The United States has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project, released on the anniversary of Hamas’ attacks on Israel.

An additional $4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up U.S. military operations in the region since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, researchers said in findings first provided to The Associated Press. That includes the costs of a Navy-led campaign to quell strikes on commercial shipping by Yemen’s Houthis, who are carrying them out in solidarity with the fellow Iranian-backed group Hamas.

The report — completed before Israel opened a second front, this one against Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, in late September — is one of the first tallies of estimated U.S. costs as the Biden administration backs Israel in its conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon and seeks to contain hostilities by Iran-allied armed groups in the region.

  • basmatii@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    That’s nice, neither Iran nor Russia cares about the US nor wants to attack us, neither ever did until we started attacking them preemptively.

    I, as an American citizen have no enemies, neither do you. If the US government has made enemies, and it has, it did so without my permission, endorsement, or allowance.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That’s nice, neither Iran nor Russia cares about the US nor wants to attack us

      Someone hasn’t been paying attention.

      • basmatii@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, you. Why does Russia want trump in office? To leave them the fuck alone. Why does Russia openly want a weaker US? The same reason 140+ countries want a weaker US, so they get left the fuck alone.

        The US has conducted hostile military operations in over 100countries over the last 30 years without declaring war once. If Russia did that, we’d nuke them. Fuck MAD, we’d go for the nuke regardless at that point.

        Everyone outside the EU wants a weaker US for one specific reason. It’s not our " freedom" or way of life or capitalism (ok a lil bit of it is capitalism) it’s the fact we are the most belligerent country to have ever existed in human history.

        You’re not special; Ivan wankenstainofsky doesn’t give a shit about you or anything you have ever done or will ever do. They want the US government to stop playing world police just because the American populace is too stupid to stop their own government.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Yeah, you. Why does Russia want trump in office? To leave them the fuck alone. Why does Russia openly want a weaker US? The same reason 140+ countries want a weaker US, so they get left the fuck alone.

          Fucking lol

          I guess fascist propaganda doesn’t even need to try to be vaguely believable anymore. But hey, anything to cheerlead for genocide in Ukraine, right?

          • basmatii@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            A generic war isn’t genocide, and you people don’t get to coopt the word genocide just because Israel took away your spotlight.

            More over… It’s not our problem. We are not the world police. We suck at that job, given we tend to kill 10-20x more civil loans than whoever were supposedly there to kill.

            Yeah it sucks Ukraine is getting invaded again it did that a thousand times before I was born it’ll do that a thousand more times at least after I die. You know what also sucks? Homelessness exclusively due to corporate greed. The former we can’t solve, the latter we can and should before temporarily stopping a different country from invading yet another different country.

            • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              A generic war isn’t genocide,

              Wow, generic wars have hundreds of thousands, by Russia’s own admission, children being ethnically cleansed from a region and deported to the invading country to shore up their own flagging demographics? Generic wars have kill lists of political figures, including LGBT advocates, distributed to the invader’s forces? Generic wars have civilians with their hands tied and shot in the back of the head en masse in occupied territories?

              Let me guess - you’re an Uyghur Genocide denier too, right?

              Yeah it sucks Ukraine is getting invaded again it did that a thousand times before I was born it’ll do that a thousand more times at least after I die.

              Ah, yes, nichevo.

              • basmatii@lemm.ee
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                2 months ago

                You keep getting off topic because I don’t care about your pet topic.

                I don’t care, even a little about myanmars genocide. Or the genocide in sudan. Or whatever Russia is doing or whatever gobbledyfuck the third, the warlord of east genovia is doing to puppies and children.

                Maybe if I hadn’t struggled my entire life while watching people get dumped by the US government, sent to the ME to do war crimes, and luckily come back home only to kill themselves after they learned how pointless their sacrifice was, may e id care about your pet topic of a sovereign country that is not us and is not funded by us invade another country that again is not us.

                Maybe if I hadn’t watched multiple of my family members die of preventable diseases thanks to not having access to healthcare even after “Obamacare” supposedly solved that problem, id care enough about your pet topic to support sending billions to be wasted on yet another war.

                I haven’t been to a doctor in my adult life. Id love to go, but the copay on my free insurance is half a weeks pay, before any tests. Id love to spend that but I’ve never paid less than half my monthly wage in rent. The money isn’t there for me to give a fuck anymore. We spent 20trillion on Afghanistan and Iraq, theyre same shit holes they were, with a couple million fewer civilians and more birth defects per capita than anywhere else in the world.

                Your pet topic wouldnt end any differently.

                • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I don’t care, even a little about myanmars genocide. Or the genocide in sudan. Or whatever Russia is doing or whatever gobbledyfuck the third, the warlord of east genovia is doing to puppies and children.

                  Thanks for admitting to being indifferent to genocide. Keep cheering on Palestinian genocide as well, I’m sure you don’t care about that either. That’s about the level of moral fiber I expected from someone who denies the Ukrainian and Uyghur genocides.

                  • basmatii@lemm.ee
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                    2 months ago

                    I do care about Palestinian genocide as we are funding that and id like that to stop.

                    I do not care about your pet genocide or whatever genocide China is committing.

                    We are not funding that.

                    It’s a simple concept, take care of your citizens before sending off your children and money to some random country.

    • BlameThePeacock
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      2 months ago

      You do have enemies. Many countries would love to hurt you and your way of life. Those countries have shown that they like hurting other countries, they just tend pick on the smaller ones right now. China is attacking Canada economically for example. They’d love to do the same to the US, but currently the cost is too high. If that math ever changes, you will also be attacked.

      • girlfreddyOP
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        2 months ago

        China is attacking Canada economically for example.

        China is doing that because our former right-wing asshole leader, Stephen Harper, locked us into a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with China for 31 years, and they’re now forcing its usage upon us. Source

      • basmatii@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Genuinely I don’t think there’s hope for you or people like you. We need to take nukes away from you people immediately. I’m usually for nuclear proliferation since it’s the only way to not get invaded by the us, but wherever you are shouldn’t have that protection until you actually understand what being a victim is.