Iraq war quickly morphed from “mission accomplished” to fiasco, imperial hubris, and descent into chaos.

But Shane was a favorite of ours, a man with a off-beat sense of humor and a wry southern and, indeed, South Carolinian way of getting at the grit of reality. He was a truck driver by inclination and trade, with the hard rules of the road as his moral compass. On his many trips across the United States he thought he had seen everything. But he had not yet experienced the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Halliburton/KBR in the land of greed, grab, and grin that was Iraq as the CEOs that hired him descended upon this great opportunity to serve their country… from a golf course in the tony suburbs of Houston.

What Shane saw while working as a driver for Halliburton was shocking at first, but approached the banal by the time his stay in Iraq ended. He saw $80,000 dollar trucks left to rot for lack of an oil filter or spare tire. He saw new commercial heaters and air conditioners, thousands of dollars at a shot, thrown into the “burn pit”: “They [Halliburton/KBR] just took a lot of nice reusable stuff and just threw it away, is what they done.” He saw padded time cards, people paid to do nothing, a usable car buried in the ground. Halliburton CEOs in Wonderland, slaphappy Mad Hatters with multi-million dollar smiles that conveniently disappeared when they spoke of their love and concern for the troops.

“That don’t make sense either,” Shane pointed out with complete sincerity, as if still perplexed by the absurdity of the acts, “just to take stuff that costs that much and bury it and do away with it. It don’t make sense to me just wasting government money, but that’s Halliburton.” “But that’s Halliburton”. My mind’s eye sees Shane the spokesperson for the big H in a the world’s best anti-commercial: “And big companies will lie to you. Just like some individuals will lie to you. Anything that sounds too good to be true, usually is. Halliburton, To Good To Be True,” a five-million dollar thirty-second jingle on SuperBowl Sunday.

The Mad Hatters worked under a cost-plus contract that guaranteed a profit above what was spent. Spend more, waste more, well, they just got paid more. Compassionate conservatism was the mantra of the day indeed. Shane, a Republican all his life, didn’t much care that his team was doing the stealing. The rules of the road dictate that laws must be obeyed, stated and expected obligations attended to, no matter what brand of car one drives, at the cost of lives if they are not.

I’d like to think that a bit of the legacy Shane left to his children and wife Rebbecca is in his courage, his audacity, his sense that it was time to step up and tell the honest-to-goodness truth about corporate waste and corruption in Iraq. His story sketched out the coordinates of greed that connected Houston to Baghdad, and ran through Washington D.C. during the Bush reign. But I know that Shane’s wife and children, and the many friends who will attend his funeral services today, will remember him not on film but rather in the flesh, as a kind man,  a “one-of-a-kind,” as Rebbecca told me this morning, and as a guy who knew how the world worked and knew his place in it. He was a fine and generous person.

Shane, thank you for your commitment to honorable and honest rules of engagement during wartime, against the odds and against the powers that were arrayed to your flanks.  Rest in peace, my friend.

Iraq for Sale trailer, featuring Shane Ratliff:

When I directed Iraq for Sale, it became appallingly evident that private contractors like CACI and Titan played a critical role in the torture and abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.  Much like Blackwater, KBR, and others, these war profiteers were never held accountable for their unconscionable crimes.  Instead, they were rewarded with hundreds of millions in new contracts.  The Obama administration has already taken some laudable steps to prevent another Abu Ghraib: ordering the CIA to end enhanced interrogation techniques and follow a more lawful code of conduct; and ordering the Justice Department to investigate the use of torture.  However, the President’s recent objection to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill that would make interrogation an “inherently governmental function” is a huge step backwards.

This provision, backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), states “the interrogation of enemy prisoners of war, civilian internees, retained persons, other detainees, terrorists, and criminals when captured, transferred, confined, or detained during or in the aftermath of hostilities is an inherently governmental function and cannot be transferred to contractor personnel.”  In other words, our government would no longer be able to hand off interrogation duties (and the lavish contracts that come with them) to mercenary firms out to profit from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  What’s more, if  interrogators are caught violating the law and abusing detainees, our government would have the power to hold those interrogators accountable.

