Misguided policies eventually unravel, blow back, boomerang

Compiled, edited, re-reported by Carolyn Bennett

Early geopolitical map
Mediterranean
Middle East, North Africa, Persian Gulf
Caucasus, Russia

Entrenched policies of aggression, consequences, commentary on blindness that callously refuses to see

Alastair Crooke this week at Conflicts Forum comments on meddling and mistakes, usury and being used in the Middle East’s U.S. (or the U.S.’s Middle East) theaters of war.

Mediterranean Sea east in southwestern Asia, its territory includes Golan Heights occupied by Israel since 1967  — SYRIA

From the outset of the Syrian upheaval in March, “the Saudi king has believed regime change in Syria would be highly beneficial to Saudi interests,” Crooke writes. A senior Saudi Arabia official told John Hannah, chief-of-staff to former United States vice president Richard Cheney, “‘The king knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself — nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.’

“This is today’s ‘great game,’” Crooke says, “the formula for playing it has changed” — U.S.-instigated ‘color’ revolutions in former Soviet republics have given way to a bloodier, more multi-layered process — but the underlying psychology is unchanged.

Early Syria 

“… Europeans and Americans and certain Gulf states may see the Syria game as the logical successor to the supposedly-successful Libya ‘game’ in remaking the Middle East but the very tools that are being used on their behalf are highly combustible and may yet return to haunt them — as was experienced in the wake of the 1980s ‘victory’ in Afghanistan.

“It will not be for the first time that Western interests sought to use others for their ends — only to find they have instead been used.…

Contemporary Syria

“…If the scope of the Syria ‘game’ — make it no game, for we cannot forget the dead including civilians, security forces, armed fighters — is on a different scale to the early ‘color’ revolutions, so too are greater its defects. The NTC [National Transitional Council of Libya] paradigm, already displaying its flaws in Libya, is even more starkly defective in Syria, with the opposition ‘council’ put together by Turkey, France and Qatar caught in a catch-22 situation. The Syrian security structures have remained rock solid through seven months — defections have been negligible —- and Assad’s popular support base is intact.

“Only external intervention could change that equation but for the opposition to call for it would be tantamount to political suicide, and they know it.

“Doha and Paris may continue to try to harass the world towards some intervention by maintaining attrition but the signs are that the internal opposition will opt to negotiate.

“…[T]he real danger in all this … is that the Saudis, ‘with their back to the wall ‘might once again fire up the old jihadist network and point it in the general direction of Shi’ite Iran.’

 “… [T]hat is exactly what is happening but the West does not seem to have noticed. … Saudi [Arabia] and its Gulf allies are ‘firing up’ the Salafists, not only to weaken Iran, but mainly in order to do what they see is necessary to survive — disrupt and emasculate the awakenings which threaten absolute monarchism.

“Salafists [Sunni Islamists] are being used for this end in Syria, in Libya, in Egypt … in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. …

The former head of the Bin Laden Unit of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has warned, Crooke recalls, that “the [U.S. Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton-devised response to the Arab awakening — implanting Western paradigms, by force if necessary, into the void of fallen regimes — will appear to be a ‘cultural war on Islam’ and seed a further round of radicalization. …”

Common sense is abroad in the world but smart idiots refuse to listen so the carnage continues.

WAR against Middle East

U.S.-allied YEMEN (with-old regime)

For months, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been demonstrating against a U.S.-allied governmental regime. Hundreds of protesters have died and, as with protests within the United States, many more have been injured in government crackdowns.

In Yemen, citizens protest the authoritarian rule (since 1978) of Ali Abdullah Saleh and call for an end to corruption and nepotism.

Anti-government protesters were reported today in Yemen’s capital, San’a, in Taizz, Ibb, Hudeida and several other cities. A 28-year-old woman died in the conflict as she was walking with her husband down a street that separates areas controlled by opposing factions. Her husband was injured. Gunfire exchanges and explosions were reported in another neighborhood in Sana’a. In the southern city of Taizz, five Yemenis were wounded after regime forces opened fire.

Anti-regime protesters chanted Saleh “must face justice” and vowed to continue demonstrations until he resigns.

