BEIJING, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- By launching wars and invading other countries, the U.S. military hegemony has brought disasters to the world while also causing serious damage to the United States itself, said a report published on Tuesday.
The report, titled Origins, Facts and Perils of U.S. Military Hegemony, was released by Xinhua Institute, the think tank of Xinhua News Agency. It outlines the formation of the U.S. military hegemony, summarizes the means Washington adopted to maintain it, and delves into its perils.
The wars launched and participated in by the United States after the 9/11 attacks have led to the death of more than 7,000 U.S. soldiers and around 8,000 U.S. defense contractors, while more than 30,000 U.S. soldiers committed suicide, four times the number killed in combat, according to the report.
The United States has spent over 5.8 trillion dollars on wars since 2001 with more than 350 billion dollars on medical and disability care for veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while another 2.2 trillion dollars have to be invested in the same field in the next 30 years, placing a heavy burden on the taxpayers, it said.
U.S. military spending from the post-9/11 wars could have provided health care coverage through adulthood and two years of early education for 13 million U.S. children living below the poverty line, public college scholarships for 28 million students, 20 years of health care coverage for 1 million veterans, and 10 years' worth of salaries for 4 million clean energy industry workers, it added.
The U.S. military is accustomed to concealing the truth when it comes to the various atrocities committed by it in foreign conflicts such as the No Gun Ri massacre during the Korean War, the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the abuse of prisoners during the Iraq War, and the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians by drones during the so-called "War on Terror," said the report.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States has invoked the term "war on terror" to justify its interventions and exertion of military hegemony, which has resulted in the development of extremist groups like the Islamic State and instability in many regions, it said.
At the same time, these actions have backfired on the United States itself, as evidenced by the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the New York City truck attack in 2017, it said.
The United States' successive lies and deceptions in wars have also continued to erode its credibility. A poll released by the Pew Research Center in 2019 showed that the international reputation of the United States declined significantly from 2013 to 2018, with foreigners who view U.S. power and influence as a serious threat rising from 25 percent in 2013 to 45 percent in 2018, said the report.
Through its "endless wars" abroad, the United States has unleashed a series of political forces such as militarism, strengthened executive power, xenophobia, pseudo-patriotism, and demagoguery, all of which run counter to the civic morality on which a healthy democracy relies, exacerbating domestic unrest, it added.
