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"After a few years of deliberation," said Gen. John Abizaid, "we've come to the conclusion that soon, we will be unable to avoid having to call the situation in Iraq a 'civil war.'"
Added Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "It was hard enough being forced to admit 'sectarian warfare,' but we thought we had 'civil war' under wraps, even though the transitional prime minister had gone and spilled the beans back in March. Hah! ... I wonder how we managed to get out of that one."
"I think that nobody was paying attention." Replied Abizaid.
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Minimal so long as we are there...but if the likelihood exists that it might happen while we are there at all, I think that speaks to the situation. In other words, if the main general there thinks that there is even a remote chance that militia and terrorists might be willing to commit to open warfare against a large occupying force that is armed to the teeth and has had decades of practice and field desert combat training, then I think it's serious, and I think it makes Talabani's statement about us being out by the end of the year sound like the birthday wishes of a four year old.
Infrastructure improvements are being made, democracy is toddling along just nicely, but what progress is being made on actually making it safer for a woman to take her family to the market without fear of being blown to bits? I'd rather live in Israel than Baghdad right now.
We're supersaturated with news on Iraq. A tactical nuke could go up in Basra and I think a great many Americans would just shake their heads and wash their hands of the whole thing.
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quote:Minimal so long as we are there...but if the likelihood exists that it might happen while we are there at all, I think that speaks to the situation.
On the surface, it's being portrayed as minimal. This is gloss. As is becoming somewhat standard practice, we get an insight into the actual attitudes of the policymakers by looking at a memo leaked out of the British government, which is Tony Blair essentially saying 'A collapse into civil war is, at this point, more likely than the chances of us succesfully installing democracy.'
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At which point we come to the subject of the other thread on Iraq. At what point to we say that the situation is unfixable by America alone? And at what point do we consider a withdrawel?
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Yeah, I don't see how our forces can be reduced by the end of the year, either, or that we would really want to.
Does anyone really believe the president anymore when he speaks about increased stability in Iraq? It seems like every year now since we've been there, the refrain has been 'next year, for sure!'.
I still wonder if it's not too late to bring in larger international support. Even leaving aside humanitarian reasons for stability in Iraq, no one can afford to let Iraq's oil production be interfered with by civil war. There is a compelling reason for all countries to be interested in the stability of Iraq, and it may be that we have worn out our welcome there.
quote: In the news they're estimating her age to be around 24, but Iraqis from the area say she was only 14. Fourteen. Imagine your 14-year-old sister or your 14-year-old daughter. Imagine her being gang-raped by a group of psychopaths and then the girl was killed and her body burned to cover up the rape. Finally, her parents and her five-year-old sister were also killed. Hail the American heroes... Raise your heads high supporters of the 'liberation' - your troops have made you proud today. I don't believe the troops should be tried in American courts. I believe they should be handed over to the people in the area and only then will justice be properly served. And our ass of a PM, Nouri Al-Maliki, is requesting an 'independent investigation', ensconced safely in his American guarded compound because it wasn't his daughter or sister who was raped, probably tortured and killed. His family is abroad safe from the hands of furious Iraqis and psychotic American troops.
It fills me with rage to hear about it and read about it. The pity I once had for foreign troops in Iraq is gone. It's been eradicated by the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths in Haditha and the latest news of rapes and killings. I look at them in their armored vehicles and to be honest- I can't bring myself to care whether they are 19 or 39. I can't bring myself to care if they make it back home alive. I can't bring myself to care anymore about the wife or parents or children they left behind. I can't bring myself to care because it's difficult to see beyond the horrors. I look at them and wonder just how many innocents they killed and how many more they'll kill before they go home. How many more young Iraqi girls will they rape?
Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.
Buses, planes and taxis leaving the country for Syria and Jordan are booked solid until the end of the summer. People are picking up and leaving en masse and most of them are planning to remain outside of the country. Life here has become unbearable because it's no longer a 'life' like people live abroad. It's simply a matter of survival, making it from one day to the next in one piece and coping with the loss of loved ones and friends- friends like T.
