To the editor: The humanitarian costs of war
The Chester Telegraph | Mar 16, 2026 | Comments 2
President Woodrow Wilson broke with the long-held restraint Washington urged by committing our nation to World War I, during which 116,516 U.S. military personnel lost their lives. Since 1918, 620,000 to 650,000 American military personnel have died in foreign wars.
In the aftermath of 9/11, over 940,000 people died due to direct war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan, according to estimates by Brown University’s Costs of War Project. More than 432,000 of those deaths were civilians. When indirect deaths caused by disease, starvation, and infrastructure destruction are included, the figure rises to an estimated 4.5 million to 4.7 million.
These wars also carry an enormous financial price tag. The United States has spent $8 trillion on post-9/11 wars, including at least $2.2 trillion in obligations to care for veterans over the coming decades.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, another wise president and a five-star general in the U.S. Army, warned that every dollar spent on weapons and war is ultimately taken from “those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” A society that sacrifices its people’s labor, innovation, and future to sustain perpetual war is hollowing itself out from within.
The elected representatives who darken the halls of power today have neither read George Washington nor heeded Eisenhower’s wisdom. They follow Wilsonian liberal internationalism, which casts the US as a global policeman obligated to pursue interventionist policies. But history has completely discredited this foreign policy.
The statistics of death and destruction from perpetual war reaffirm my conviction that the American people must learn the lessons of history – and do it better and faster. The 2026 midterms are upon us. We must demand that all candidates tell us where they stand on the humanitarian costs of war, so we can make informed decisions and hold them accountable.
Stu Lindberg
Cavendish
Filed Under: Commentary • Letters to the Editor
Thank you Tim Roper. War is a racket.
I’m happy to know that there’s something you and I agree upon, Stu. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here.
The cost in dollars of this new war of choice will drastically increase the outrageous $2.53 Billion per DAY we taxpayers are already burdened with. Then there’s the additional seventy cents per gallon for gasoline, diesel and heating fuels that we’re forced to pay, every day. Those increased fuel prices will inflate prices for everything we purchase in the form of increased transportation costs, as well.
The cost in lost lives and humans displaced from their homes is incalculable. Recent estimates show between three and four million people having been forced out of their homes, so far. An estimated three to five thousand people have been killed, including at least thirteen honorable US service members who will be deeply missed by their friends and loved ones. Another twenty-four to sixty thousand have been injured, with an unknown number of those being US service members. The civilian survivors on the ground are now forced to live, work, care for their families and just try to survive… in a war zone.
And what can we expect for an outcome? It appears that the Iranian regime will almost certainly remain in power. I don’t see how the Iranian people could ever be expected to embrace US after what we’ve done to their lives. War is a tragedy for all. There are no winners.