John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, went on “Face the Nation” last Sunday and did something weird: he acknowledged that U.S. foreign policy might sometimes cause terrorism. Of course, he didn’t word it exactly like that, but close enough:
BRENNAN: I think the president has tried to make sure that we’re able to push the envelope when we can to protect this country. But we have to recognize that sometimes our engagement and direct involvement will stimulate and spur additional threats to our national security interests.
This is notable because the people who run our foreign policy usually tell us that terrorists are like zombies, driven by some incomprehensible force to kill and kill and kill until we take them out with a head shot/drone strike. Brennan himself did this five years ago while “answering” questions from the late reporter Helen Thomas about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Northwest flight over Detroit:
THOMAS: And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why.
BRENNAN: Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents …
THOMAS: Why?
BRENDAN: I think this is a — this is a long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.
The next year Abdulmutallab explained at his sentencing what had motivated him:
I [attempted] to attack the United States in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel and in retaliation of the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, especially in the blockade of Gaza, and in retaliation for the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and beyond, most of them women, children, and noncombatants.
In fact, the government’s own sentencing memorandum for Abdulmutallab cites this statement, and points out that trying “to retaliate against government conduct” is part of the legal definition of terrorism.
So Brennan well understands that our foreign policy causes attacks against Americans. And our legal code specifies that attempting to retaliate against U.S. actions is what makes you a terrorist. Nonetheless, this obvious reality is almost never said out loud by government officials.
On the other hand, comedians can say it (though not on TV). Immediately after 9/11, George W. Bush famously asked “Why do they hate us?” and answered: “They hate our freedoms.” On David Cross’s 2004 “It’s Not Funny” stand-up album, recorded at the DC Improv Club, Cross said:
CROSS: I don’t think Osama Bin Laden sent those planes in to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel and ties to the Saudi family and all our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that’s what he fucking said.
(I learned about Brennan’s “Face the Nation” statement from Micah Zenko.)
(This post is from our blog: Unofficial Sources.)
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
This post has been corrected to say that Brennan was appearing on “Face the Nation” rather than “Meet the Press.”
Somebody has to address the illegitimate power of multinational corporations, the rest of the world will succumb to this power wherever it decides to centralize or the world will come together to reign that in…The US is reacting to, rather than confronting these…The America wrongfully assumed that it could ship it’s way of doing things world wide…The last depression required isolationist policy and the current depression will require the same…The sooner US leadership sees this the sooner the better
What Brennan said was directed at Republicans oversimplifying the situation in the Middle East. It was a response to a question from Scheiffer referring to criticism from Jeb Bush about Obama’s committment to fighting terrorism and that he didn’t believe he had a strategy.
It was a “things are dire and will be for a long time” interview, but he also said that he didn’t believe the problem was going to be solved on the battlefield (terrorism that is)
you know things are getting bad when the director of the CIA sounds like a beacon of clarity and truth in comparison to a potential candidate for president, former governor..and whatever else he is/was.
US foreign policy *is* terrorism. Period. And now they are bringing home all that refined criminal conduct home to us.
Our silence guaranteed this would happen — we will deserve our fate.
Yes, but why do the Saudis (who have funded Al-Qaeda etc) hate the US? The US developed their oil industry after WWII, and made them rich, arguably far beyond their wildest dreams. Seriously, WTF?
i was wondering if if was that david cross. funny because just yesterday i quoted the rest of that bit [badly paraphrased after years of not listening to it]:
“every time i see paris hilton on tv i think ‘if that’s what we do with our freedom then i hate it too'”.
also reminds me of a john gray interview i read today; he put forth the somewhat sound theory that a lot of these types aren’t hiding anything or being cynical at all. they actually do believe in their heart of hearts that “the other” is a faceless eschatological force beyond reason whether it’s ISIS, hamas, putin, etc. etc. that whole “inverted totalitarianism” thing.
