This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino was a co-founder of the remarkable Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute. There can be no question that it's proven an all-too-sadly one-of-a-kind resource in these years. Since 2011, it's followed this country's disastrous war on terror in a way no place else has even imagined doing.
It doesn't matter whether you're talking about the costs of Washington's major conflicts of this century and the global war on terror that went with it ($8 trillion dollars through 2022); the cost in lives lost, whether "direct war deaths" (at least 937,000, of which an estimated 387,000 were civilians) or "indirect" ones (3.6-3.7 million); the number of people "displaced" by Washington's seemingly never-ending combat operations in these years (an estimated 38 million); or even the staggering number of countries in which, since September 11, 2001, the U.S. has conducted counterterror activities of one sort or another (85).
Honestly, what the Costs of War Project's remarkable researchers have reported on in these years is a record (from hell) for the ages. Sadly enough, its work should have played a far greater role in American consciousness than it did in these years when antiwar activity (since the giant demonstrations against the coming invasion of Iraq in 2003) has proven all too feeble. Most Americans, I suspect, have remarkably little sense of just how much bloody carnage and -- yes! -- terror their country visited on the world in the name of fighting "terror." Today, Mazzarino considers ways in which those all-American conflicts continue to affect a planet that is an ever more perilous place for so many of us. Tom
Migration and the Shadow of War
How the Real Story of a Migrant Boat Disaster Escaped Our Attention
Seeking news coverage about the Adriana, the boat crowded with some 700 people migrating to Europe to seek a better life that sank in mid-June off the coast of Greece, I googled "migrant ship" and got 483,000 search results in one second. Most of the people aboard the Adriana had drowned in the Mediterranean, among them about 100 children.
I did a similar search for the Titan submersible which disappeared the same week in the North Atlantic. That kludged-together pseudo-submarine was taking four wealthy men and the 19-year-old son of one of them to view the ruins of the famed passenger ship, the Titanic. They all died when the Titan imploded shortly after it dove. That Google search came up with 79.3 million search results in less than half a second.
Guardian journalist Arwa Mahdawi wrote a powerful column about the different kinds of attention those two boats received. As she astutely pointed out, we in the anglophone world could hardly help but follow the story of the Oceangate submersible's ill-fated journey. After all, it was the lead news story of the week everywhere and commanded the attention of three national militaries (to the tune of tens of millions of dollars) for at least five days.
The Adriana was quite another story. As Mahdawi pointed out, the Greek Coast Guard seemed preoccupied with whether the migrants on that boat even "wanted" help, ignoring the fact that many of those aboard the small trawler were children trapped in the ship's hull and that it was visibly in danger.
On the other hand, few, she pointed out, questioned whether the men in the submersible wanted help -- even though its hull was ludicrously bolted shut from the outside prior to departure, making rescue especially unlikely. Glued to the coverage like many Americans, I certainly didn't think they should be ignored, since every life matters.
But why do people care so much about rich men who paid $250,000 apiece to make what any skilled observer would have told them was a treacherous journey, but not hundreds of migrants determined to better their families' lives, even if they had to risk life itself to reach European shores? Part of the answer, I suspect, lies in the very different reasons those two groups of travelers set out on their journeys and the kinds of things we value in a world long shaped by Western military power.
An American Preoccupation with the Military
I suspect that we Americans are easily drawn to whatever seems vaguely military in nature, even a "submersible" (rather than a submarine) whose rescue efforts marshaled the resources and expertise of so many U.S. and allied naval forces. We found it anything but boring to learn about U.S. Navy underwater rescue ships and how low you can drop before pressure is likely to capsize a boat. The submersible story, in fact, spun down so many military-style rabbit holes that it was easy to forget what even inspired it.
I'm a Navy spouse and my family, which includes my partner, our two young kids, and various pets, has been moving from one military installation to another over the past decade. In the various communities where we've lived, during gatherings with new friends and extended family, the overwhelming interest in my spouse's career is obvious.
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