America’s so-called war on terror, which some studies show has cost nearly $6 trillion and killed about half a million people, was orchestrated by Zionist neoconservatives in the US to destroy Muslim nations, a US scholar says.
“9/11 was a neoconservative coup d’état to make the US keep fighting perpetual wars, whose only real geo-strategic beneficiary is Israel.” said Kevin Barrett, an author, journalist and radio host with a PhD in Islamic and Arabic Studies.
“It was orchestrated by Israel First neocons and to some extent hard-line hawks in the US military establishment,” Barrett told Press TV on Friday.
Recent studies have “underestimated the disastrous consequences of the US so-called war on terror,” he added.
A new study has revealed that the United States has spent nearly $6 trillion on its war on terror which it launched 17 years ago after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
The “Costs of War” study was conducted by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. It was published on Wednesday.
The institute also released a study last week that found about half a million people have been killed in the US wars against Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001.
The latest report takes stock of the US military spending and its Overseas Contingency Operations account, as well as “war-related spending by the Department of State, past and obligated spending for war veterans’ care, interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security.”
“The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post 9/11 war veterans,” the study said.
The United States, under former President George W. Bush, launched the war on terror following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
US officials assert that the attacks were carried out by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists but many experts have raised questions about the official account.
Many experts believe that rogue elements within the US government, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, orchestrated the 9/11 attacks in order to accelerate the US war machine and advance the Zionist agenda.