personally, and these comments back me up a bit, i think most of them are 100% aware how full of shit they are and just don’t possess the ability to spin it or articulate it in any way besides “fear the evil darkies” on the rare occasion someone like thomas calls them out. in all fairness that plays well in peoria, so…
Actually, most of them have convinced themselves to believe in the BS, because that is the only way they can not feel like mass murders. When they blame all the civilians they kill on the ‘bad guys’ they HAVE to blind themselves to the hypocrisy when they turn around and Blame Assad for every civilian (and, of course, honestly believe that the double standard of all deaths caused by NATO and axis attacks being ‘militants’ unless absolute proof otherwise is made public, while all deaths caused by Syrian attacks are ‘civilians’ unless they died wrapped in DAESH flags and with guns in their hands actually are equivalents) death in the same theater of war, they believe it as ferverently (and as illogically) as any antivaxxer (or Birther, etc) believes their BS. And, like those others, if directly confronted and made to face up to the disconnect between their beliefs and the evidence, they deflect, demure, delay, and depart. What they almost never do is allow the debunking to convince them, because of how that would make them feel about themselves. And if they do end up convinced, due to social pressure, that they were wrong, the first thing they do is blame someone for deceiving them.
If droning 34 Afghanis to death while they were attending a funeral isn’t terrorism, what the hell is?
Creating enemies (in this case terrorist) where none would otherwise exist is, after all the purpose behind the current wars in the middle east.
It can and it does – as a recently declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document illustrates, and which the mainstream media promptly ignored. What a disgrace.
Declassified DoD Document: ‘Islamic State Exactly What [We] Want’ (Knack, Belgium) http://bit.ly/1BhtcTt
Mar 19, 2015 Untold History of the United States: Bush, Obama and the age of terror
Bush, Obama and the Age of Terror is the concluding episode of Oliver Stone’s brilliant 10-part documentary: The Untold History of the United States.
https://youtu.be/A80i9oWC26c
NY Times today published this op-ed: Obama’s Slap in Britain’s Face. This is for the release of Shaker Amer. My suspicion is that the British Government itself is asking us to hold on to him as he could potentially embarrass them. Publicly they tell us to release him, and by following their private instructions we are getting the bad name. I think we should release him and let the Brits deal with their problem. There have been numerous instances in the past when we have unnecessarily taken the flak to help our allies.
Isn’t that the point of American counterterrorism — those drone-delivered hellfire missiles especially? Without a Cold-War-sized opponent (they’re working hard on China but so far China won’t take the bait), the US has to make sure that “terror” is big and scary enough to justify all those money sinkholes, like Homeland Security, the Surveillance State, the Pentagon — in sum, the war on terror and the war on whistleblowers.
It doesn’t help that the traditional “national security of the United States” has morphed into the limitless “US national security interests,” which now is used to justify, among other things, Brennan’s acting as hit man for the Saudis in the tribal war in Yemen. Displeasing an ally alone has become sufficient to trigger the adrenal gland of the juveniles in the national security apparatus. Sure, establishing causation is tricky, but to suggest, as some do, that there’s NO connection between what Washington does around the world and the violence we see is a fanciful proposition. That’s the part that those howling for a return to Iraq either cannot or refuse to acknowledge: The instant that US boots hit the ground, guess who becomes the immediate target? And guess who’ll insist that taking up arms against an invading force is “terrorism”?
The entire article is dumber than a box of rocks. It’s like saying in 1938 “BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY COULD SPUR NAZI AGGRESSION”. It’s true in a sense, but it most certainly does not mean what this “journalist” insinuates that it means – that US foreign policy is the *ultimate* cause of terrorist atrocities, as opposed to being at best a proximate one. It is merely a *justification* useful to the apologists and the appeasers and the jihadi fellow travelers in the western world.
*Islam* and its inbuilt imperialist aggression is the ultimate cause of terrorist atrocities perpetrated by murderous Muslim terrorist thugs against the free world. It’s really *that* simple.
May I suggest Chalmers Johnson’s BLOWBACK?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVsfwXr9iAk
I would suggest reading the scientific literature (search Google Scholar).
Terrorism that crosses national borders can certainly be a reaction to imperialist aggression, and this is well documented (see Robert Pape, 2005). Now, I suppose it’s also true that imperialist powers can use terrorism to their advantage. Examples should be self-evident to anyone semi-aware of what went on in Latin America a generation ago.
