Dear Editor:

On Monday, Sept. 11, the USA remembered the 16th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the failed attempt to attack another DC building that resulted in the plane crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The combined death toll from these four events was 2995. Please consider the further death toll from these attacks:

The Afghanistan and Iraq Wars were, and still are being, fought as a response to the events of 9/11. The combined toll at present of military people from the USA, Iraq and Afghanistan, and coalition forces is about 14,200. The estimated civilian toll is as high as 1,533,000.

Furthermore, these two wars are partly responsible for the rise of the Islamic State, or Daesh, leading to the Syrian Civil War. This has resulted in a further civilian death toll of almost 500,000, over 6 million Syrian refugees, and over 10 million displaced Syrians.

As Gandhi once said, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." The War on Terror and the work of the Grim Reaper continue.

Dr. T. Douglas Reilly

Los Alamos, New Mexico