The prolonged US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
have been widely covered through the years
but their consequences-- including the related violence
in Syria and Pakistan-- remain poorly understood.
When Americans are asked about the human toll
of these conflicts, they often think first of US soldiers
who have lost their lives or who are struggling
with war injuries and trauma.
But the true number of casualties
is much, much greater.
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By 2016, nearly 6,900 US soldiers
have lost their lives in the war zones.
Roughly half of these deaths were caused by hostile fire
and improvised explosive devices, along
with vehicle crashes, electrocutions, and heat stroke
deaths.
In addition to US soldiers, many US contractors
have died in action, as well.
The contracting companies, however,
have failed to report many of these deaths.
A conservative estimate is that at least 7,000 of these workers
have been killed in both wars.
In addition, for every US soldier killed,
six Afghan, Pakistani, and Iraqi security personnel
have died, as well.
In other words, more than 50,000 allied
Afghan, Pakistani, and Iraqi soldiers and police
have died in combat.
The figures available for opposition fighters
are controversial, because allied forces have often
been motivated to count killed civilians as militants.
One estimate, however, puts the total number
of fighters killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq
at 110,000.
The largest number in the death toll,
however, is not soldiers, but civilians.
Living in these war zones, civilians
have been killed in their homes, in markets, and on roadways.
They have been killed by US warplanes and soldiers,
by the US allies, and by insurgents and sectarians
in the civil wars spawned by the invasions.
The total of violent civilian deaths in the Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and Iraq wars are conservatively
counted at 217,000.
Every single one of these deaths devastates a family
and debilitates a community.
This total of over 390,000 dead soldiers and civilians,
however, includes only those who have
been counted as direct deaths, or deaths by bomb or bullet.
An additional large number of people have died in these wars
by indirect means, as they have in all
the wars of human history.
They have died due to hunger, disease, or injury
that resulted from the wars' disruptions
and environmental harm.
It is difficult to estimate just how many people have died
indirectly in these wars, but researchers
suggest that in recent conflicts,
for every one direct death, there
are at least four other indirect deaths.
A conservative estimate is that these wars
may have resulted in the indirect deaths
of an additional 870,000 civilians.
Unfortunately, these numbers are still estimates,
with no party to the conflict taking responsibility
for a full accounting of the direct or indirect death toll.
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