It's difficult to believe T. is really gone… I was checking my email today and I saw three unopened emails from him in my inbox. For one wild, heart-stopping moment I thought he was alive. T. was alive and it was all some horrific mistake! I let myself ride the wave of giddy disbelief for a few precious seconds before I came crashing down as my eyes caught the date on the emails- he had sent them the night before he was killed. One email was a collection of jokes, the other was an assortment of cat pictures, and the third was a poem in Arabic about Iraq under American occupation. He had highlighted a few lines describing the beauty of Baghdad in spite of the war… And while I always thought Baghdad was one of the more marvelous cities in the world, I'm finding it very difficult this moment to see any beauty in a city stained with the blood of T. and so many other innocents…
I glanced over a couple articles in the news paper this weekend that deaths in Iraq were at an all time monthly high. Something on the order of a 100 people a day. This can't last one way or another. People are going to turn to whoever gives them the most security. If it's the Islamists, then they turn to them. If it's us, they'll turn to us.
More and more I see Iraq turning to a strong man option, another Saddam like figure who will give the Iraqis security by ruling with an iron fist. If that happens, for me our entire time over there will have been a waste.
I sincerely hope that democracy and freedom and peace win out in Iraq. I hope everyone can find a way out of this mess.
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What astonishes me is that any of this is a surprise to people. Your average man in the street (by which I mean literally in the street - protesters) knew all of this/predicted all of this before the invasion. I'm not all that informed and I knew it. The guys I hang out with in the pubs knew it.
How is it that the people who have access to "intelligence" are surprised by this?
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That is, I don't think the anarchy currently in Iraq was a certainty. I know some people always said that it was a distinct possibility, but never that it was a certainty.
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Knew that Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship was the only thing keeping Iraq from civil war. Knew that, once we went in, there was no good way out. Knew that it wasn't going to be a "cakewalk". Knew that beating the Iraqi army would be the least of the problems. Knew that it would be enormously costly in terms of money and casualties and relationships with the rest of the world.
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kmbboots: Could you have seen any way to remove Saddam and not have the country fall into civil war?
I almost wonder if the US would have had a Civil War had it never thrown off the yoke of British rule. Or would the south have given up slavery when Great Britian declared slavery abolished.
That might make for some interesting alternate history ficiton. America forced to commit troops the moment Germany started being agressive towards Great Britain (or would Germany have attacked at all knowing Great Britain had so much power available). Would people have cared so much to stand their ground in Europe if they could have simply boarded ships to the US?
I think I am going to just relax and think about this thought for awhile, you are all welcome to throw in your 2 cents, or should I start another thread?
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I don't believe that Iraq has to have been as hard as it has turned out to be. While hindsight is 20/20, I think there were some bad decisions made while we were over there that help put us in our current situation:
The turning back of humanitarian groups at the beginning of the war.
The lack of coherence about how Iraqis should have been treated so that Abu Ghraib happened.
The lack of man power a lot of troops experienced which put a lot of stress on the troops so that things like the Abu Ghraib and the rape happened.
The disbanding of the Iraqi army at the outset of the war.
Our lack of planning going into the war, ie hardly anyone spoke Persian, Farsi, etc.
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BlackBlade: groups at both the Pentagon and State Department made efforts at creating a comprehensive post-invasion plan. All efforts were either stopped or ignored. I would suggest that having a comprehensive post-invasion plan, instead of the mistake-ridden piece-meal attempt we ended up with, might have decreased the likelihood of the country falling into civil war.
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quote:At which point we come to the subject of the other thread on Iraq. At what point to we say that the situation is unfixable by America alone? And at what point do we consider a withdrawel?
Far earlier than the administration ever will, practically regardless of the circumstances.
We are building our permanent 'embassy' in the green zone. It will be an entirely autonomous entity the size of Vatican City, with enclosed water and power facilities behind heavy-duty walls, a massive security detail, and its own permanent garrison of marines. The interior is going to be a constantly guarded splashing of reinforced luxury housing, posh offices, apartment complexes, a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American Club. It's going to cost over a billion dollars.
