Hey, you remember that guy, right? You know, the candidate who, in his third campaign for president in 2024 insisted that he was the one who would remove this country’s “warmongers and America-last globalists” and that returning him to the White House would “turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending war. They never ended.”
Yes, indeed, America’s wars haven’t ended, not by a long shot, not with Donald Trump back in the White House a second time. And yes (again), he did indeed swear that he was done with such wars. But then he wasn’t thinking about Bibi Netanyahu, was he? He wasn’t thinking about Israel bombing Iran. In typical fashion, he wasn’t thinking three (two? one?) steps ahead. And now, of course, we have Iran. I know, I know, after his bombing runs against that country’s nuclear sites, there is at least what passes for a truce in place (until, of course, there isn’t). With Netanyahu once again focused on killing Palestinians in Gaza and Trump focused on… well, himself, it’s easy enough to forget that he did indeed bring American-style warfare back to a Middle East that already had an estimated 40,000-50,000 American soldiers stationed at perhaps 19 sites across the region. And mind you, he hasn’t stopped implying that there might be worse to come. (“Can it start again? I guess someday, it can. It could maybe start soon.”)
And with all of that looming, and the unpredictable Donald Trump in the White House, let TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino, one of the founders of the invaluable Costs of War Project, take you on a grim voyage into what war — in fact, the wars this country has so regularly fought in this century across the Greater Middle East and Africa (where, by the way, the Trump administration is still sending American planes on remarkably regular bombing runs in Somalia at a pace that could set a Trumpian record this year) — does to our health. It isn’t pretty, believe me.
Hellbound and Down 