U.S.-allied JORDAN (old regime)

Arabian oil - Britannica image

Though the Jordanian king has said he will give the country’s lawmakers the authority to appoint cabinet ministers and choose a prime minister, both offices he now appoints, he will retain authority to overrule any choice made by the parliament.

Today, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets demanding reforms. As in Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt and other countries, demonstrators are calling for the end of corruption and the prosecution of dishonest officials.

On October17, following months of street protests, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Maaruf al-Bakhit, King Abdullah II fired al-Bakhit and replaced him with International Court of Justice judge Awn Khasawneh. Today’s demonstrations come four days after the king swore in a new cabinet, with political reform as its top priority.

U.S.-occupied IRAQ

United States troops in this country are reportedly preparing to leave after Washington and Baghdad failed to agree on a plan to keep a U.S. military training mission in Iraq after the December 31, 2011, deadline. 

But the fighting is not over. This week twin roadside bomb blasts hit Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. By Thursday, the death toll had risen to at least 36 and the count of injured was at 78.

U.S.-occupied/allied BAHRAIN (old regime)

Also for months in Bahrain as in Yemen, thousands have protested against the government and called for the United States-backed Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

On March 14, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded Bahrain to assist the ruling regime in its brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters. Many Bahraini doctors and nurses, according to human rights activists, have been detained, tortured, or have disappeared because they were in possession of evidence regarding atrocities committed by Bahraini authorities, security forces, and riot police. Detained activists, some of whom have reported being tortured, have been given harsh sentences and long jail terms.

Today, thugs allied with the regime reportedly attacked mourners in a religious ceremony in the northern city of Muharraq, injuring a number of people. Later Saudi-backed Bahraini security forces arrived and fired tear gas and sound bombs into the crowds.

WAR against SOUTHWEST ASIA

U.S.-against PAKISTAN

Pakistanis protest U.S. drones
Press TV image

The operation of aerial attacks begun in the George W. Bush government has escalated in the Barack Obama government.  Over the years, hundreds of people have died in these remote-controlled attacks.

The United Nations had condemned the U.S. use of combat drones against other countries as a blatant violation of international law, that extrajudicial killings undermine the rules designed to protect the right of life.

Civilians have been the major victims of U.S. assassination drone attacks, carried out regularly against Pakistan’s North and South Waziristan tribal regions.

Kamran Khan, a deputy from North Waziristan said after the tribal meeting, “We have run slides on the screens, showing images of innocent women and children to the participants of the Jirga, and proved that the U.S. is killing civilians under the pretext of hunting militants,”

“We are united against the U.S. atrocities and will fight against American terrorism,” said Adeel Khan, a local elder from South Waziristan.”

In Islamabad today, thousands of people and activists from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf gathered in front of the parliament building to voice their outrage at the non-UN-sanctioned strikes. They said the attacks on the tribal region on Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan kill more civilians than Taliban or al-Qaeda terrorists.

The protesters called on Pakistani lawmakers to pass a resolution to put an end to the deadly assassination attacks by CIA agents in the country’s northwestern tribal belt.

Pakistani tribal elders met in the capital to unanimously vote for a resolution urging Islamabad to take immediate action to stop the killings of civilians by U.S. drones.

An assembly of tribal elders (Jirga) demanded the International Court of Law to take action against U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration for not halting CIA-run operations on the Pakistani soil.

Since 2007, incidents of violence across the country have left thousands of Pakistanis dead. Unknown assailants have blown up two state-run schools in northwestern Pakistan where government troops are said to be fighting militants.

Thursday in an area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, militants detonated explosives that destroyed empty buildings of a government-run girls’ primary school.  Later the same day in Mandani area of northwestern town of Charsadda, a girls’ high school was destroyed. Again, no casualties were reported.

U.S. occupied/against AFGHANISTAN

Despite [or because of] the presence of nearly 150,000 U.S.-led forces in this war-torn Asian country, insecurity continues to rise. The monthly average number of security incidents recorded for the year through the end of August has risen nearly 40 percent, says a September 28 UN report on Afghanistan. The report says civilian casualties, already at record levels in the first six months of the year, rose 5 percent between June and August 2011 compared with the same three-month period in 2010.

 

Displacements in the first seven months of the year are estimated at 130,000, up nearly two-thirds from the same period a year earlier.

Today, a private vehicle struck a  roadside bomb in the Khogyani district. Four civilians died and three suffered wounds when the roadside bomb exploded in this eastern province of Nangarhar.

Among the dead were a woman and a two-year-old child. All of the injured children were under the age of 10. They were transferred to a hospital.

Roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are the deadliest weapon at the disposal of Taliban militants against foreign troops, Afghan forces, and civilians.

WAR against AFRICA

U.S. -bombed SOMALIA

Somalia -Kenya - Ethiopia
Djibouti - Yemen
Britannica image

Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia remains one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and the internally displaced in the world.

Yesterday in Mogadishu’s northern neighborhood of Gupta and in Hodan in southern Mogadishu, at least 33 civilians died when fights broke out between al-Shabab and African Union (AU) soldiers.

The exchange of fire and mortar shells continued into Friday leaving more than 76 people, mostly children, wounded.

U.S. drone strikes from Ethiopia into Somalia

The White House has increasingly turned to drones to carry out covert strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The Washington Post this week citing unnamed U.S. officials reported a civilian airfield in Ethiopia’s southern city of Arba Minch being part of a network of secret bases for unmanned aircraft. The report said the military has spent millions to improve the airfield in Ethiopia to accommodate a fleet of Reaper drones that carry Hellfire missiles and precision-guided bombs.

Using this secret airfield in southern Ethiopia, the United States carries out assassination drone attacks in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

Kenya and Somalia
Britannica image

Another East African state inflates carnage.

Reports are mounting that the United States and France are aiding [or leading] the Kenyan operation against Somalia.

Thursday on the outskirts of Kismayo, a strategically important port city on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Mogadishu, Kenyan fighter jets reportedly hit positions of al-Shabab fighters. At least 41 people, among them nine civilians, died.

Kenyan aircraft - Press TV image

The president of Somalia, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, reportedly has said his transitional government opposes Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia.

NATO-destroyed LIBYA

Finally, there was commentary on a crime yet to be unveiled fully and called before an impartial court of law.    

“He lasted more than six months,” P. Ngigi Njoroge wrote, “a man leading a country of 6.5 million against an alliance of close to 500 million people. … — the portrait of a lion fighting against shameless bullies devoid of honor: Barack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicholas Sarkozy; these assassins now enter the pages of history for their brutal, ignominious acts.

“For self-respecting Africans, the lesson is this. We can expect more horrors from these people who wield enormous military power but we have a mighty weapon against them —

Building awareness about their intentions

Crying out loudly against their grotesque unfitness to claim global leadership as their right

Calling them by their real names: bullies, greedy predators, robbers of other people’s resources, deceivers, tellers of great lies

The rest of the world already is grouping together for mutual self-defense: Africa, India, Brazil and other South American countries, Russia and China. The days of malevolent, incompetent, misfeasor rulers are numbered.

Sources and notes

“The ‘great game’ in Syria” (Alastair Crooke, article posted on Asia Times Online, October 22, 2011), http://conflictsforum.org/2011/the-%e2%80%98great-game%e2%80%99-in-syria/

Alastair Crooke is founder and director of Conflicts Forum and a former adviser 

(1997–2003) to the former EU Foreign Policy Chief, Javier Solana.

MIDDLE EAST

“Anti-Saleh rallies continue in Yemen,” October 28, 2011,  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207164.html

“Jordanians rally for promised reforms,” October 28, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207140.html

“Death toll in Iraq twin blasts hits 36,” October 28, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207097.html

“Pro-regime thugs attack Bahrainis,” October 28, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207043.html

SOUTHWEST ASIA

“Pakistanis protest US drone attacks,” October 28, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207110.html

CAPTION PRESS TV

Pakistanis hold a massive demonstration in Islamabad to protest U.S. assassination drone attacks in Pakistan's northwest tribal region, October 28, 2011.

