Bush’s secret excursion to Iraq leaves only one desire: Now that he knows how to sneak out of the US - perhaps next time he won’t bother coming back.

When will the mainstream media begin to report objectivly and not take everything the White House dishes out at face value? Where are the real journalists like Ed Murrow, Charles Collingwood, Bernie Shaw, and others? They have been replaced with “infotainers” that haven’t the foggiest notion of how to analyze and dissect what they’re reporting. It is apparent to me and others that the consolidation of the news media under the conrol of six or seven large conglomorates (all of which are sympathetic to the Republican Party) was not without a greater plan; that is to control the news and report it in such a way as to not appear confrontational to the White House. I find it very difficult to find out what is really going on in the world, and particularly in Iraq, through reading my newspaper or listening to the TV news which pass off “fluff” as news. Alas, we no longer have a free and unencumbered press in this country, so important to the function of a free democracy. Many of us are left to search for the truth in the blogs and in the foreign press. I fear for this country and what it stood for. Under this administration, the basic tenets on which this country was established are under attack. The Congress is dominated by a party that follows lock step with this criminal administration. The Supreme Court is now loaded with ultraconservative justices that are changing the very nature of what it means to be an American. I firmly believe that this would not have occurred had the American electorate been well informed by an unbiased, unfettered, free and independent print and electronic news media (and I do not mean Fox News Network, the most guilty of them all).

Long trip just to look into Maliki’s eyes, I mean, usually Bush gets to know people best by looking into their hearts or into their souls so for a trip that long and wanting the much needed bounce you kind would have expected the president to lower his eyes, like to the chest level for the heart. I’ve never been certain how he sees into souls but he does it enough so I’m pretty sure he’s very good at it.

Like his hero Ronnie Reagan, Dubya is another want-a-be John Wayne, “look em straight in the eye”. Someone, presumably (Carl Rove), told Georgie to act folksy so the people would identify more with him but the problem is, he comes across as the Village Idiot instead. Yes, I think the rest of the world does assume GW is a moron, whether he goes overseas or stays at home. I just wish more Americans had realized it in 2004.

The surprise visit is troubling for a lot of reasons.  Only telling some, but not all the “war cabinet” suggests not much confidence in those not in the know.  If they can’t be trusted, why are they even there?  Of course, looking the Iraqi leader in the eye reminds one of Bush’s early look at Russia’s Putin.  You would think after that one, the whole concept of looking in the eye would be dropped as the foolishness it is.

Want My Vote… Secure Eight Crummy Miles.
Its eight miles from my house to the local supermarket.
Give me 130,000 U.S. soldiers/half a trillion dollars and even my dog can guarantee you in three years the President can land on my ten acres without corkscrewing his way down and drive the eight miles to my supermarket. Yes, even if all of Atlanta’s population wanted to descend on him.
Progress in Irag… I will believe it when GWB can drive eight miles from the Iraq airport to the green zone. In the meantime $200,000.00 a minute being wasted seems to buy anything but progress in Iraq.

A foreign government decided that the US was a threat to the free world because the US had WMDs, and because the US was run by a tyrannical despot.  The invasion was a quick success because most Americans were glad to get the despot off their backs.  The foreign president quickly declared ?Mission Accomplished?, and the Americans hoped that this meant that the foreigners would quickly go away.  Instead, the occupiers began to build permanent military bases.  Naturally, the Americans became restive.  They began to sabotage their own infrastructure, explode roadside bombs, and shoot at the occupying infidels. The occupiers labeled the rebellious Americans as insurgents and terrorists, thus justifying the unending occupation.  The occupiers said that they would leave when the Americans would settle down and stop killing the liberators.  The foreign president visited the American puppet prime minister, went eye to eye and liked what he saw.
The standoff ended when the occupying government ran out of money, went bankrupt and collapsed much to the relief of the rest of the world.
Jimbo.

remember the old tv show “get smart”? the bad guys were called kaos. it was a takeoff of the 007 bad guys, spectre. it seems to me, living in los angeles, that every time there is a street killing somewhere in the city, it is called “gang violence”. the police seem to need gangs to justify their power. likewise, this administration seems to need al qaeda. every time something happens, it is balamed on al qaeda. 9/11, london subway bombing, madris train bombing, and so on. i heard that the mailman in my neighborhood was bitten by a dog. i wonder…

anyway, perhaps when the administration says al qaeda, we should think kaos. might be easier to understand these clowns if they are in the context of a sixties tv farce. the only questions remaining are, who plays maxwell smart? agent 99?