The interim government handed over the land in the heart of Baghdad along the bank of the Tigris under terms that were not disclosed, in a deal that was not disclosed. It's six times the size of the United Nations compound in New York and dwarfs the size of any other embassy. It is structured to be resilient to attacks by long-range artillery and mortar shelling and was blueprinted to require complete self-sufficiency on account of the fact that it is no longer assumed that Baghdad will acquire reliable power or water systems for years and years.
And this isn't even a military base. It's our vision of what even our embassy has to be.
The war planners are under no personal pretense that 'pulling out' is intended or desired, and an American embassy larger and more secure than the governing facilities of the transitory government speaks sublime volumes. The entire point of the exercise was to have a clawhold in the area so that American forces could levy disruptive pressure towards Iran and the whole of the middle east; an exercise in American hegemony. This is not guesswork or conspiracy. This is something that the PNAC was openly documented as describing as a requirement for the maintenance of American superpower status into the new century for years and years and years -- it's all in writing, doctrine, and manifesto -- and it is conveniently clear to anyone with a working deductive mind that it was obviously an intended objective of our government to use Iraq as a stepping stone to the expansion and maintenance of American power. The particularly clever mind will note that it was the primary objective.
This is because the folks in power openly admitted this intent and desire since the concept was drafted in 1991, stuck with it dogmatically, got elected, and promptly made a stretchy case to facilitate the invasion of Iraq.
Figuring the pattern out is a task of remarkable ease.
quote:How is it that the people who have access to "intelligence" are surprised by this?
They aren't. And the story is actually sort of hilarious, except it isn't.
Here's an interview on Meet The Press with the very same General Pace that took place a while ago, well before May.
quote:MR. RUSSERT: Knight-Ridder reported this week that U.S. intelligence agency more than two years ago said that the insurgency “had deep local roots, was likely to worsen, and could lead to civil war.” And that was just ignored by political and military leadership because they wanted to believe their own rosy scenario.
GEN. PACE: I do not believe it has deep roots. I do not believe that they’re on the verge of civil war. I do believe that there are a small number, relatively small number, of individuals who are ideologically committed to the terrorist ideology and are going to do whatever they need to do to try to bring those citizens back under tyrannical rule.
MR. RUSSERT: William F. Buckley, conservative writer, said this, this week. “One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. ... Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. ...” And he put forward two postulates. “One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom. The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed in training Iraqi soldiers and policymakers to cope with insurgents bent on violence. This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure.” That’s William F. Buckley.
GEN. PACE: Mr. Buckley would probably do well to take a trip over to Iraq and walk the streets and talk to Iraqis, and talk to Iraqi government, talk to Iraqi army, talk to Iraqi police. I believe that what is happening there is very, very positive with regard to the training of the army, the training of the police, the loyalty of that army and police who were—performed exceptionally well during this most recent crisis. This is not a failure. This is a very, very difficult situation, putting together a democracy inside of a country that for the last multiple decades has known nothing but tyranny. This is not going to be easy to do, but it is come—coming along and is coming along with good progress.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you really believe it’ll be safe for William F. Buckley to walk the streets of Baghdad?
GEN. PACE: I think not all the places in Baghdad, no, but I do believe that if he had a chance to get over there, properly escorted—I would want to be escorted myself—but properly escorted, that he would have a chance to talk to folks and see that the Iraqi people are positive about their future; that the Iraqi armed force and the Iraqi police are loyal to their government and are getting much, much better each day.
You have no idea how hard it was to watch that. It was completely awkward -- Pace was attempting to spin the story faster than a Kenmore, but he was visibly bad at it. The duplicitous practice of attempting to turn a story or situation on its ear was clearly not his thing. And yet, there he was, fumbling his way through this confrontation.
In May, I watched George Casey end up doing about the same thing, only worse.
He was stuttering and stalling, trying to craft positive answers to hot issues, fumbling, stalling, and circling some more; the man was stiff as a board, because -- and I had just figured it out then -- he was under terrible pressure to not provide any openly negative press for the war, regardless as to what he actually thought about the war.
He's military brass. He essentially has to perform exactly how the administration desires, and this administration has a record for overweening control over the Chiefs. Puppet strings would be too apt a metaphor, and they were obviously looking at the polls, and telling their military commanders "Go in front of the press. Make this war look good, no matter what." I kinda felt sorry for him.
