'Supporting the troops'?

[Zhukov]

'Supporting the troops'?
Thomas Sowell

November 18, 2004

During the recent election campaign, it has been a liberal mantra that they "support the troops" while opposing the war in Iraq. Just what does supporting the troops mean -- other than just a throwaway line to escape the political consequences of a long history of being anti-military?

It certainly does not mean making the slightest effort to understand the pressures and dangers of combat, so as to avoid the obscenity of sitting in peace and comfort while second-guessing at leisure some life-and-death decisions that had to be made in a split second by men 10,000 miles away.

The latest example is the now widely-publicized incident in which an American Marine in Iraq shot and killed a wounded terrorist in Fallujah. Chris Matthews on Hardball spoke of "what may be the illegal killing of a wounded, unarmed insurgent" -- the politically correct media term for a terrorist -- and asked: "Is there ever a justification for shooting an unarmed enemy?"

The unreality of this question is breath-taking, both logically and historically. How do you know that someone is unarmed, when finding out can cost you your life? A hand grenade is easily concealed and can kill you just as dead as if you were shot by a machine gun or hit by a nuclear missile.

American troops in Iraq have already been killed by booby-trapped bodies. During World War II, wounded Japanese soldiers sometimes waited for an American medical corpsman to come over to help them and then exploded a hand grenade, killing them both.

Assuming that somehow you are certain that an enemy is unarmed, perhaps because you have already searched him or disarmed him, is it ever justified to kill him anyway? That question was answered more than half a century ago, when German troops wearing American uniforms and speaking English infiltrated American lines during the Battle of the Bulge.

Those German troops, when captured, were lined up against a wall and shot dead. And nobody wrung his hands about it.

The rules of war, the Geneva Convention, do not protect soldiers who are not wearing their own country's uniforms. To get the protection of rules, you have to play by the rules.

Terrorists are not enemy soldiers covered by the rules of war. Nor should they be. They observe no rules.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations can all talk about "the Geneva Convention." But that agreement on the rules of war has never applied to combatants not wearing the uniform of any country that is a party to the Geneva Convention.

Terrorists wear no uniform and show no mercy, as they have repeatedly demonstrated by beheading innocent civilians, including women.

Why any such terrorists should be captured alive in the first place is a real question. Maybe they have information that could be useful. But every terrorist our troops try to capture alive increases the risk of death for American combat troops.

Their information better be damned important for that.

It is more than enough to ask a man to put his life on the line for his country, without needlessly increasing those risks by trying to be nobler than thou or playing to the international gallery. The very fact that this Marine in Fallujah has been taken out of combat and is under investigation can only have an inhibiting effect on other troops.

The inhibitions under which American troops have already had to fight have needlessly jeopardized their safety while we tiptoe around the delicate sensibilities of the media, European critics and "the Arab street."

The Times of London refers to a Marine "killing an unarmed man in cold blood." If that was his purpose he could have opened fire when he entered the room, instead of waiting until he saw an Iraqi terrorist faking being dead -- for what purpose the Marine had no way of knowing.

We cannot fight wars to please The Times of London or the other nay-sayers and nit-pickers who have been against us from the beginning. There is no point trying to appease people who are not going to be appeased anyway. And to do so at an increased risk to American lives would be criminal.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041118.shtml

 

[Merlin1047]

"The rules of war, the Geneva Convention, do not protect soldiers who are not wearing their own country's uniforms. To get the protection of rules, you have to play by the rules.

Terrorists are not enemy soldiers covered by the rules of war. Nor should they be. They observe no rules."

Amen. These are human cockroaches and deserve no better treatment. Actually, they deserve worse. A cockroach can't help what it is.

Thomas Sowell for Pres.

 

[krisy]

What a great article. It makes all the points that should be made. How can anyone bring the Geneva Convention into fighting terrorists? If we play by those rules,we will loose.

 

[dumphauler]

Amen. These are human cockroaches and deserve no better treatment. Actually, they deserve worse. A cockroach can't help what it is.

There is a point to be made about the uniform's It's true. There is also a point to be made That Your here in the United States, But you could have just as easily have been born wherever including in a country that encourages
the veiw that the united states is "EVIL" and it is a gloryes thing to go and fight aginst it, The point being that that Terrorest could just as easily be you!
And we come back to the question of the value of human life and is our country something special in the veiw of it, I was told we were as a kid I would kind of like to keep that opinion.