According to The Washington Post, both the White House and the Pentagon have a litany of excuses for opposing this provision.  They don’t want US forces to be “limited” in conducting lawful interrogations, but the whole point of the provision is to set limitations and create transparency for interrogation practices.  And either the US military should be training new interrogators themselves, as a senior Senate aide has suggested, or, lacking enough soldiers to accomplish this goal, perhaps our government should seek diplomatic alternatives to military escalation in Afghanistan.

Last month, Jeremy Scahill reported that the use of “private security contractors” has shot up 23 percent in Iraq and 29 percent in Afghanistan during the second quarter of 2009.  Scahill estimated that there are over 242,000 contractors working on these two wars, and that contractors comprise a whopping 50 percent of our total forces in the region.

Our morals mean nothing if we do not act on them.  Our tax dollars are funding this abuse and we must not be complacent.  Call your senators today 202-224-3121 and tell them contractors have no place in interrogations, and you expect them to support Senator Levin’s government-only interrogation provision.  Once you have done that, call the White House 202-456-1414 and leave a message for President Obama, urging him to stand with you to end prisoner abuse.

The US media have reported on the withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi cities. But 130,000 troops remain in Iraq and many argue that the occupation will continue only under a different guise. Have things really changed? Or has the occupation simply been rebranded?

Jeremy Scahill, best selling author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Patrick Cockburn, journalist and author most recently of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, and Kristele Younes, an Advocate at Refugees International on what the US withdrawal means. You can find more information on Iraq’s refugees at Iraqirefugeestories.org.

Today, all U.S. troops must be withdrawn from Iraqi cities, including U.S. bases in Baghdad, according to the Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraq. The Iraqi government will also take legal responsibility for the actions of U.S. troops and have legal jurisdiction over American soldiers who commit crimes off-base and off-duty, and the SOFA will grant permission to U.S. troops for military operations, as well as ban the U.S. from staging attacks on other countries from Iraq.

While it may seem like a step forward toward ending the six-year occupation of Iraq, the Pentagon is doing what it can to dodge or play down these SOFA stipulations. In recent weeks, it has been re-classifying bases and troops, hiring “corporate security” mercenaries, and preventing Iraq from having jurisdiction over those actions. It’ll get away with it too, as Congress never ratified the SOFA, and because many are justifying further occupation under the banner of keeping Iraq secure.

Leading up to the June 30th deadline, the Pentagon has been playing shell games with bases and with soldiers. City limits have been modified to exempt bases from the agreement and soldiers who have moved out of cities are now encircling them. As Erik Leaver points out in his article “A Withdrawal in Name Only,” three thousand troops stationed at the FOB Falcon, located within Baghdad, will not be moving, because Iraqi and American military officials simply decided it wasn’t within the city limits. And thousands of troops in bases sleeping outside the cities will continue to serve in “support” and “advisory” roles in the day.

And while troops may be moving out of the cities, they are not moving out of the country just yet. The military has been expanding and building new bases in rural areas to accommodate the movement of soldiers, and Congress just passed a bill that includes more funding for military construction in Iraq. In reality, only 30,000 troops have left Iraq since September last year and 134,000 troops still remain.

But the 132,000 military contractors in Iraq are the real loophole. How do they fit into the withdrawal plan? How many of them will stay past June 30th? Or past 2011? Military contractors have been used extensively in the War in Iraq to evade legal accountability and hide the true cost – and body count – of the war. In fact, mercenaries may be on the rise and will spark additional violence in the country.

Arab-American journalist Dahr Jamail points out the violence in Iraq has largely been quelled because the U.S. has paid Iraqi resistance fighters to keep the peace, and the increase in violent resistance in May and June is due to many fighters losing their paychecks from the US government. In his blog, MidEast Dispatches, Jamail writes:

“Attacks against U.S. forces are once again on the rise in places like Baghdad and Fallujah, where the Iraqi resistance was fiercest before so many of them joined the Sahwa (Sons of Iraq, also referred to as Awakening Councils) and began taking payments from the U.S. military in exchange for halting attacks against the occupiers and agreeing to join the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq. Daily we are watching Sahwa members leave their security posts.”

He further explains that many Iraqis are rejoining the resistance in protest of losing their paychecks and increasing government attacks, and thus, have stopped targeting al-Qaeda.