After reading the Meet The Press transcripts and reading this latest confrontation between the generals and McCain, I think I've got some good advice for the administration: Let your generals say 'no.' Do not send them in front of the press to try to gloss the problems over. Tell them to be honest, or just have them shut up.
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The question was raised, "Could you have seen any way to remove Saddam and not have the country fall into civil war?"
Sure. Create three separate nations. Guard the borders.
Guarding the borders ensures that foreign operatives aren't infiltrating the local population to stir up trouble. This was not done. If it was impossible to do, then we should have taken that into account before we invaded.
Not forcing them all into a nation that a great many of them obviously don't want to be in would have helped solve sectarian strife and this budding civil war. The Kurdish northeast would have been secure from the beginning. Separating off the south from the middle, letting the Shiites form their own nation, run however they want, but with our help, keeping out foriegn terrorists, they'd already have a leadership and an army trained. They had the assets in place! Those militias running around basically are their army. Integrating them into a national army would be the only alternative to actually fighting them in the streets.
The Sunnis are arguably the only ones really willing to work with us. But they had no man power really. Again, guard the borders from enemies, and help them out.
Forcing them all together is causing a lot of this aggression. Forcing them to have a government that we approve of, and a system we approve of, is causing this problem. Taking so damned long to secure the borders has allowed enemey insurgents into the nation, and that isn't something we can solve now, as they continually act with free will, unrestrained by our forces, and now actively getting more support for their side.
If these were things that we knew we couldn't do from the beginning, then we never should have gone in, or we should have taken the longer road, waiting for world support, ever tightening the screws on Saddam's regime until we actually had the type of support we had in the first Gulf War. But the way it has been done...well, it was doomed to fail from the start.
Way too many assumptions were made about how things would go, and far too many pre-war planning mistakes were made. Or if the number of mistakes was low, then the magnitude of the damage they've done is very high.
We should've started with Israel and Palestine.
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Why did we have to remove him? He was contained. The crimes for which he is being tried happened a long time ago. He wasn't a threat to us.
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Lyrhawn, there are so many things wrong with that I hardly know where to start. First, the idea that we could guard the borders between these three nations, even assuming they could be set up. Second, the notion that these nations could be set up, given that no area is exclusively one ethno-religious group (the kurds are closest). Third, the notion that any of these nations would be able to survive, given two of them would be stripped of resources, one of cities, and the third of many people.
We're no forcing most of them together, except in the sense of being part of the same country. These groups are intermingled. Rearranging the country so they aren't would be a mass migration on a comparable scale to evicting all the palestinians from Israel.
There are other major problems with the idea, but given the ones I've pointed out make it completely impossible in practice should give you something to chew on.
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kmbboots: the reason I supported the notion of invading Iraq (though not how it ended up being done) is that at some point Saddam was going to die, and there was no viable successor (by Saddam's own machinations), creating a powder keg situation, particularly as one of the easiest ways to solidify a hold on power is with an attempted military campaign.
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Like I said, if we knew we couldn't guard the borders, then we shouldn't have gone in. Going in knowing we can't do something we need to do to secure the nation we just invaded is stupid. Especially given the lack of urgency from the "threat."
60 or 70 years ago they were mostly separate, not sure what you'd call them, territories I guess, when the British were in there. Millions have already left Iraq, heading for Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Syria, or Jordan, or wherever. Keeping them together as one nation isn't working. Besides, I know they are integrated, though the Kurds having been wanting their own nation for so long I don't really think would be a problem.
Why wouldn't they be able to survive? The north would be just fine, they'd have the oil fields of Kirkuk and Mosul. The south would have a port, and oil fields. The only part of the nation really in trouble would be the center, with no oil, and a relatively small population. But come on, does Iraq in it's current state really look like it's surviving well?
Maybe splitting it into three nations wouldn't have worked, maybe two would have been better, maybe one would have worked, had only the war gone better, or more forces been available for peacekeeping.
Also, I never suggested that the three nations would HAVE TO BE ethnic/religiously pure. I don't even know where you got that idea. The grand majority of the religious divisions are separated geographically, same thing with the religious divisions, with the exception of the north, where the people have shown more loyalty to their ethnic distinctiveness than their religion. Of course there would be minority populations in each nation.