 

[dilloduck]

There is a point to be made about the uniform's It's true. There is also a point to be made That Your here in the United States, But you could have just as easily have been born wherever including in a country that encourages
the veiw that the united states is "EVIL" and it is a gloryes thing to go and fight aginst it, The point being that that Terrorest could just as easily be you!
And we come back to the question of the value of human life and is our country something special in the veiw of it, I was told we were as a kid I would kind of like to keep that opinion.

dump----all humans are punished for taking anothers life.

 

[Doc Holiday]

I don't think so. I think that people are punished for taking innocent life. I don't believe that you are punished for taking the life out of evil doers intend on killing those innocents. If what you say is true, then if you killed someone who was about to kill another person, you would be the one punished? After all, the person you killed didn't kill the other person because you stopped them. That just doesn't make sense.

 

[dilloduck]

I don't think so. I think that people are punished for taking innocent life. I don't believe that you are punished for taking the life out of evil doers intend on killing those innocents. If what you say is true, then if you killed someone who was about to kill another person, you would be the one punished? After all, the person you killed didn't kill the other person because you stopped them. That just doesn't make sense.

Soldiers who have killed enemy soldiers suffer from doing so. Some to the point of insanity and suicide. Our troops sacrifice more than their lives when they go to war for the protection of the ones "at home". They kill so that we do not have to make a "kill or be killed" choice and I am truly in their debt.

 

[KarlMarx]

I don't know about where you live, but around here, everyone has one of those magnetic yellow ribbons that read "Support The Troops" on their cars, SUVs etc. What kills me is that some have them next to their Kerry-Edwards stickers or "Bush lied, people died" stickers.

So what is my take on this? A lot of this "support the troops" bit is just a line of BS. These people are just saying it because that is what the liberal talking heads on the networks, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and Oprah etc and their liberal friends are all saying, that's what is popular right now, that's the freaking party line in their social circle. So that's what they had better say ... or else they might not get asked to play tennis at the Country Club. These people just want to look good in front of the rest of us and act sanctimonious ("see I support the troops, so it gives me license to bad mouth the war in Iraq") in front of their friends.

Give them a few months, the yellow ribbons will be gone and they'll be off on something else. Maybe they'll be beefing about privitizing Social Security. I gotta say, if diamonds are a girl's best friend, then bitching about something is a liberal's. I swear, you'd think that these freakin' liberals are going into sexual ecstasy bitching about Iraq, the environment, evil corporations and what not the way they're doing it all the time. Probably before an anti-Bush rally, libs take Viagra just to ensure that they'll get the most pleasure out of the experience.Liberals have raised depression and angst from mere nuisances to an art form.

Frankly, these people couldn't care less, many of them don't even understand why we're fighting in the first place. If you explained it to them, the one brain cell they have left (after dropping acid during the 60s, smoking pot during the 70s, snorting coke during the 80s, or doing ecstacy during the 90s), would just go into over load and short out. To them, if the war in Iraq isn't over in 1/2 hour to an hour (including commercials), then something is definitely wrong (after all that's how long all the problems on Baywatch take to get solved!)

To paraphrase an old joke.....Q: What do you call a liberal with an IQ of 150? A: A small city.

 

[nakedemperor]

I don't know about where you live, but around here, everyone has one of those magnetic yellow ribbons that read "Support The Troops" on their cars, SUVs etc. What kills me is that some have them next to their Kerry-Edwards stickers or "Bush lied, people died" stickers.

So what is my take on this? A lot of this "support the troops" bit is just a line of BS. These people are just saying it because that is what the liberal talking heads on the networks, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and Oprah etc and their liberal friends are all saying, that's what is popular right now, that's the freaking party line in their social circle. So that's what they had better say ... or else they might not get asked to play tennis at the Country Club. These people just want to look good in front of the rest of us and act sanctimonious ("see I support the troops, so it gives me license to bad mouth the war in Iraq") in front of their friends.

