Severe Humanitarian Disasters Caused by US Aggressive Wars Against Foreign Countries

美国对外侵略战争造成严重人道主义灾难

The China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS)

中国人权研究会

April, 2021

2021年4月

The United States has always praised itself as “a city upon a hill” that is an example to others in the way it supports “natural human rights” and fulfills “natural responsibilities”, and it has repeatedly waged foreign wars under the banner of “humanitarian intervention”. During the past 240-plus years after it declared independence on July 4th, 1776, the United States was not involved in any war for merely less than 20 years. According to incomplete statistics, from the end of World War II in 1945 to 2001, among the 248 armed conflicts that occurred in 153 regions of the world, 201 were initiated by the United States, accounting for 81 percent of the total number. Most of the wars of aggression waged by the United States have been unilateralist actions, and some of these wars were even opposed by its own allies. These wars not only cost the belligerent parties a large number of military lives but also caused extremely serious civilian casualties and property damage, leading to horrific humanitarian disasters. The selfishness and hypocrisy of the United States have also been fully exposed through these foreign wars.

美国一直自诩为“山巅之城”，支持“天赋人权”，肩负“天赋使命”，时常打着“人道主义干涉”的旗号对外动武。自1776年7月4日宣布独立以来，在240多年的历史中，美国没有参与战争的时间不足20年。据不完全统计，从1945年第二次世界大战结束到2001年，世界上153个地区发生了248次武装冲突，其中美国发起的就有201场，约占81%。美国发动的多数侵略战争都是单边主义行动，甚至还遭致其盟友的反对。这些战争不仅夺去了大量各方军人的生命，更造成了极为严重的平民伤亡和财产损失，导致惊人的人道主义灾难。美国的自私和虚伪也通过这些对外干涉行为表露无遗。

1. Major Aggressive Wars Waged by the United States after World War II

一、二战后美国发动的主要侵略战争

(1) The Korean War. The Korean War, which took place in the early 1950s, did not persist for a long time but it was extremely bloody, leading to more than three million civilian deaths and creating more than three million refugees. According to statistics from the DPRK, the war destroyed about 8,700 factories, 5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, and 600,000 households, and more than two million children under the age of 18 were uprooted by the war. During this war, the ROK side lost 41.23 billion won, which was equivalent to 6.9 billion US dollars according to the official exchange rate at that time; and about 600,000 houses, 46.9 percent of railways, 1,656 highways, and 1,453 bridges in the ROK were destroyed. Worse still, the war led to the division of the DPRK and the ROK, causing a large number of family separations. Among the more than 130,000 Koreans registered in the Ministry of Unification in the ROK who have family members cut off by the war, 75,000 have passed away, forever losing the chance to meet their lost family members again. The website of the United States’ The Diplomat magazine reported on June 25, 2020, that as of November 2019, the average age of these family separation victims in the ROK had reached 81, and 60 percent of the 133,370 victims registered since 1988 had passed away, and that most of the registered victims never succeeded in meeting their lost family members again.

1．朝鲜战争。发生于20世纪50年代初的朝鲜战争时间虽短但异常血腥，战争导致300多万名平民死亡，另有约300万人成为难民。根据朝方的统计，战争摧毁了约8700座工厂、5000所学校、1000家医院和60万户家庭，有200万18岁以下的儿童因战争流离失所。而韩方的损失高达412.3亿韩元，相当于官方汇率下的69亿美元；战争期间韩方约有60万套住房、46.9%的铁路、1656条公路、1453座桥梁被毁。此外，战争导致的南北分治还造成大量家庭分离。在韩国统一部登记有离散家属的韩国人约为13万人，其中7.5万人已经离世。美国《外交官》杂志网站2020年6月25日报道，截至2019年11月，韩国分裂家庭成员的平均年龄为81岁，自1988年以来133370名申请团聚者中的60%以上已经去世，他们中的绝大部分人在分离后就再也没见过自己的亲人。

(2) The Vietnam War. The Vietnam War which lasted from the 1950s to the 1970s is the longest and most brutal war since the end of World War II. The Vietnamese government estimated that the war killed approximately 1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and 300,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, and caused as many as two million civilian deaths. The government also pointed out that some of the deaths were caused by the US troops’ planned massacres that were carried out in the name of “combating the Vietnamese Communist Party”. During the war, the US forces dropped a large number of bombs in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, almost three times the total number of bombs dropped during World War II. It is estimated that as of today, there are at least 350,000 metric tons of unexploded mines and bombs left by the US military in Vietnam alone, and these mines and bombs are still explosive. At the current rate, it will take 300 years to clean out these explosives. The website of The Huffington Post reported on December 3, 2012, that statistics from the Vietnamese government showed that since the end of the war in 1975, the explosive remnants of the war had killed more than 42,000 people. Apart from the above-mentioned explosives, the US forces dropped 20 million gallons (about 75.71 million liters) of defoliants in Vietnam during the war, directly causing more than 400,000 Vietnamese deaths. Another approximately two million Vietnamese who came into contact with this chemical got cancer and other diseases. This war that lasted for more than 10 years also caused more than three million refugees to flee and die in large numbers on the way across the ocean. Among the refugees that were surveyed, 92 percent were troubled by fatigue, and others suffered unexplained pregnancy losses and birth defects. According to the United States’ Vietnam War statistics, defoliants destroyed about 20 percent of the jungles and 20 to 36 percent of the mangrove forests in Vietnam.

2．越南战争。20世纪50年代至70年代发生的越南战争，是二战后延续时间最长也最为残酷的一场战争。据越南政府估计，约有110万名北越士兵和30万名南越士兵丧生，多达200万名平民在战争中死亡，其中有些是被美军以“打击越共”的名义有计划屠杀的。美军在越南、老挝和柬埔寨投下的炸弹超过二战期间各方投下炸弹的三倍。据估计，越南至少还遗留着35万吨可爆炸的炸弹与地雷，按照目前的速度，需要300年才能将它们从越南的土地上清除干净。《赫芬顿邮报》网站2012年12月3日报道，越南政府的统计数据显示，自1975年战争正式结束以来，战争遗留弹药已杀死约42000人。此外，美军还在越南投放了2000万加仑（约合7571万升）的落叶剂，导致40万越南人死亡，约200万越南人因为接触到落叶剂而罹患癌症或其他疾病。延续十几年的战争导致300多万难民外逃，在漂洋过海的路途中有大量人员死亡。在逃离越南的难民中，有92%的被调查者表示，落叶剂的影响使其感觉持续疲劳，其他表现包括流产和出生缺陷问题。美国官方的数据显示，越南20%的丛林和20%至36%的红树林被落叶剂摧毁。