Besides, there are so many major problems with the current situation, I don't see how any other idea could be much worse.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: kmbboots: the reason I supported the notion of invading Iraq (though not how it ended up being done) is that at some point Saddam was going to die, and there was no viable successor (by Saddam's own machinations), creating a powder keg situation, particularly as one of the easiest ways to solidify a hold on power is with an attempted military campaign.
Talk about major problems. CASTRO is closer to death than Saddam was/is. Where was the URGENCY? Why couldn't we wait for even another year to see where diplomacy would have led? I don't think it would have taken a very long time, and it might have been that invasion wouldn't have been the best choice. But either way, Saddam is gone, and there's a mess.
That's such horrible logic, I can't even fathom supporting a war for that reason. Especially not this one.
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So we wait till that happens, the UN goes in to stablize the country. We then have the backing of the rest of the world.
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If they're not relatively ethnically/religiously pure, you've just got the violence problem plus the border problem.
There were proposed ways to significantly ameliorate the sectarian violence in Iraq, though they weren't followed. Yours was not near the top of the list.
As for Saddam's survivability, its a bit odd to compare him to Castro. Castro is extremely ill and could die at any moment. Saddam was more like a decade away from death. I agree there wasn't as much urgency as put on the situation by the Bush administration, but putting things off for later that are going to need doing in the relatively near future just leads to them not getting done in time. You have demonstrated no problem with my logic, because there isn't any. You might disagree with my premises, but that's not a logic problem, as you should be aware.
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kmbboots: I would rather not have waited until the country had disintegrated into sectarian violence and/or started invading its neigbors. That's a no-win situation (not to mention that the UN has no significant experience or capability to deal with armed forces the size of Iraq's, depleted as they are/would be). We certainly botched this invasion, but there were feasible plans for making it much less likely to be botched that were ignored.
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Lrhawn: You may disagree of course but I would say the Kurds are the most cooperative followed by the Shia's and LASTLY the Sunni's.
There are no oil fields in the Sunni regions of Iraq and so were we to split it all into 3 different regions they would fight the hardest because they stand to become the poorest of the 3 groups (there are some oil fields in Kurdish lands).
Just one thing I thought I ought to point out to you.
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So we precipitate its disintegration into sectarian violence? It is better for people to die sooner rather than later?
The UN is as strong as we let it be. If we send troops under UN auspices, they have the same capability that we would. With backing from the rest of the world.
And, who knows what could have happened between now and then? A new leader, just as strong but more willing to deal with the US might have emerged.
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quote:You have demonstrated no problem with my logic, because there isn't any
Isn't any logic? Well you're certainly right about that. I never suggested putting off til tomorrow what you can do today. I suggested a steady hand in forcing the world to force Iraq into a lasting solution. Rushing to war was a horrible idea. Supporting a war NOW because Saddam might die in a DECADE is ridiculous. Your premise is fine, one day he would die and there would have been a problem, but your conclusion, that we should invade now to forstall a problem years from fruition isn't logical. If you have a problem with the terminology there, fine, but that doesn't take away from the fact that your idea isn't well thought out.
And if my idea were new, AND at the top of the list, I'm betting I wouldn't be working at a restaurant. T'was just an idea off the top of my head. My main point, that they are forcing groups together that don't want to be together, and that could come to blows over the fact that they are being forced together, is still valid.
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I think you're not reading what I'm writing. There is good reason to believe we could have done a lot more to stop/limit the decline into sectarian violence. I would have supported an invasion had we taken such measures (and measures to make it feasibly rebuildable, et cetera). I did not support precipitating its disintegration into sectarian violence.
The UN is not as strong as we let it be. The UN has significant organizational issues that prevent it from acting in such a context (notably, that UN military intervention is virtually impossible without at least some sort of semi-approval from the existing government in a location -- which would never have been granted). We would likely have gone in as a NATO force (as I think we should have gone in in this case).