Give them a few months, the yellow ribbons will be gone and they'll be off on something else. Maybe they'll be beefing about privitizing Social Security. I gotta say, if diamonds are a girl's best friend, then bitching about something is a liberal's. I swear, you'd think that these freakin' liberals are going into sexual ecstasy bitching about Iraq, the environment, evil corporations and what not the way they're doing it all the time. Probably before an anti-Bush rally, libs take Viagra just to ensure that they'll get the most pleasure out of the experience.Liberals have raised depression and angst from mere nuisances to an art form.

Frankly, these people couldn't care less, many of them don't even understand why we're fighting in the first place. If you explained it to them, the one brain cell they have left (after dropping acid during the 60s, smoking pot during the 70s, snorting coke during the 80s, or doing ecstacy during the 90s), would just go into over load and short out. To them, if the war in Iraq isn't over in 1/2 hour to an hour (including commercials), then something is definitely wrong (after all that's how long all the problems on Baywatch take to get solved!)

To paraphrase an old joke.....Q: What do you call a liberal with an IQ of 150? A: A small city.

To characterize liberals as people who do drugs, aren't up on current events, are depressed, are whiners, etc. is prejudice and a huge generalization. I know its fashionable on this board to criticize liberals for "Bush-bashing" and then to bash liberals in the same breath, but come on, step back and look at the big picture. We're not all that different. And if everyone were a little nice to one another, a hell of a lot more could be accomplished, and a hell of a lot of headaches could be avoided.

And when you say liberals are either false in their support for their troops or fickle in their support, you're also generalizing and being prejudice. And I take offense. I'm a liberal, am I not a supporter of the troops? Well, I am. I was against pre-emptive war, and I think the manner in which we went to war was misguided and ultimately the wrong decision. But look, we're in Iraq, so I want the troops to kill every last insurgent, terrorist, whatever the hell you want to call someone disrupting the path to democracy. I want them to do it efficiently and to stay as much as possible out of harms way. I want the Red Cross, HRW, the press, and the arm-chair theorizers to stay out of their way and not to tie one arm behind their backs. I want them to come home ASAP, but not before the job is done.

 

[Patriot]

To characterize liberals as people who do drugs, aren't up on current events, are depressed, are whiners, etc. is prejudice and a huge generalization. I know its fashionable on this board to criticize liberals for "Bush-bashing" and then to bash liberals in the same breath, but come on, step back and look at the big picture. We're not all that different. And if everyone were a little nice to one another, a hell of a lot more could be accomplished, and a hell of a lot of headaches could be avoided.

And when you say liberals are either false in their support for their troops or fickle in their support, you're also generalizing and being prejudice. And I take offense. I'm a liberal, am I not a supporter of the troops? Well, I am. I was against pre-emptive war, and I think the manner in which we went to war was misguided and ultimately the wrong decision. But look, we're in Iraq, so I want the troops to kill every last insurgent, terrorist, whatever the hell you want to call someone disrupting the path to democracy. I want them to do it efficiently and to stay as much as possible out of harms way. I want the Red Cross, HRW, the press, and the arm-chair theorizers to stay out of their way and not to tie one arm behind their backs. I want them to come home ASAP, but not before the job is done.

That highlighted part is liberal code for do it our way or we will bitch and moan and sue to get our way eventually.


I have NEVER seen a liberal send care packages to our troops and I have NEVER seen a liberal die for their beliefs nor thank someone else for saving their ass!

 

[Doc Holiday]

Soldiers who have killed enemy soldiers suffer from doing so. Some to the point of insanity and suicide. Our troops sacrifice more than their lives when they go to war for the protection of the ones "at home". They kill so that we do not have to make a "kill or be killed" choice and I am truly in their debt.

I have served in the miltary and I have shot people while doing that. It didn't bother me at all. I have also served as a police officer and had to deal with people in life and death situations. I operate in the "Better them then me" mindset and there are no problems. Soldiers that go insane because they had to kill someone are either slackers or weak minded.

 

[nakedemperor]

That highlighted part is liberal code for do it our way or we will bitch and moan and sue to get our way eventually.


I have NEVER seen a liberal send care packages to our troops and I have NEVER seen a liberal die for their beliefs nor thank someone else for saving their ass!

Do it our way or we will bitch and moan? How on EARTH did you interpret "let's be nicer to each other and we can start reuniting as a people" as "I'm going to bitch and moan"?

