How Death Outlives War: The Reverberating Impact of the Post 9/11 Wars on Human Health

Posted by the University of Pittsburgh:

The total death toll in the post-9/11 war zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria,
and Yemen could be at least 4.5-4.6 million and counting, though the precise mortality
figure remains unknown. Some of these people were killed in the fighting, but far more,
especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of war, such as the spread
of disease. These latter indirect deaths – estimated at 3.6-3.7 million – and related health
problems have resulted from the post-9/11 wars’ destruction of economies, public
services, and the environment. Indirect deaths grow in scale over time. Though in 2021 the
United States withdrew military forces from Afghanistan, officially ending a war that began
with its invasion 20 years prior, today Afghans are suffering and dying from war-related
causes at higher rates than ever.

This report examines the devastating toll of war on human health, whoever the
combatant, whatever the compounding factor, in the most violent conflicts in which the U.S.
government has been engaged in the name of counterterrorism since September 11, 2001,
including in the above countries as well as Libya and Somalia. The report does not focus on
attributing responsibility to particular warring parties over others, or to disentangling
various intensifying factors, such as the actions of authoritarian governments, related
political upheavals, global economic sanctions, climate change, environmental disasters, or
the accumulating devastations of previous wars. Rather than teasing apart who, what, or
when is to blame, this report will show that the post-9/11 wars are implicated in many
kinds of deaths. In a place like Afghanistan, the pressing question is whether any death can
today be considered unrelated to war.2 Ultimately, the impacts of the ongoing violence are
so vast and complex that they are unquantifiable.

In laying out how the post-9/11 wars have led to illness and indirect deaths, the
report’s goal is to build greater awareness of the fuller human costs of these wars and
support calls for the United States and other governments to alleviate the ongoing losses
and suffering of millions in current and former war zones. The report highlights many long-term and underacknowledged consequences of war for human health, emphasizing that some groups, particularly women and children, suffer the brunt of these ongoing impacts.

The author, Stephanie Savell, is co-director of the Costs of War project and Senior Researcher at Brown
University’s Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs.