Civilian Deaths Should Be Counted The Same, Whether In Iraq Or Ukraine

Americans are rightfully horrified to see Ukrainians killed by Russian forces, yet we regularly accept justifications when people are killed by U.S. or allied forces.

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies, The Progressive

Americans have been rightfully shocked by the death and destruction caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the United States and its allies have waged war in country after country for decades, carving swathes of destruction on a far greater scale than has so far disfigured Ukraine.

As we recently reported, the United States and its allies have dropped more than 337,000 bombs and missiles, or forty-six per day, on nine countries since 2001. Senior U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officers told Newsweek that the first twenty-four days of Russia’s bombing of Ukraine was less destructive than the first day of U.S. bombing in Iraq in 2003.

The U.S.-led campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, has bombarded those countries with more than 120,000 bombs and missiles since August 2014, the heaviest bombing anywhere in decades. U.S. military officers told Amnesty International that the U.S. assault on Raqqa in Syria was also the heaviest artillery bombardment since the Vietnam War.