebells while they where weeping at the G8 in Hamburg a few went “moderate” rebelling.

And it also shows how the “western block” is falling apart: When it comes to our wars even Trump  seemed to demonstrate some redeeming qualities.  Running against Hillary the hawk it presented him with genuine opportunities. But now it occurs more and more by the day his critiques of “stupid” interventions are gone. And with it a isolation of the USA from the rest of the world. I’m not sure if he meant this as he said he wanted to make America great again.
​ 

Toothless Show-Offs

It becomes obvious that his masters are squeezing him to do silly things like the idiotic idea of a  new mini-surge in Afghanistan, or his silly bombing of a Syrian airbase with over 70 missiles, not to mention his decision to let illegally ca 2000 US troops to stay on the ground in Syria (unwanted by the Syrian government),. Then the active participation of the US in the criminal war of Saudi Arabia against the civilian population of Yemen the most battered country in the Arab world. But this is not enough: the US troops in Africa, from Nigeria to Somalia, all these infusions of U.S. troops have not improved regional stability, - quite the opposite: radical groups are mushrooming more then ever before and then, last but not least, Trumps generous gesture about a capital which is at the very center of the problems of the Middle East.

All those wars, once GW Bush’s, then Obama’s, are now Trump’s.  

The only difference seems to be are of form rather than substance: Unlike Bush and Obama, Trump delegates troop-level decisions to his secretary of defense and the generals how are actually responsible on the first hand why Iran became the real winner in the Iraq War, leaving Iraq to remain divided and ultimately unstable. It only shows the limited ideas of these generals if they now believe in impelling Iran, they could destroy Iran as it was tried with Syria. There should be no doubt about those who is interested in having these wars going on for generations. But those who are interested in this wars are completely irrelevant for Europe. It will be Europe to put up with this ethnical cleansing operations for religious and oil reasons in the Middle-East.

Another fact is, any of these countries are hardly of vital national security interest for the United States which means that the Trump team’s plans simply seem as vague as they are foolish because the consequence is that these plans will drive the USA even further into isolation as the previous wars already did. The bottom line is that as long as the occupation of Palestinian lands continues, basically creating a semi-apartheid state, the Middle East  has many challenges ahead and Washington doesn’t have a hope in hell of meaningfully solving any of them. And why, of all things anyway?  

Where does all of this is leaving Europe? 

I’m very pessimistic and think it will be good to be prepared for ever more refugees, which are in fact “ethnically cleansed” people, - “ethnically cleansed” people like we know from the same tactic’s of the Balkan’s War’s which where introduced by religious fanatics! I just hope that Jerusalem does not become the religious center of people who seemingly never get tiered to fight wars so they love Jerusalem so much that they will do the same to this town like they did to Baghdad, to Allepo, to Nussrata, to Faludscha…  this would not be the first time in history. It is obvious Europe and their mainstream media pundits will declare those who’re loosing all as refugees while the gangsters trap all.