Weird, because I've never seen a conservative send a care package to our troops. And the Support the Troops group, here at Brown, was founded by 5 liberals, which sends about a dozen care packages a week to units stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. So don't preach to me about liberals not supporting our troops. Some don't, most do.

 

[nbdysfu]

Do it our way or we will bitch and moan? How on EARTH did you interpret "let's be nicer to each other and we can start reuniting as a people" as "I'm going to bitch and moan"?

Easy:"let's be nicer to each other" = "do what I want" AND "we can start reuniting as a people" = "or else I'll cry bigot and file a class action lawsuit against you"

You know it's true. Don't play naive.

 

[nakedemperor]

Easy:"let's be nicer to each other" = "do what I want" AND "we can start reuniting as a people" = "or else I'll cry bigot and file a class action lawsuit against you"

You know it's true. Don't play naive.

You have no idea who I am or what I believe. If you want to be a rank-and-file conservative, pat your fellow conservatives on the back, and assume that every single self-identifying liberal on this board is somehow lying about their intentions, wants everyone to do exactly as he wants, calls people bigoted when they're not, etc. etc, you're more than welcome to. But I think this board will be a much more worthwhile experience for you, and for everyone else, if you don't make baseless remarks like you did above, essentially grounded in assumption.

P.S. I'm sure many cons. send care packages to the troops. I was just pointing that I don't personally know any, but it doesn't mean they dont exist.

 

[nbdysfu]

You have no idea who I am or what I believe. If you want to be a rank-and-file conservative, pat your fellow conservatives on the back, and assume that every single self-identifying liberal on this board is somehow lying about their intentions, wants everyone to do exactly as he wants, calls people bigoted when they're not, etc. etc, you're more than welcome to. But I think this board will be a much more worthwhile experience for you, and for everyone else, if you don't make baseless remarks like you did above, essentially grounded in assumption.

P.S. I'm sure many cons. send care packages to the troops. I was just pointing that I don't personally know any, but it doesn't mean they dont exist.

NE I wasn't trying to say that you have that kind of mentality. I think I have a pretty good idea from the demeanour in your posts that you are a decent fellow. You may believe that statement is true and it is a high ideal that is the reason our government is structured the way it is, so everyone can be happy. I believe in that also, and I think President Bush started out his presidency believing that, but your party proved him wrong. I just can't view the actions of the Democratic party over the past year as constructive. Four years ago, I was solidly on that side of the aisle, and now I think the only thing that keeps me on the fence are the democrats I know personally, and a few domestic issues. However, your party and the liberal media haven't done right by them, and I really want to see them reform as the result of the election. Fingers crossed that I can call myself an "Independent" with confidence again.

 

[KarlMarx]

To characterize liberals as people who do drugs, aren't up on current events, are depressed, are whiners, etc. is prejudice and a huge generalization. I know its fashionable on this board to criticize liberals for "Bush-bashing" and then to bash liberals in the same breath, but come on, step back and look at the big picture. We're not all that different. And if everyone were a little nice to one another, a hell of a lot more could be accomplished, and a hell of a lot of headaches could be avoided.

And when you say liberals are either false in their support for their troops or fickle in their support, you're also generalizing and being prejudice. And I take offense. I'm a liberal, am I not a supporter of the troops? Well, I am. I was against pre-emptive war, and I think the manner in which we went to war was misguided and ultimately the wrong decision. But look, we're in Iraq, so I want the troops to kill every last insurgent, terrorist, whatever the hell you want to call someone disrupting the path to democracy. I want them to do it efficiently and to stay as much as possible out of harms way. I want the Red Cross, HRW, the press, and the arm-chair theorizers to stay out of their way and not to tie one arm behind their backs. I want them to come home ASAP, but not before the job is done.

OK, you don't agree with this war, even though the evidence is piling up that it was in fact justified (the recent revelations that Oil for Food Program was diverting money from those who it was intended for and to fund suicide bombers in Palestine by Saddam is just the most recent example). I suppose that even after the latest round of revelations of just how corrupt the United Nations is, you and your leftist buddies still have faith in that gang of hoodlums.

I suppose the 300,000 (and counting) people whose bodies are being retrieved from mass graves doesn't help you change your mind. I suppose that if your liberal buddies were around when the allies liberated Auschwitz they'd be calling World War II an unjustified war as well.