Now, even with the rise of ISIS — which hasn’t overthrown even one government so far — it seems difficult to argue empirically that there’s a significant imperialistic impulse in the Islamic world in recent times. Why isn’t Iran, for example, a country that invades its neighbors and expands its territory? Indeed, the most imperialistic country in the Middle East (most military spending, military interventionism abroad, etc.) is Saudi Arabia — a US ally.
‘Louise’ isn’t as much of a cypher as she’d like to believe. Zionist, bigoted, irrational, hothead. Good to know who’s minding our secrets.
@ Louise
To put it succinctly– you are one of the dumbest Zionist bigots to ever pollute this place.
Let’s put you stupidity and lack of familiarity with the English language on display. First define “imperialism”. Here I’ll help you with the first part:
Now for your second test, please describe which “Muslim” nation, or group of “Muslim” nations, since let’s say the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, fits the definition of “imperialist in any of the commonly understood meanings of the term noted above.
I’ll wait.
@ Louise
And here’s a fine example of the character of your leading Zionist political heroes:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/israel-deputy-speaker-oren-hazan-suspended-drug-pimping-allegations
Then again a deputy speaker of the Knesset who was formerly a pimp and drug dealer sounds like just about what one would expect considering Israel comes in behind such corruption free luminaries as Botswana and Puerto Rico on Transparency International’s Corruption Index.
Not saying the USA is any better, just sayin. American politicians are more the child rapist, torture and blowing up civilians for sport kind of politicians. Although it appears Israeli politicians would love to give American politicians a real run for their money in the latter two categories in the future. Only problem is they have millions of dead civilians to go given America’s little democracy spreading love fests in Vietnam, South America, and the Middle East.
“U.S. foreign policy might sometimes cause terrorism.”
U.S. policy, both foreign and domestic IS terrorism.
Listen to a physicist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6JN9cwY_OE#t=111
It’s not that:
It’s not that the US foreign policy does spur terrorism.
It is that US foreign policy is terrorism.
It is forty years since Philip Agee blew the whistle on the many terrorist schemes of Brennan’s agency, and since Doug Valentine explicitly described what that looks like in close up. Yet despite it being two weeks since Ahmed wrote about the DIA docs which show essentially the same psychopathic death cult at work in today’s world, it remains for commenters below the line to point out what an obvious inclusion that would have made to an article like this one.
There is the principle of ‘so far, but no further’ that I see in action at The In’ept, which helps keep the taboo around these issues. Writers here are reluctant to step beyond the bounds and say the obvious; that the policy is (and has been for many decades, if not centuries) to deliberately, covertly, create chaos, terror and conflict; but then, overtly to ‘step in as the bringer of order and stability’. It is the methodology of building and maintaining empire.
It is seeming untenable to me, to maintain this focus- no matter how critical a focus may be, on a charade. ‘Blowback’ as some sort of unforeseen or unintended consequence of wayward policy that is out of control, is just not believable. I get the impression that many if not most readers here are wise to the facts and the context, and are increasingly interested in the production happening back stage from this play, such that I wonder if some of White’s sentiments apply even to Schwarz at TI- as if Schwarz was saying something about his own position in quoting him previously?
Abby Martin (formerly of RT network) when interviewed as part of Jon Gold’s recent series, stated that she had met many journalists in her work over recent years and discussed the questions that remain around 911. She said that about half of those she’d approached on the subject were sure that there is a case to answer there, but were also sure that they would not cover it in their work due to the repercussions it would bring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5wgmZCchu4
I appreciate all the above, Myers. It’s all too often just sad showing up here only to leave glazed in disbelief that so many erstwhile critical minds can’t see past the recurrent terrible charade in neck deep diversion.
It’s a crap shoot of policy engineered terrorist atrocities remaining shrouded, unrecognized and largely ignored. Like Russo’s exposure of over 20k admitted, but over 80k indicated and inferred torture deaths conducted by Langley’s best psychopaths on VC interrogatees in Vietnam black sites in the ’60s.
So these TI ‘journal’ hangouts are good barometers of specific denial and diversion, little else. Nevertheless, thanks again for ‘serious’ salvage intent.
Desolation mostly otherwise here @ consciousness Intercept.
co-signed
Omidyar is an investor. Invested in free speech. A loss leader, dontchya know.
More importantly at the moment, why do the Russians hate us? http://goo.gl/1JJ1q7 (There is a growing movement in Vermont of people who want to break away from the US and form an independent republic. Imagine the reaction in Washington if the Russians were training Vt rebels in Canada for military operations against the US.)
Most that attempted or completed acts of terror typically mention civilians in the middle east. Nothing justifies acts of terror. Yet a full and complete policy would look for ways to minimize acts if in the best interest of the country. A turning point was gitmo and abugra. When you see prisoners from the US being paraded in gitmo style clothes there is a message there. Torture has promoted revenge and revenge has promoted more air strikes. Air strikes have promoted act of terror. So it goes on and on. The torture clearly has fueled this effort and it is a long way from stopping.
So much mental innocence on both sides…
Brennan is a good person. He is only being truthful about the policies that the administration is following over which he has no control.
Admitting our policies cause a response ((even accidentally) remains light years from admitting our policies need to change.
It should also be clear to everyone, that if this criminal were pushed on the topic, he would backtrack, downplay, rattle off a list of the REAL causes… or say he misspoke.
Inadvertent honesty is a firing offense for the neolibcon establishment.
The fact that they would even admit to possibly being wrong is a big, big step.
Of course the Director of the CIA knows about “blowback.” It’s an ever present factor, and fear of it is high in the operations they do. They also know that USAma (I prefer that to Osama, and I believe the change was because of how I highlighted it) Bin Ladin clearly stated why he was warring against the US. David Cross’s comedy routine is well worth watching:
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jun/08/the-best-standups-on-spotify-david-cross-its-not-funny
If we were not a nation of idiots, we’ do a better job of electing leaders who would appoint serious department leaders, not war criminals like Brennan.
We have made enemies of every group deemed worthless by our standards, from the Native Americans of yester year to the arabs of today. And we have made war on them. It took us 100 years to subdue the NAs. It will take us longer with the Arabs because they are better armed. The day we stop backing Israel will be the day the wars will begin to wind down. Until\unless that day comes, we will continue sacrificing our sons and daughters for control of the Middle East.
Brennan: “I think the president has tried to make sure that we’re able to push the envelope when we can to protect this country.”
Obama’s admin has pushed enough fucking envelopes to compete with the US Mail!
Today, Barack Obama gave an ’emotional eulogy’ at Beau Biden’s funeral, according to news outlets.
Very few people realize how well sociopaths can mimic human emotion, and charismatic sociopaths like Barack Obama are incredibly effective at this.
Barack Obama butchers innocent and defenseless people on a regular basis, murdering innocent children, women and men whenever the military-industrial complex tells him to. He is literally as much of a moral monstrosity as Dick Cheney – whom Obama has protected from prosecution for torture and murder.
Until alternative but influential news outlets like The Intercept begin to call Obama the murdering sociopathic lunatic he is, resistance to the corruption of corporatist militarism and Zionist dominance will be merely paper arrows directed at the disgustingly compromised state.
Brennan is part of this, but his face is not the charismatic talisman currently ruling America. Reports claim Brennan is Obama’s ‘spiritual mentor’ with regard to wanton butchering, but it is Obama’s hypocritical face that really ushers the killing onwards and upwards. When will Obama cry for the wedding parties he’s annihilated? When will Obama choke up over the death-sputters of the innocent children writhing and coughing up blood upon their drone-stricken bodies which he has caused? Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
Hillary will be worse. Any Republican will be worse. Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul are pushovers who support the MIC and Zionism, so they will be similar to or worse than Obama. We are going to get more of the same: corporatism and militarism with institutionalized Zionism, served up as a pretty lie about America.
It won’t stop until people call it out, backed by journalists who are unafraid of calling out the establishment for cold-blooded murder domestically and internationally. Not mere jocular criticism from well-situated reporters with cushy gigs, but bold and viciously debilitating declarations of serious evil in high places.