Instead of continuing to pay these resistance fighters, the U.S. plans to replace some soldiers and Marines in Iraq with mercenaries — private U.S. contractors and corporations. This new occupying force will continue to alienate Iraqis and delay any real Iraqi independence.

But despite working all the loopholes, the U.S. never officially committed to playing by the rules of an Iraq withdrawal, anyway. In 2007 and 2009, members of Congress including then-Senator Hillary Clinton believed the SOFA should have been ratified by Senate to be legitimate. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton urged Obama to sign on to her legislation that would have required Bush to bring the SOFA to Senate first. Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, never agreed to do so. But once Clinton dropped her opposition to Obama’s unanimous selection as the Democratic presidential nominee, and was rewarded by being chosen as Secretary of State, she put her SOFA principle aside and now supports an agreement that only one country – Iraq – has ratified. The U.S. Senate’s role in ratifying bilateral agreements has been nullified, a development that should worry all who have been concerned about a “unitary executive” and an increasingly weakened Congress.

Even in Iraq, withdrawal plans have been undermined. The Iraqi parliament planned to ratify the SOFA under a national referendum this month. But recently the Iraqi cabinet decided to reschedule to align with the national parliamentary elections in January 2010. The SOFA is widely unpopular and seen as legitimizing the US occupation until 2011. If it goes to a vote, it will likely be defeated. So Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders have colluded with both the Bush and Obama administrations to subvert the will of the Iraqi people.

If by July 31 however the Iraq SOFA is not referendum-ratified or a 12-month cancellation notice issued, it will expire. If it expires, the U.S. will be in Iraq without legal authorization and U.S. forces may be subject to lock down until the matter is resolved. Under these conditions, U.S. troops will no longer have the bilateral protections – effectively left in a legal and political limbo.

Ultimately, the Pentagon must stop playing chess games to slow down a real withdrawal. And our leaders in the White House and Congress – who just passed another $70 billion for the war – must take real leadership to end this war, including withdrawing all our troops, ending the use of military contractors, stop funding any permanent bases in Iraq, and allowing the Iraqi people the space to reclaim their country.

Janet Weil is a CODEPINK staff member based in San Francisco. Her nephew is preparing to be deployed to Afghanistan in November.

It seems as though every week there is a new lawsuit filed against Blackwater for the killing of civilians in Iraq. While the Justice Department has failed to prosecute most of these cases (the September 2007 Nisour Square massacre being an exception), attorney Susan Burke has dedicated a substantial part of her practice to holding the company responsible for its crimes. She works in cooperation with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Not only is Burke representing the victims of Nisour Square in their civil suit, and the family of an Iraqi guard allegedly murdered by a drunken Blackwater operative, but she has filed at least a half a dozen other cases against the company. “Erik Prince, a modern-day merchant of death, acts as if he is above the rule of law,” charges Burke.

But beyond the specifics of her lawsuits, Burke is also alleging Blackwater/Xe remains firmly entrenched in Iraq, using affiliate companies like Greystone. She also says Blackwater is working for a “non-profit” organization, started under the Reagan administration, with a history of interference in internal affairs and elections of various nations, including allegations it helped foment a coup in Haiti: the International Republican Institute.

“The Iraqi government has barred Xe-Blackwater from operating in Iraq, and has refused to grant the licenses needed to carry weapons in Iraq,” Burke says.  “Yet Prince continues to provide armed personnel to the International Republican Institute. Such repeated illegal conduct by Prince must be stopped.”

According to SourceWatch:

Loosely affiliated with the Republican Party, the International Republican Insitute (IRI) works closely with the the National Endowment for Democracy and United States foreign policy instruments, including the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, to support economic and political development programs around the world. The organization is almost exclusively funded by the U.S. government and related agencies.

IRI is also closely linked to Sen. John McCain. According to IRI’s vice president, “Since the summer of 2003, IRI has conducted a multi-faceted program aimed at promoting democracy in Iraq. Toward this end, IRI works with political parties, civil society groups, and government officials and administrators. In support of these efforts, IRI also conducts numerous public opinion research projects and assists its Iraqi partners in the production of radio and television ads and programs.” One IRI grant recipient in Iraq told author Nikolas Kozloff, “Instead of promoting impartial, better understanding of certain ideas and concepts, they [the IRI] are actually trying to further the cause of the Republican administration.” Kozloff notes that in 2005-6 Blackwater donated $30,000 to IRI.