I suppose further that regardless of how time after time, we hear from soldiers stationed out in Iraq just how demoralizing the constant negative news coverage and incessant whining from the Left is to their mission, that your liberal buddies insist on exercising their right to free speech and to hell with everyone else.

Frankly, I find this incessant sanctimonious braying from the Left regarding this war to be nothing more than expression of the self centered narcissism bred from the 1960s "me" generation.

Then when someone calls the Left on it, liberals wrap themselves in the flag and claim to be offended because one of the "great unwashed" dared question their patriotism! Oh, bless me Father for I have sinned! I'll be saying some extra Hail Marys tonight because I said some things that offended some compassionate liberals!

Am I generalizing? Yes, to some extent. But you must concede that a lot of you on the Left do just what I say. Repeat, like parrots, the propaganda of the New York Times, CNN and the Networks. As for generalizing and generating prejudice, the Left is far more guilty of that than the Right.

Tell you what....I'll stop comparing liberals to mindless, selfish, dimwitted sheep who fancy yourselves as some kind of modern day Gandhis when.....

Liberals stop comparing Evangelicals and Catholics to the Taliban,

Liberals stop sneering at those who shop at Wal-Mart and enjoy NASCAR as uneducated hicks,

Liberals stop characterizing Bush supporters as Nazi jackbooted thugs,

Liberals stop claiming that this president was chosen because of some unnamed conspiracy,

The Hollywood Hitler Youth stop providing aid and comfort to the enemies of America. That anti-American filth “Fahrenheit 9/11” was used by Castro, the Hamas terrorists, and other sworn enemies of this Land for propaganda against us.

The columnists for the "New York Times" and other newspapers stop dismissing the election of this president by millions of voters as nothing more than a "temper tantrum" orchestrated by right wing homophobic religious nuts.

I can’t imagine Nathan Hale, Thomas Paine or George Washington would be considered patriots today if any one of them had written articles or books denouncing the Revolution. Yet many of your left wing buddies insist on being labeled patriots for denouncing this war. They not only insult the sensibilities of those of us who have supported and continue to support this war, but insult the true patriots, those men and women who willingly put themselves in harm’s way out in Iraq to defend our nation’s interests and liberate the Iraqi people.

 

[dilloduck]

I have served in the miltary and I have shot people while doing that. It didn't bother me at all. I have also served as a police officer and had to deal with people in life and death situations. I operate in the "Better them then me" mindset and there are no problems. Soldiers that go insane because they had to kill someone are either slackers or weak minded.

Well thank you for killing so the rest of us don't have to make that choice. I'm glad you have a "mindset" that you can use to justify it !

 

[CSM]

Soldiers who have killed enemy soldiers suffer from doing so. Some to the point of insanity and suicide. Our troops sacrifice more than their lives when they go to war for the protection of the ones "at home". They kill so that we do not have to make a "kill or be killed" choice and I am truly in their debt.

There is a lot of truth to Dillo's statement here. There is a price to pay for taking a life. There are indeed some soldiers who have a hard time coping with some of the things they have to do, there are others who cope more easily. There are even a RARE few who enjoy it. However, the vast majority of soldiers I know do what they have to do and, despite Sage Girl's assertions, suffer the human reaction that any normal human being suffers in the aftermath. That does not keep them from continuing the mission. Those of us who have been there fully realize that those we killed had to be killed, simply because they were trying to kill us if for no other reason. In other places and other times we could have been friends. And if frogs had wings....

 

[nakedemperor]

OK, you don't agree with this war, even though the evidence is piling up that it was in fact justified (the recent revelations that Oil for Food Program was diverting money from those who it was intended for and to fund suicide bombers in Palestine by Saddam is just the most recent example). I suppose that even after the latest round of revelations of just how corrupt the United Nations is, you and your leftist buddies still have faith in that gang of hoodlums.

I suppose the 300,000 (and counting) people whose bodies are being retrieved from mass graves doesn't help you change your mind. I suppose that if your liberal buddies were around when the allies liberated Auschwitz they'd be calling World War II an unjustified war as well.

I didn't say I agree with the war in the sense that I disagree in GOING to war in Iraq. I disagree with the concept of the "coalition of the willing"; I disagree with the absurdly short timetable of diplomacy and inspection; I disagree with datamining information to conform to policy, rather than building policy on information.