But no, Obama is ‘better than Republicans.’ Hillary, too will be advertised this way. Expect “You’re just opposing her because she’s a woman!” to be a meme.
I would advise serious caution, for Hillary Clinton is even more of a sociopathic egoist than Obama, and she *will* literally break America’s spirit to death.
Whether a Republican would be better is a strangely disturbing point, if only because worldwide society is now distrustful of Republican presidencies and may act as a bulwark against obvious abuses which go uncriticized if performed by a Dem POTUS. Then again, I believe the vote and poll results are rigged as needed, so it makes no difference in terms of the franchise.
Basically, unless moral reporters call out the massive scam, and the people support them in this, the elite *will* win.
Such ‘winning’ unfortunately means the end of ‘experiment Earth,’ which the elite are apparently too stupid to understand, preferring instead to present themselves as compassionate, responsible institutions rather than the diabolical instruments of moral stupidity that they are.
Barack Obama doesn’t give a shit about Beau Biden, or anyone else. I promise you, he literally couldn’t do what he does and have a conscience or compassion.
Today I completed reading Wages of Rebellion by Chris Hedges. I recommend that you read it, too, Cindy. So much there that you would relate to and appreciate.
So much to choose from, but I’ve chosen to transcribe a few paragraphs from Hedges interview with Cornel West. The commentary is mostly about Obama.
“Obama is the highest manifestation of the co-optation of the manifestation that took place,” West said. “It shifted to the black political class. The black political class, more and more, found itself unable to tell the truth, or if they began to tell some of the truth, they were [put] under surveillance, attacked, and demonized. Forty percent of our babies are living in poverty, living without enough food, and Obama comes to us and says quit whining. He doesn’t say that to the Business Roundtable. He doesn’t say that to the corporate elites. He doesn’t say that to AIPAC, the conservative Jewish brothers and sisters who will do anything to support the Israeli occupation against Palestinians. This kind of neglect in policy is coupled with disrespect in his speeches to black folk, which the mainstream calls tough love.
“He is a shell of a man,” West said of Obama. “There is no deep conviction. There is no connection to something bigger than him. It is a sad spectacle, sad if he were not the head of an empire that is in such decline and so dangerous. This is a nadir. William Trotter and Du Bois, along with Ida B. Wells-Barnett, were going at Booker T tooth and nail. Look at the fights between Marcus Garvey and Du Bois, or Garvey and A. Phillip Randolph. But now if you criticize Obama the way Randolph criticized Garvey, you become a race traitor and a Uncle Tom. A lot of that comes out of the Obama machine, the Obama plantation.
“The most pernicious development is incorporation of the black prophetic tradition into the Obama imperial project,” West told me. “Obama used Martin Luther King’s Bible during his inauguration, but under the National Defense Authorization Act, King would be detained without due process. He would be under surveillance every day because of his association with Nelson Mandela, who was the head of a ‘terrorist’ organization, the African National Congress. We see the richest prophetic tradition in America desecrated in the name of a neoliberal worldview, a worldview King would be in direct opposition to. Martin would be against Obama because of his neglect of the poor and the working class and because of the aerial drones, because he is a war president, because he draws up kill lists. And Martin King would have nothing to do with that.”
That’s the third time someone I respect has recommended that book – thanks, I’ll read it. Cornel West rocks.
Apparently I’m on to something – even the Dalai Lama wants to be someone like me when he reincarnates:
http://nypost.com/2015/05/17/dalai-lama-wants-to-be-reincarnated-as-a-mischievous-blond-woman/
Thanks again for your positive, activist way, Kitt.
“Such ‘winning’ unfortunately means the end of ‘experiment Earth,”
I’m apologizing up front for the nit-picking, as I appreciate your passion and in no way want to quell your spirit, but the earth will go on without us and will eventually heal. We do seem driven as a species toward self-annihillation, if only so many species weren’t being dragged along with us on the way.
The weird thing about terrorism is that the more effective it is, the less illegal it is. The most effective acts of terror establish their doers as reputable authorities and their victims as the criminals.
Bomber < Assassin < Saboteur < Hacker < Blackmailer < Lobbyist < CEO
Contrast Tsarnaev vs. Big Tobacco, for example. Who did the job, and who pretended?
The Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communications also discussed this. Here is a comment I posted while back highlighting the pertinent bits.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/25/compare-u-s-responds-killing-americans-based-killing/#comment-84966
And that report was from 2004.
Your comments have been very useful to me. I’ve taken screenshots & tweeted your comments to many individuals who badly needed to read and absorb the information.
Thank you!
. . . WE went there to crest a perpetual war . . OH – THEY HATE US … I’m sure now that we bombed them into the dark ages they love us now . . . drones killing civilians…..
crest > creat
Says something that they are all so similar that the names are interchangeable as opposed to a distinguishing characteristic.
We the People have a Right to Know our Own History…
http://imgur.com/Lz5nZiP
Reporting by Nafeez Ahmed of “Insurge Intelligence” delves deeply into the problem of US so called national intelligence being the problem and the builders of the problem, and not the solution to terrorism.
The report linked includes conversations with Daniel Ellsberg, Thomas Drake, Coleen Rowley and others.
“Their remarks demonstrate the fraudulent nature of claims by two other former officials, the CIA’s Michael Morell and the NSA’s John Schindler, both of whom attempt to absolve the Obama administration of responsibility for the policy failures exposed by the DIA documents.”
“Forseeing ISIS”
Pentagon report proves US complicity in ISIS
drone strikes= terrorism!
It’s not just drone strikes. It’s economic terrorism thru the central banks, the world banks, the IMF and other NGO’s. It’s blood-n-death criminal terrorism thru drones, “troops” on the ground and endless mercs.
That statement is incorrect. One can commit “terrorism” without “attempting to retaliate against U.S. actions”:
Jesus you fuckwit, this is all you do here, endlessly pick nits; often, as in this case, non-existent ones.
Let me prove the intercepts point with your words… What do we call those fighting against the Syrian government (the people we support)… How about the kurds?
Schwarz is clearly noting that Brennan basically screwed up on the Face the Nation program by accidentally voicing the obvious. Schwarz is not suggesting that Brennan is a “wellspring of insight.”
Yes. Just as Rumsfeld knew what causes/increases retaliatory attacks.
And recall how Madeline Albright was momentarily screwed up when she came out in the real face of much of the powers-that-be, that of bloodthirsty xenophobes, when she asserted it was worth it to implicitly kill half a million Iraqi kids through sanctions.
Point taken.
After re-reading the article, I didn’t see where he(Jon) noted Brennan made a mistake. Perhaps I missed it in one of the links, but thanks for keeping me on my toes, because I’ve already filled my mistake quota for the year.
Not everything needs to be specifically pointed out or have a link provided for elaboration. Some things can be understood through familiarity with a writer’s previous writings, and also by an understanding of, and familiarity with, the subject of the writer’s commentary. While all of this is subjective, and my expressed opinion could be incorrect, to me it was as obvious as a foul smell in the air that Brennan fucked up and didn’t mean to purposely admit his and the US complicity in terror any more than he wanted to admit that even one single civilian had ever been killed by a drone strike. That’s just how he rolls. It has long been established that John Brennan a pathological liar. The writer even specifically pointed that lying out by quoting Brennan’s conversation with Helen Thomas. Brennan is more aware than most about the atrocities endlessly committed by the US on populations around the world, but yet there he was telling Thomas that the ‘bad guys’ are just hell bent on killing people … just because.
I wish The Intercept delivered more indepth reporting rather than short commentary. Poitras says there’s much more to come. Where is it?
Patience, my boy. If you were here at the beginning, you remember waiting, and waiting…..and more waiting.
Comedians are amusing, but no one, I hope, takes them seriously. Any serious media outlet, such as the NYT, promotes the zombie world view.
Brennan has a difficult job, is under a lot of stress, and may be losing his marbles.
While you made your point, do you think Brennan is the right choice when looking for a wellspring of insight? Loving my enemies is a hard dictum to follow when it comes to the likes of that guy. Do you think he is just a stooge who not so eloquently let slip the true purpose of the GWOT, or do you think he is a true believer who means well(choke, choke)? God, help us.