Last November, on Veterans Day, I told you about IAVA’s groundbreaking national public service advertisement campaign to help veterans coming home from war reintegrate into their communities. You’ve probably seen the TV ad on ESPN, CNN, or MTV. (One good thing about this economy is that the ads are getting even more traction than we expected – stations have a lot more inventory.)

But reaching out to veterans was only one piece of the puzzle. When servicemembers deploy, they leave behind wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, friends and coworkers. They are the ones waiting for phone calls, worrying for their loved ones’ safety, and welcoming our warriors home. Our troops’ friends and families are called to service on the homefront, and they need support, too.

I’d like to share the story of one of those military families.

Don Gomez was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. He deployed twice, securing supply lines along the dangerous highways of Iraq. Don is home now, studying at the City College of New York. He was recently named a Truman Scholar. But while he was gone, his mother, father and fiancée struggled. They wanted to stay positive, and be tough for Don, but they were afraid for his safety. And when he came back, Don was different. According to Don’s father, “He seemed harder. He had been overseas and he made it back. He didn’t really want to talk about it.” His family wanted to understand what Don had been through, and help him make the transition home – but they weren’t sure how to start the conversation.

For families like the Gomez’s, we’re launching a second PSA campaign with the Ad Council. If anything, it’s going to be even bigger than the first campaign. In the coming weeks and months, you’ll be seeing the ads on TV, on the radio, in magazines, airports, and billboards nationwide. Be among the first to see our new television PSA here.

You can check out the print and radio ads here.

The ad directs friends and family members to a unique new website, www.SupportYourVet.org, where friends and family members can find critical resources, tips on how to talk to veterans about their experiences, and forums where they can connect with one another.

And this campaign could not come at a more critical time. Over the next two years, hundreds of thousands of veterans will be coming home from Iraq for the last time. We have a unique opportunity, in this brief moment, to finally turn the page on Vietnam, and welcome our veterans home with the honor and support they have earned. Much of that burden will fall on the friends and families of our servicemembers. As a nation, it’s time to support the people who stand behind our troops every day.

So check out the ad, and forward it on to anyone you know who needs help starting the conversation with the veteran in their life. Help us reach our goal of 100,000 views on YouTube by Mother’s Day. It’s a small step, but you will be making a real difference in the lives of military families.

(Also on HuffPo)

Over at Open Left, Adam Green asks if the US Chamber of Commerce is using bailout money to attack workers?  It certainly would appear that way, since the Chamber just launched a $1 million ad campaign in five states (Nebraska, Virginia, Louisiana, North Dakota and Colorado) targeting Senators who could be swing votes on the Employee Free Choice Act.  What we’re potentially seeing here is the government tag-teaming with anti-union activists and corporations like Bank of America and AIG to put a chokehold on Employee Free Choice.

Green has two ways to take action:

1) Join the Facebook group: “Petition: Chamber of Commerce Shouldn’t Use Bailout Money to Attack Workers.” (If not on Facebook, sign the petition here.)

2) Email top Chamber execs. Ask them if the Chamber is rejecting money from bailout recipients so that taxpayer funds aren’t used on these ads.

Chamber President Tom Donohue: tdonohue@uschamber.com

Executive Vice President David C. Chavern: dchavern@uschamber.com

Executive Vice President Bruce Josten: bjosten@uschamber.comShare what your email said on the Facebook group wall.

And you can visit the SIEU’s website to tell your Senator “Greed Must Go.”

“[At Walter Reed,] life beyond the hospital bed is a frustrating mountain of paperwork. The typical soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands — most of them off-post — to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems are used to process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another.

The disappearance of necessary forms and records is the most common reason soldiers languish at Walter Reed longer than they should, according to soldiers, family members and staffers. Sometimes the Army has no record that a soldier even served in Iraq. A combat medic who did three tours had to bring in letters and photos of herself in Iraq to show she that had been there, after a clerk couldn’t find a record of her service.”–The Washington Post

When the Walter Reed scandal broke in February 2007 spurring a massive public outcry, the politicians in Washington said heads would roll. But silently, and more than two years later, our seriously wounded troops continue to fall through the cracks, suffering through redundant tests, misdiagnoses, and delayed treatment all because of lost medical records.

But their saga doesn’t end there. When these troops transition from the military to the VA healthcare systems, medical records and military service records regularly get lost in the shuffle, leading to long waits for disability benefits and a drop-off in the quality of care.

Our nation’s heroes deserve much more than lost paperwork and endless delays.

Today, we are finally turning the page on this horrific chapter in our nation’s history. President Obama has announced an overhaul of military and VA record keeping that will help ease the transition home for our veterans. IAVA was there at the White House for this historic announcement along with every major veterans’ group.

This announcement marks the beginning of a new era of collaboration and cooperation between the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. It was encouraging to see Secretary Gates and Secretary Shinseki stand behind President Obama during his speech, as they must work closely to implement this important change.

The Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record Initiative will require DOD and VA administrative and medical records to finally be electronic and transferable. Not only will it help simplify the transition from the DOD to the VA, it will improve care for all veterans, especially the more than 33,000 wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. With this initiative, President Obama is finally bringing the VA and DOD into the 21st century.

Today, the President also reiterated his support for advance funding of VA healthcare. For nineteen of the last twenty-two years the VA budget has been passed late, forcing the largest healthcare provider in the nation to ration care. Imagine trying to plan for next month’s bills without knowing your next paycheck. That’s what we ask veterans’ hospitals to do almost every year. Advance funding will ensure that the quality of care for veterans will no longer be compromised by budget delays. With the strong support of the President and bipartisan leadership in Congress, advance funding can and must move forward this year.

Today, President Obama has taken action on two key campaign promises to America’s veterans–and two of IAVA’s top legislative priorities for 2009. Advance funding VA healthcare and an overhaul of military and VA recordkeeping will eliminate two of the most significant bureaucratic hurdles that keep veterans from the healthcare and benefits they have earned. Veterans nationwide applaud the Administration for making veterans and their families a priority. And we look forward to continuing to work together on the many other issues facing today’s veterans, including psychological injuries, unemployment and homelessness.

A renowned anti-warrior (and my former boss), Tom Matzzie, has some thoughts up on the 6th anniversary of the Iraq war that are worth a read. I thought I’d throw a few quick thoughts of my own in here.

Barack Obama has stepped out farther on Iraq than I thought he would. During the campaign, he pledged a date to get all combat troops out of Iraq, but as many progressives pointed out, the definition of “combat troops” can be a bit fuzzy. There was definitely wiggle room in that talking point. But as President, Obama has not only moved to keep his campaign promise, but gone a step farther – he’s set a date for all U.S. troops to leave the country we invaded six years ago.

Though us progressives will have to hold him to that promise, I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised. There was no need for Obama to go out on that limb, but he did, and that gives me hope in his commitment to peace.

The Iraq war, started six years ago, has an end date. The war in Afghanistan, however, does not.

Obama will announce the new strategy he’s formulated for Afghanistan in a few weeks. I may again be pleasantly surprised. Either way, I’ll be holding up his strategy to the rubric laid out by Alex Thurston a few weeks ago. And I will continue to oppose any new strategies that don’t meet this standard.

One war, started six years ago, has an end date. I intend to see our second war gets the same.

(Cross-posted from The Seminal.)

Memory is the core of what we call reality.

Think about it for a second. What do you actually hear and see right now? This page. The walls and furnishings of the room in which you sit. Perhaps some music or some background noise.  Yet you know as sure as you were born that out of sight there are other rooms mere steps away–perhaps the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a hall. What makes you so sure that they exist? Nothing but your memory…Then there are the companions who enrich your life–family, workmates, neighbors, friends a husband or a wife, and even people you are fond of to whom you haven’t spoken in a year or two–few of whom, if any, are currently in the room with you. You also know we sit on a planet called the earth, circling an incandescent ball of sun, buried in one of many galaxies. At this instant, reading by yourself, where do the realities of galaxies and friends reside? Only in the chambers of your mind. Almost every reality you “know” at any given second is a mere ghost held in memory.

–Howard Bloom, “Reality is a Shared Hallucination,” You Are Still Being Lied To.