Molly, what these guys are looking for is a steady-state totalitarianism.  The Third Reich lasted what, twelve years?  Stalinism, preferring cold to hot wars, lasted all of seventy.

Being old, my fear until recently was that our own totalitarians would succeed, and that my end would come like Pablo Neruda’s, with my friends dead or discredited at their hands, and the laughter of jackals accompanying me to the grave.

But having decided to give in to my own perversity, I now take heart from the examples given above.  We’re not wrong about what it means to be human, and however bad it looks now, assholery has a definite half-life.  Given that every asshole has its own peculiarities, we may not know in advance how long a particular one will endure, but if I had to guess, I’d say GWB’s is unlikely to outlive Stalin’s

I saw POTUS at his press conference after his little hit an run in the green zone. He was in full truculent swagger and smart ass bully mode. Its as though he gets aroused by being safe but near to people who are being blown to bits, like a man who hangs around the outside of a porno studio and feels like he just had sex. I think something is very wrong with him.

Thanks, Molly, for your constancy in keeping the focus on our present danger.  One sad indicator of the success of the Bush junta is the absence of public demonstrations against this defrauding of our form of government and the rule of law domestically and internationally.  We’d rather write out our complaints in our blogs.

The most egregious wound to our Constitutional republic has been GWB’s destruction of hope—held world-wide—in the United States as custodian of trust that personal freedom and fair, just government is possible—when life experiences have always been an oppressive, opposite reality.

Dear Molly

Things will not change as long as the Republicians stay in power, the real reason so much illegal stuff goes on is that the congress lets it happen, I am sure they are aware that the executive branch of our government has overstepped its bounds.  The American people have got to wake up.  The Democrats have to step up to the plate, they might have to do the right thing as Al Gore’s father did and because he did the right thing he was not reelected to congress.

Marge, Portland Oregon

MOLLY:
They’ve done a lot of it with clever use of language.  For example, the truth is that there is no such thing as a “war on terror” or “war on terrorism.”  It is a stupid statement, and I’ll explain why in a moment.  I don’t mean that as a pejorative.  And to repeat it, or give it any credence, is to help spread a lie, a deliberate attempt at propaganda, or a statement by a person who does not know what he or she is talking about.  I find that the newspapers and television, as well as “blogs” on the internet, all use the phrase “war on terror” and it does everyone a disservice.  Google alone states that there are 137,000,000 references to this phase.

When our President, George Bush, says those words, he is talking non-sense.  So is anyone else using these words.  The reason I am writing this article is to explain this phenomenon.

The words are inflammatory, and their ultimate effect often deliberately to cause people to suspend any rational judgment about the things the speaker wants to do because of this so-called “War on Terror.”  When rational judgment is suspended, people will do anything no matter how ineffective it is because of the emotional mind-clouding power, and the fear it gives rise to, when such meaningless words are used.

It is also extremely sloppy journalism to repeat this phase, except as a direct quote, because it is meaningless.  It is as meaningless as “war on laziness” or the “war on weather.”  Journalists seem never to have heard of semantics, which looks at the meaning of words and how their use affects us.

Right now, we as a country are involved in a number of situations, one or two very separate wars, some diplomatic efforts, and a very diverse set of circumstances that may possibly threaten our way of life, and we, as a country, appear to be afraid of a number of diversified groups of people who reside in various countries.  We are also, as a country, possibly threatened in a number of ways by a number of countries, as opposed to small scattered groups of people.

If we can define what these groups and countries are and distinguish how they differ from one another, it can help us to understand what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what the characteristics of all this mixed up “war on terror” might really mean.  This, of course, immediately implies that there is no one single opponent against whom we can wage war, but instead presents a variety of different situations, some more dangerous than others, each of them requiring that we handle them, as best we can, in different ways if we want to reduce any threat they pose.

