You set back and watch, when the death count gets higher

I wonder what it is we’ve done

Five years. Thousands of lives. Billions of dollars. No good reason.

And no end in sight.

Five years, my brain hurts a lot

In anticipation of tomorrow’s dismal anniversary.

Pacific coast port workers to shut down ports in anti-war protest

The International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents dockworkers on the West Coast (and which I had the privilege of representing during my California stint), will stage a one-day shutdown on May 1st to protest the ongoing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

KBR uses off-shore shell companies to evade U.S. taxes on Iraq contracts

The Boston Globe reports:
More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in [...]

No matter how “clean”, “modern” or “humane”, Guantánamo is wrong

IOZ, responding to this, hits the nail squarely on the head with his usual pith and aplomb:
In many aspects of our empire, we seem to believe that qualitative improvements will obviate categorical wrongs. Thus the prevalence of the idea that the “success” of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan has some bearing on their rightness [...]

Bush-connected law firm in Iraq oil imbroglio

BigLaw powerhouse Baker Botts (”as in former Secretary of State James Baker”1) made its bones representing Texas oilmen. So it should come as no surprise that the firm has been dipping its toes in the Iraqi oil fields. The firm recently helped client Hunt Oil Company arrange a deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government for [...]

Unhappy Anniversary

It’s been five years since Congress gave George W Bush the green light to invade Iraq.

Waist deep in the big bloody

BBC News maps the worsening violence in Baghdad over the four years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq.