​It's been 18 years since US forces paraded through Baghdad's streets, celebrating the overthrow of the Baathist dictatorship.

Iraqis gathered in Baghdad's Firdos Square, pulling down Saddam Hussein's statue. And in that moment, a US marine sabotaged Iraqis' joy at Saddam's downfall, and literally rubbed the US flag on the statue's face. While it might have seemed inconsequential, that act remained symbolic of the war itself, and of the years to come.

Since then, Iraqis have endured 18 years of state destabilization due to government corruption, nepotism, and kleptocracy supported and maintained by foreign intervention. It has been 18 years of terrorism by foreign states and non-state actors; the displacement and exodus of over 6 million people; the enforced disappearances of over 1 million; and countless murders.

Foreign intervention - whether soft or hard - has become the norm in Iraq, with a proxy war resulting in actual deaths and displacement. All these are part and parcel of the war's enduring legacy: impunity.

The US forces have transported 41 tankers of oil stolen from the Hasaka province in northern Syria into Iraq, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported, citing local sources.

The convoy also included several covered trucks. The agency reported that the oil was smuggled into the Iraqi territory via the "illegal" al-Waleed border crossing, which is also referred to as at-Tanf.
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This is not the first time that such news has been reported by SANA, with a similar story being published last December reporting that US forces looted oil from the Hasaka countryside and transported it over the border to US bases in Iraq.

​The most recent report says that the convoy was guarded, in part, by members of the QSD militia, also known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. While the QSD is the official defense force of the de facto autonomous administration in northern Syria, they have been accused of both ethnic cleansing and the use of child soldiers.

When the call came to fight the Islamic State, the lines of volunteers here stretched for blocks. Friends pooled money to pay for transportation to local militia recruitment offices. Young men were already scrambling onto buses bound for the front lines.

As the Iraqi army melted away, it fell often to the mostly Shiite Muslim militias to turn back and rout the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State. For many in the city of Nasiriyah, it felt like a battle for Iraq’s soul.

“Back then, it was just about one thing,” said former militiaman Thamer al-Safi, recalling the battles of 2014 in which two of his brothers died. “This was about our future. This was about Iraq.”

That mass mobilization would have far-reaching consequences, embedding the victorious militias in the upper echelons of power in Iraq and setting them on a course to confront the United States. Backed in many cases by Iran, they have escalated their rocket attacks on U.S. military positions in recent years, threatening to ignite a wider war between the United States and Iran, even now as top officials in Washington and Tehran talk about restoring diplomatic contacts.

For nearly a month, Khaled lay on a threadbare mattress, writhing in pain.
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Until 2014, he worked as a security contractor in northern Iraq. When ISIS swept through the area, he lost his job and spiraled into a depression. Now in a prison cell, he has just recovered from withdrawal symptoms after years of crystal meth abuse.

"The situation in the country was rough. You go and try to find work, but there was no work," he says. "Once, twice and I was hooked (on crystal meth). I was trapped. I couldn't get out."

The woman he says was the love of his life left him.

Soon after the 9/11 attacks, disease researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs began internal discussions on how to prepare for the war-related illnesses they knew would follow, agency officials told McClatchy.
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“There were lots of conversations about ‘we don’t know what to expect, but we expect there to be consequences’” for the service members who would deploy overseas in response to the 2001 attacks, Victoria Davey, an epidemiologist and associate chief research officer at the VA, told McClatchy in an exclusive interview.

​“We expected there to be hazardous exposures,” she said.

The VA was trying to be proactive, after a general feeling among the researchers that it had not been ready to address toxic-exposure illnesses that troops developed after previous conflicts, Davey said.

“I think our major, major impulse was — not another Vietnam,” Davey said. “To not follow these people and to look forward and to expect consequences of service in the deployed environment.”

On 1st April 2021, I sent the email printed below to Royal Dutch Shell PLC Chief Executive Mr Ben van Beurden and to his legal director, Mr Donny Ching.

It contained serious allegations by a credible whistleblower about Shell’s alleged corrupt activities in Iraq in collusion with the Iranian regime.

I invited Shell to comment. Shell chose not to do so.
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Shell also had time to obtain a legal injunction to prevent publication.

A little more than a week has passed since Pope Francis' historic visit to Iraq concluded and not only have most of the hopes for peace and stability been dashed already, but state and non-state actors immediately resumed their violence.

Although Shia militias linked to Iran promised a cessation of violence for the duration of the pontiff's visit, no sooner had he left than the amnesty ended and the violence resumed, claiming the lives of activists and even including the abduction of a child to force a self-exiled dissident to return.
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Meanwhile, the Islamic State (IS) group has launched its own attacks at a time when the US-led coalition remains under fire by pro-Iran groups.

Although the most recent attack before the Pope's visit on the Ain al-Assad Airbase in Iraq's western Anbar governorate has been blamed on Iran and the Biden administration has promised a retaliation, Tehran has denied all responsibility for any attacks and blamed Washington for advancing the interests of "terrorist groups". ​