Scientific American
By renouncing military contracts, Google could catalyze a much-needed discussion about how the U.S. and other nations can move beyond militarism
Can a war that kills the innocent be just? In March 2017 a U.S.-led air strike killed 200 civilians in a school in Mansoura, Syria, according to a United Nations report. The watchdog group Airwars.org estimates that U.S.-coalition attacks have killed at least 6,259 civilians since anti-ISIS operations began in 2014.
U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have resulted in the direct (bombs and bullets) or indirect (displacement, disease, malnutrition) deaths of more than 450,000 people, most of them civilians, according to the Costs of War project. These are low estimates. Many and possibly most casualties go uncounted. Did you know that the U.S. is now involved in counter-terror operations in 76 nations?
The U.S., which spends more on its arms and armies than the next seven biggest spenders combined, has been at war non-stop since 2001. Most of us don’t even question our nation’s militarism any more. We have come to accept war as inevitable, a kind of permanent background noise.