I think going to war in Iraq was a good thing, ultimately. Genocide, opression, etc. were halted. However, these reasons were not why we went to war in Iraq. Genocide, opression, kidnapping, murders, mass graves, torture, rape...all these things had been happening for more than a decade when we invaded. Clinton didn't invade. Dick Cheney didn't want to invade. Bush the first didn't want to invade. Where were the bleeding hearts then? Where were the conservatives' calls for freedom then? Sure, some people were thinking about it, but as soon as Dubya says we should invade Iraq, WHOOSH, millions of sheep toe the line.

Oil for food, Hezbollah, all this had been happening for years. So what changed? What was new? We invaded because of 9/11. We invaded because of non-existent WMDs. This was a poor rationale. This is what I disagree with; the false sense of urgency the reckless march to war, the complete lack of planning, etc.

Now, the 300,000 dead people you mention don't change my mind that the way we went to war was deplorable and idiotic. Nor does it change my mind that invading Iraq could have been a good thing. Because, well, that's what your holocaust allusion was meant to convince me of.

Anyway, we agree in a lot of ways, and I'm not a whining, non-troop-supporting, bigot-calling, ACLU-toting liberal, just as I don't assume anyone around here is a bible-thumping, assault rifle carrying, gay-bashing, ignorant hick. So when you say "you and your leftist buddies", consider what connects me to other liberals, but also recognize how I'm different.

 

[musicman]

I didn't say I agree with the war in the sense that I disagree in GOING to war in Iraq. I disagree with the concept of the "coalition of the willing"; I disagree with the absurdly short timetable of diplomacy and inspection; I disagree with datamining information to conform to policy, rather than building policy on information.

I think going to war in Iraq was a good thing, ultimately. Genocide, opression, etc. were halted. However, these reasons were not why we went to war in Iraq. Genocide, opression, kidnapping, murders, mass graves, torture, rape...all these things had been happening for more than a decade when we invaded. Clinton didn't invade. Dick Cheney didn't want to invade. Bush the first didn't want to invade. Where were the bleeding hearts then? Where were the conservatives' calls for freedom then? Sure, some people were thinking about it, but as soon as Dubya says we should invade Iraq, WHOOSH, millions of sheep toe the line.

Oil for food, Hezbollah, all this had been happening for years. So what changed? What was new? We invaded because of 9/11. We invaded because of non-existent WMDs. This was a poor rationale. This is what I disagree with; the false sense of urgency the reckless march to war, the complete lack of planning, etc.

Now, the 300,000 dead people you mention don't change my mind that the way we went to war was deplorable and idiotic. Nor does it change my mind that invading Iraq could have been a good thing. Because, well, that's what your holocaust allusion was meant to convince me of.

Anyway, we agree in a lot of ways, and I'm not a whining, non-troop-supporting, bigot-calling, ACLU-toting liberal, just as I don't assume anyone around here is a bible-thumping, assault rifle carrying, gay-bashing, ignorant hick. So when you say "you and your leftist buddies", consider what connects me to other liberals, but also recognize how I'm different.

As late in the game as Dec. 6, 1941, 80% of Americans wanted nothing to do with WWII. Pearl Harbor made it a whole new ballgame. If that made them sheep, toeing the line, all I can say is, Bo-Peep is the wrong bitch to piss off. Non-existent WMD's? The doddering buffoon Cronkite - thinking he was exploding an eleventh-hour bombshell on the Bush administration, actually provided credible proof that - gasp - our "friends" and "allies" were being less than honest with us. Perhaps it was not in the interests of our treasured Euro-pals to have the full extent of Saddam's treachery known. More to come on this - very soon. Diplomacy wasn't given a chance? What do you want? He gave us the one-finger salute for twelve years.

Incidentally, as of this morning, Iran has agreed to suspend it's efforts in the area of nuclear capability, in order to avoid U.N. sanctions. Isn't it handy that we just happened to be next door? What an odd coincidence that the threat of big, bad U.N. sanctions all of a sudden seems to have some teeth, for a change. Even in an open society, the Commander-in-Chief is not obligated to lay out detailed illustrations of his military plans - much as our die-hard, America-right-or-wrong cheering section in the mainstream press would like that. Maybe WMD's were only PART of the reason we went to war in Iraq.