•The first group of people that we claim to be fighting with is a vaguely defined group, once led by a man named Bin Laden, that calls itself Al Qaeda.  It appears to be based in Afghanistan, but may have spread to various other countries.  It is a loosely-knit, guerrilla group that dislikes “the West”, vaguely defined as European and American countries.  We don’t know nearly enough about it to be “at war” with this group because it is so diffuse, and it is all too easy to confuse it with other groups at times.  It is not certain that its leaders are alive or have control over this group because it is so diffuse.  Originally, it was most probably responsible for the event known as “9/11”.  We, as a country under President Bush, claim to be fighting this group but appear to have lost interest in pursuing this group forcefully.

I say “claim to be fighting” because, for all of our efforts, we have never caught Bin Laden, and Al Qaeda appears to be stronger than ever before.  We have troops in Afghanistan, but they appear to be there mainly poised to defend the central government, which has been threatened by a number of groups including the Taliban (the prior totalitarian government), war lords in various provinces, and a loose network of guerillas including the Al Qaeda group.  The current Administration, led by President Bush, has apparently de-emphasized our military efforts in Afghanistan and his rhetoric, his use of the words “war on terror”, appear to be mainly directed at Iraq, not Afghanistan.

The number of deaths of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in this first military operation is 255 with 765 injured as of January 2006, as tracked by Wikipedia.  I cite this figure in sharp contrast to the number of U.S. troops killed in the next military effort, still going on today, in Iraq which was 2,299 U.S. soldiers killed and 33,094 seriously injured as of March 2006 (cited at the site http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspxhttp://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx).  The disparity between Afghanistan and Iraq, in terms of dead and casualties is very revealing about what is being emphasized.

•The second group that we were fighting was the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.  It was a war declared by President Bush, with no real resistance from Congress.  The enemy was a vague one – mainly the dictator, Saddam Hussein, who somehow had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and was linked vaguely to “terrorists”, the same ones named in Afghanistan as being Al Qaeda.  None of these reasons has proven to be true.  I repeat:  None of the reasons given for this war have been proven to be true.  As cited above, more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq as a result of this war.  Because of what the President and his Administration have been saying, and repeating as a mantra, according to many surveys, many people in the U.S. believe, irrationally, that this war is being fought as a “war on terror.”  This is simply not an accurate or true statement.

It appears that Iraq has three major ethnic groups that have never gotten along.  When Saddam was in charge of the country, the Sunni controlled everything with an iron hand.  The Shiites, although in the majority, had no political power.  The Kurds, the third group, also had no power.  Once Saddam’s forces were overcome by the U.S. forces, the Shiites grabbed political power, the Kurds grabbed the northern part of the country, and the Sunni who had control and resented losing it have begun conducting an insurgency.  The Shiites and the Sunni both have deep hatred of each other; it is obvious that the Sunni aren’t used to being out of power, and the Shiites resent all of the terrible things that were done to their people when the Sunni were in power.  This is has led to brutal killings, with our troops in the middle, mainly siding with the Shiite majority.  The country at this time may be in civil war.

Our troops really aren’t fighting “terror” or “terrorists” here.  They are actually intervening in an internal conflict that has been going on for a long time back to when England and Winston Churchill was involved.  I will add that there have been instances of non-Iraqi individuals crossing the border into Iraq from Syria and Iran to attack American military forces, and some of these individuals may be linked to Al Qaeda, but that is not the biggest part of the problem.  In fact, because of our invasion of Iraq and our destruction of the status quo, by eliminating Saddam Hussein, it may be that we have opened a whole new breeding ground for, and encouraged, these individuals to learn how to operate successfully and conduct terrorist operations.

Iraq thus appears to be involved in a civil war of Sunnis versus Shiites, with Kurds protecting their interests, and some outsiders conducting guerilla terrorist operations aimed at fomenting unrest and driving the U.S. forces out.  We cannot be involved in a “war on terror” here because there are at least four separate parties here, and it isn’t always clear who is doing what to hurt or kill whom.

•A third arena whom we are not fighting is North Korea, a dictatorship that is working to build an atomic bomb capability.  This country is a military threat to South Korea because it possesses a huge standing army of more than a million soldiers.  It is a country with a well-defined government, not a loosely organized group of individuals.  We have not declared war on them, nor have they declared war on the U.S.  But for some reason, at times, they have been included in this “war on terror.”

•A fourth arena that is also sometimes referred to under the mantra of “war on terror” is Iran.  Iran is the largest country in the Middle East, with a government that is primarily run by its religious right.  They may provide a place for Al Qaeda and other groups which dislike the U.S. for various reasons to develop and train members.  We are not at war with Iran, and they are not at war with us.  But, for some reason, they also have been lumped into this “war on terror”.

•There are other places in the world, such as South America and the Philippines, that have been also lumped into this “war on terror”, but, again, we have not declared war on them nor have they declared war on the U.S.  Numerous groups, some of which hate the U.S. and some involved in insurgencies against their existing government, have the earmarks of “terrorists” in that they conduct underground operations, kill people indiscriminately, have loose organizations, may or may not be linked to other similar organizations. 

•In general, it is also important to separate different types of terrorists (a very maligned word) into specific and different groups.  For example, Basque separatists, in Spain, commit what we would call terrorist acts.  So do the Tamil Tigers in northern Sri Lanka.  They can both be called “terrorists.”  Please note that, although these groups commit acts that seem to be terrorist acts, such as blowing up bombs in public places and killed innocent civilians, both of these groups are internal in their countries and act much as if they were engaged in a civil war against their existing government. 

•So we are not at war with all of the groups I’ve mentioned.  We couldn’t be.  Many of them have no government for us to declare war on.  It is sloppy use of communication to say that we are engaged in a “war on terror” when we really need to understand that there are many such groups around the world, each separate and different, each requiring different tactics, each posing a different type of threat (in some cases, no threat) to our country.

Please remember that next time you hear these words.  If you understand what has been said here, you will be able to determine how absurd such a claim is (“war on terror”) and look at what the person saying these words is really trying to do.  He or she may be trying to scare you so you don’t think clearly; he or she may be pushing an agenda to take rights away from you; he or she may be saying such words to get elected again; or to be considered “patriotic” or “strong” or “effective”.  Always listen to the words and match them to the actions.  The outcome may surprise you and open your eyes to what is actually going on.

###

“This ain’t no takesie-backsie.”
Hilarious!
Molly, once again I am in your debt

Apparently Bush couldn’t get a “bounce” from the killing of Zarqawi between mid-2002 and March, 2003 when the Pentagon presented him with plans to destroy the camp where Zarqawi was hiding and the White House either declined or simply ignored the request. Actually there have been six occasions going way back when we could have killed Zarqawi and didn’t.  Sure would have saved a lot of innocent lives, as if that ever mattered or will ever matter to Mr. Bush.

What kind of idiot establishes foreign policy based on eye contact? Iraq isn’t a pick-up bar in Dallas!!! The only person Bush should be looking at in the eye is himself in his mirror.

Molly,

Thanks much for continuing to point out the obvious, something the MSM hardly ever does nowadays.  One more photo op, and the newspapers talking admiringly about Shrub taking that “risky” trip…I keep thinking I can’t get more depressed, but then I do ...

rena

Thanks Molly. You are an island of sanity in a seeminly endless ocean of talking points and babbling idiocy.

I’m in the middle of “Who Let the Dogs In” and you sure called it.

The Shrub has “Texafied” the entire country and killed tens of thousands - and for what?

His fragile, hubris filled, little-man ego.

Don’t send us any more politicians from your home state for a while OK? It’ll take at least a generation to get over this particular douche-bag, if we ever get over him at all.

The Iraq imperative has changed from Powell’s “If you break it, you need to fix it” to “we screwed you guys up pretty darn bad and if you don’t fix things up yourselves then we’re not getting out.”

Molly:  Bush should look eye to eye with the American people.  If he did, perhaps he would see how much we despise him and his cronies.

I’m so torn on this issue because I was raised believing that America is a force for “good” in the world and the thought of leaving Iraq in a state so very much worse than the state in which we found it cuts to the very core of my soul.  I know that as long as there is one American soldier left on that soil he/she will be hated and targeted by the various factions and, hence, the soldiers should be removed.

Bush should be forced to pay for his misadventure in a court of law, but not even that will end the pain…for us or the Iraqis…

hizzhoner.

Dear Ms. Ivins,
I loved your article !  Exactly on point.  Would you please send a copy to our Congress and Senate leaders?  I do not think they grasp the seriousness of the situs, nor do they understand the eventual outcome of the Iraq war mess.  It is so discouraging. 
It is further discouraging that Americans nationwide have not written those same elected leaders to voice a general protest of the war and the recent budget approval for the war.  The money always goes somewhere and it is obvious it is not going to rebuild Iraq.  It is, instead, filling the coffers and pocketbooks of White House administration friends (consider the no bid contracts issues)and associates.
Please, Ms. Ivins, write an editorial concerning America’s lack of motivation to oust the culprits facilitating and supporting the middle eastern conflicts.  I just don’t get it.  Why does any American support leadership that squanders federal budget dollars, supports torture, condones the maiming of our own troops to fight illicit war, turns away from the truth that does not provide foresight and practical organization efforts to help care for our own Katrina victims, poor, etc.  Why do, we Americans not coalesce and demand new reasonable government.  A new government with a view toward benevolence and mercy.  We should be sending Iraqis citizens “bread, not bombs”.  Oh, I get it - it is because not every American family is tainted with this mess.  The burden of the mess falls mostly on the shoulders of the poor.  Bring back a draft, and I just bet we’d be out of Iraq and Afghanistan pronto.

They have these “eye lookers” in Germany also. My friend and I were stationed there way back when and he decided to see one of these “looker’s” to find out why he was so slim and couldn’t gain weight. The looker advised my friend that he had a stomach ulcer, to which I replied: Buddy if that looker can see your stomach through your eyes, you really do have trouble.  I think the same can be said of Bush looking into the prime minister’s eyes!

Bush and his counterparts in the republican congress continue to thrive in their insulated bubble of non-reality.

Bush warbles,

“I thought it was important to sit down with him and talk to him in person. I saw firsthand the strength of his character and his deep determination to succeed,” Bush said. “One of the reasons I went to Iraq was to be able to sit down with an Iraqi government to determine whether or not they have the will to succeed. ... I’ve eliminated that uncertainty.”

How easily Bush eliminates the uncertainties of life yet while Bush is playing Caesar Iraq continues to crumble with 500 to 1,000 people dying each month from a bloody civil war a direct result of Bush’s impeccable judgment of human nature and the nature of the world itself. Perhaps it is time for Bush to stop getting a sense of people’s souls and start thinking about the reality on the ground. 

Last week Bush said that the new puppet government in Iraq was in a position to “turn the tide” but more recently he said,

“Did I say those words?” Bush asked. “I sense something different happening in Iraq. The progress will be steady toward a goal that has been clearly defined.”

Goal number one was to remove the mythical WMD.

Goal number two was since there were no WMD the new and improved goal was to remove Saddam.

Goal number three was to bring democracy to Iraq because removing Saddam did not accomplish anything but bring more chaos to Iraq and propagate a civil war.

Goal number four is leaving the mess he made for someone else to clean up, the sum total of Bush’s life.

Priceless, Molly: “You have to admit, leaving a place worse off than Saddam Hussein kept it is not a bragging point.”

As I commented earlier (Comment #11789 by Hilding Lindquist on 6/14 at 6:16 pm in response to “Private Boehner Memo on Iraq Surfaces”): “... the shere idiocy of Bush saying he wants to meet a person face to face and look him in the eye to determine his character. He’s never had to buy a car for which he didn’t have all the money at the time of purchase, has he?”

We should all be rolling our eyes at each other.

I can just see the future parodies of this President: The President is sitting at his desk fiddling with different items, kind of passing the time of day when an aide calls out, “Sir, SIR, not THAT button ... Of course you are the President ... Oh ... Mr. Cheney asked me to.”

I appreciated the artile, Molly, as always with whatever you write. Still, you didn’t indicate whether anyone took photos of George W. Bush in the same helmet and flak jacket that everyone else has to wear when traversing the “secure” Green Zone Castle grounds in Baghdad. I would really liked to have seen that!

Anyway, your speaking of Calvin Trillin made me think of a poem I wrote this morning, specifically in commemoration of this completely irrelevant photo opportunistic non-event. I call it: 

“Boobie Short Order Prime Ministers”

“George summoned their prime minister
To take a conference call
A “sovereign” for two years now
George really had a ball
In using him for wallpaper
Which really took some gall

Inside the Green Zone Castle where
The puppets spend their day
The visiting American
Was questioned in this way:
“How would you like your PM, sir?”
And George said: “Right away!”

“I’ve had a lot of practice at
This poodle thing, you know.
Just ask the British Tony Blair
Whom I have kept in tow
So long that his own parliament
Would like him now to go.”

Those new Iraqi ministers
Who sometimes come to work
Through checkpoint mazes mostly manned
By some young GI jerk
Expect for us to treat them like
A fast food counter clerk

“We’ve got ‘em by the short hairs now,”
The short-haired George let slip
“We come and go just when we please
And don’t take any lip
From ‘sovereigns’ who need to know
Few details of our trip.”

By this disdain George clearly showed
A fundamental knack
For treating the entire world
To spectacles that lack
The least regard for protocol:
For who respects a flack?

Of course the point at issued had
Just this insult to show
To fanboy fascists rapt at home
Before the TV’s glow
Who thrilled as George’s posing made
Their little weenies grow

Just like the days of Nguyen Kao Ky
And Ngo Dinh Diem who
Preceded in a puppet show
The stalwart Nguyen Van Thieu:
Parades of puppet “presidents”
Humiliated, too

But disrespected puppets have
A way of getting back
At puerile puppeteers who think
Their strings contain no slack
They simply lay down on the job
Or else join the attack”

Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2006

I’d like to think America saw right through Bush’s brave little 5-hour visit to Baghdad for what it was ... just another George Bush photo-op designed to convince America that their president is “engaged”.  (Gosh, he’s even cuter and more manly in a flak jacket and helmet than he was in that orange jumpsuit!)

Unlike Ms. Ivins, I think all of America should take great comfort from the fact that we’re no longer relying on our intel to evaluate people and situations.  What could possibly be better than President Bush just looking people in the eye to figure things out?  If our commander-in-chief has decided that the “George Bush Great American Eyeball Test” will be used to decide our country’s future course of action I think we should all get behind this 100%.  In fact, I hear Phase II of the GBGAET will require all world leaders to SEND their eyeballs to Washington, DC.  (With the price of jet fuel these days, we simply can’t afford to have our president flying all over the planet trying to make eye contact with thousands of world leaders.)  Hopefully Phase III of the GBGAET will include an option to actually RETURN the eyeballs to their respective sockets.  In the meantime, Mr. Bush, please come to Ohio and look ME in the eye ... America needs to be sure that your little eyeball test can recognize something bordering on hate and a complete lack of respect when you see it.

zarqawi,how long did they have him in the meat locker??

Didn’t Bush claim to look Putin in the eye and now Putin is pretty much against us on many issues?

Molly, I so enjoy reading your articles that are filled with sarcastic humor albeit so much barbed truth! I feel the barbed wire sting of that humor and wish to hell others who still support these goons in office would also feel the sting and say enough is finally enough. We need to stand up to these goons purportedly acting for “We the People”. Sure as hell not this people!

However, Molly, with the 15 permanent military bases being built in Iraq it is doubtful that we will EVER totally leave Iraq even after all the crimes perpetrated by this admin are tallied. To date the crimes are numerous and certainly impeachable, yet people are apparently still blinded by fear mongering of this admin. I can’t help but believe if these things had been done by the dems people would be calling for some head chopping ourselves, throw the bums out would be the clarion call!

Good golly Miss Molly, what worries me with all that this admin has gotten away with, no accountability since their party controls everything, do we not have to worry about the puppet Bush declaring Martial Law thus allowing for his cabal of crooks and liars to take over once again for God knows how long?

Have you read Robert Kennedy’s “Was the 2004 Election Stolen” in Rolling Stone? And why does no one care that their is not a paper trail backup on these electronic voting machines. Good grief, if a bank’s ATM can produce a paper receipt on your account why can’t these voting machines?

I know, it would be the honest thing to do and their is no such thing called honesty, truth or decency coming out of this admin. Just slash, burn, kill and bomb then call it in the name of war on terror. Terrorists? Hmm!

What’s Bush bouncing, the RUBBLE?

No, I will never forgive or forget what Bush and gang have done in my name and with my tax-payer money. Saddam Husein’s evil pales in comparison! The axis of evil is here, in our own backyard, and they are doing their evil things in our names and with our tax-payers’ money. What an irony!