As for what would have happened, Saddam systematically killed off anyone competent. Most of the people in power had no idea what was actually going on in the country, as satisfying Saddam's delusions involved everybody bandying about lies to him and the rest of the power structure. There were at least two prominent leaders even more sick and twisted than Saddam, as well as being less 'competent' -- his sons -- and that's not even getting into the numerous other shady figures in the power structure of the country. Upon Saddam's death there is no doubt that the Kurdish region would have immediately declared independence. There are resources Iraq needs in that area to maintain its economy, so any leader would need to move to maintain hold of that area, sparking civil war. Even if the Kurds didn't (which is almost unthinkable), the Shiites would have attempted to place a Shiite in power, which would have resulted in the Sunnis fighting them. There is no semi-plausible scenario which starts with Saddams death and doesn't end in extensive violence likely heavily disruptive to the region as a whole.
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Maybe. Maybe not. What we know is that what we did do ended (and continues) "in extensive violence" that is "heavily disruptive to the region as a whole."
With US troops, basically alone, in the middle of it. And the world blaming us.
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Forestalling a problem years from fruition strikes me as an excellent reason to do something. Do you wait until a dead tree falls on your house before you take it out? Do you wait until you can no longer afford to make payments on your credit card before changing spending habits?
We could certainly have afforded to plan and budget over another two or three years, and I would have supported that. You also continue to read things I do not say about the timetable, and ignore my explicit denunciation of the invasion as it was carried out.
But a decade is not a long time, geopolitically. You're acting as if we had a lot of time, when a decade is hardly any time at all.
And no, lots of logic has problems. Mine doesn't, though it has arguable premises.
Very simply:
The death of Saddam almost certainly leads to extreme negative outcomes for Iraq and the surrounding region, potentially destabilizing a dangerous situation (a particular problem as the region is at least as likely to be less stable in a decade as it is to be more stable).
The death of Saddam is likely to happen in the next ten years, and could potentially happen sooner.
A properly planned invasion would have a high probability of many fewer negative outcomes, provided it is executed before Saddam's death.
Planning and executing an invasion on the potentially short notice of Saddam's death will be problematic at best, and likely be unable to contain an existing civil war, and/or be to late to halt an invasion of a neighboring state, not to mention the issues with preventing sectarian tensions from rising in the surrounding regions given Iraqi sectarian violence
Therefore, a well-planned invasion should be carried out within the next two to five years, so as to ensure the country and region remain stable
Perfectly sound logic, and definitely thought out. Which parts are you disagreeing with? Are you saying we should have waited an additional one or two years? Fine, the timeline is just rough, and should be fleshed out by a full analysis, but that doesn't defeat my logic or reasoning at all.
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Sure I'm reading what you're writing. Blah blah blah Iraq is a giant mess waiting to happen, blah blah blah let's invade so we can solve the problem before it appears.
I agree with you about the UN by the way, I don't think they are useless, they certainly do much in the world that isn't non military. But for military matters they might as well not exist. Look at Rwanda, the peacekeepers there stood by and watched a massacre take place. The UN is useless as a military organization. It's designed to take friggin forever before action takes place, and even it's supposedly binding resolutions are roundly ignored by everyone.
The first major way to stop the violence from occurring would have been more troops. More troops means more countries involved. More countries means more waiting until we'd convinced them and they were willing to commit troops. That means waiting, it means more diplomacy, it doesn't mean waiting a decade until it's too late, it means waiting just long enough to get all the pieces in place before you act.
Completely unlike what we did.
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Where am I disagreeing that the invasion of Iraq should have been carried out differently, something I have specifically stated in nearly every one of my posts in this thread?
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quote: Do you wait until a dead tree falls on your house before you take it out?
What we did was decide that a neighbor's tree that wasn't anywhere near our house was dying, so we pushed it over onto his house.
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No, Iraq was a brewing problem for us, not just for the inhabitants, as I note above. However, I agree that our invasion was badly handled, again, as I have repeatedly noted yet people seem to keep telling me.
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Well then we agree, it was poorly planned, and poorly timed.
Though I still think making a real stab at the Palestine Israel situation would have given us a lot of credit on the world stage that we could have used on Iraq.
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I think I am going to just relax and think about this thought for awhile, you are all welcome to throw in your 2 cents, or should I start another thread?
