One thing the book wants us to question is the $5.9 trillion supposedly spent on recent wars. I do question it. I think every such reduction of military spending to some fraction supposedly spent on wars elides the fact that the whole military budget of $1.25 trillion a year is spent on nothing other than wars and preparations for more wars, nothing else, nothing normal, nothing routine, nothing beyond mention or reproach.
But here's why Lutz and Mazzarino want the indirect deadly impacts of wars to be understood. Read this carefully and spread the word: "[W]ars would be more difficult to prosecute if, from the outset, the thousands or even millions of dead or injured bodies were emphasized. . . . To examine war and its effects on human health, we need to first navigate around this tendency to ignore the bodies damaged by war, and the push by governments for publics to instead focus on the love between military 'brothers,' on the beautiful spectacle of war pyrotechnics, on the religious or secular sentiments of nationalist pride at the protecting army, or the fear and anger at the threat of harm from others."
Later, Lutz and Mazzarino, use a rare and admirable phrase: "all wars," in remarking: "[W]e hope to prompt readers to think further and more globally about the health consequences of all wars, and to take real steps to alleviate those consequences or, more pressingly, prevent new ones."
The book is divided into sections examining the health effects of recent wars on Afghans, Iraqis, and members of the U.S. military. There is important information here on the spread of cancers in Iraq, and also on the increase in suicide that results from joining the U.S. military -- something recently falsely denied by the New York Times, though immediately corrected by Matt Hoh.
I would love to see a widespread awareness of the devastating indirect consequences of war.
After that, I would long for some public understanding of the even larger lost opportunities and trade offs, the good that could have been done and the lives saved and the lives dramatically improved by redirecting a small fraction of military spending to good purposes.
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