“Militants blow up schools in Pakistan,” October 28, 2011,  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207101.html

“Roadside bomb kills 4 Afghan civilians,” October 28, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207074.html

AFRICA

“33 civilians die in a Mogadishu battle,” October 28, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207059.html

“‘U.S. flying drones from Ethiopia,’” October 28, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207015.html

“Kenyan airstrikes kill 41 in Somalia,” October 28, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207044.html

Also: “French warships hit Somalia coastline —French warships have shelled parts of coastline of the Horn of African state of Somalia with more than 20 heavy missiles,” October 27, 2011,

Kenya Caption Press TV

A Kenyan Air Force F-5 fighter jet (file photo)

“The Destruction of Libya and the Murder of Muammar Qaddafi” (P. Ngigi Njoroge October 24), posted October 27, 2011, at empirestrikesblack — ‘The great powers have no principles, only interests’: http://empirestrikesblack.com/2011/10/the-destruction-of-libya-and-the-murder-of-muammar-gaddafi/

Britannica notes on

An old and complex Middle Eastern/Asian world

A tight club

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by the Āl Saūd, a family whose status was established by its close ties with and support for the Wahhābī religious establishment.

Islamic law, the Sharīah, is the primary source of legislation, but the actual promulgation of legislation and implementation of policy is often mitigated by more mundane factors, such as political expediency, the inner politics of the ruling family, and the influence of intertribal politics, which remain strong in the modern kingdom.

The kingdom has never had a written constitution, although in 1992 the king issued a document known as the Basic Law of Government (Al-Niẓām al-Asāsī lī al-Ḥukm), which provides guidelines for how the government is to be run and sets forth the rights and responsibilities of citizens.

The king combines legislative, executive, and judicial functions. As prime minister, he presides over the Council of Ministers (Majlis al-Wuzarā).

The Sharīah is the basis of justice. Judgment usually is according to the Ḥanbalī tradition of Islam; the law tends to be conservative and punishment severe, including amputation for crimes such as theft and execution for crimes that are deemed more severe (e.g., drug trafficking and practicing witchcraft).

Education

Education is free at all levels and is given high priority by the government. The school system consists of elementary (grades 1–6), intermediate (7–9), and secondary (10–12) schools. A significant portion of the curriculum at all levels is devoted to religious subjects, and, at the secondary level, students are able to follow either a religious or a technical track. Girls are able to attend school (all courses are segregated by gender), but fewer girls attend than boys. This disproportion is reflected in the rate of literacy, which exceeds 85 percent among males and is about 70 percent among females.

Economy

The economy of Saudi Arabia is dominated by petroleum and its associated industries. In terms of oil reserves, Saudi Arabia ranks first internationally, with about one-fifth of the world’s known reserves. Oil deposits are located in the east, southward from Iraq and Kuwait into the Rub al-Khali and under the waters of the Persian Gulf.

Saudi King Abd Allah

Saudi King Abd Allah (also spelled Abdullah; in full: Abd Allāh ibn Abd al-Azīz, b. 1923): One of King Abd al-Azīz ibn Saūd’s 37 sons. For his support of Crown Prince Fayṣal (1964–75) during Fayṣal’s power struggle with King Saūd (1953–64), Abd Allāh was rewarded in 1962 with command of the Saudi National Guard. In 1975 King Khālid (1975–82), Fayṣal’s successor, appointed him deputy prime minister, and in 1982 King Fahd appointed him crown prince and first deputy prime minister. In 1995, Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke, and Abd Allāh briefly served as regent the following year. Although Fahd subsequently returned to power, Abd Allāh ran the daily affairs of the country and became king after Fahd died in 2005.

 King of Saudi Arabia from 2005. As crown prince (1982–2005), he had served as the country’s de facto ruler following the 1995 stroke of his half brother, King Fahd (reigned 1982–2005).

Abd Allāh was committed to preserving Arab interests but he also sought to maintain strong ties with the West, especially with the United States.

In 2001, relations between the two countries grew strained over Saudi claims that the U.S. government was not evenhanded in its approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The situation worsened later in the year, following the September 11 attacks against the United States and the subsequent revelation that most of the attackers were Saudi nationals.

Abd Allāh condemned the attacks and, in a move to improve relations, proposed a peace initiative that was adopted at the 2002 Arab summit meeting.

The plan called upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories (the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights) and promised in return a full Arab normalization of relations with the Jewish country. Tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia resurfaced, however, after Abd Allāh refused to support a U.S.-led attack on Iraq or to allow the use of Saudi military facilities for such an act.

SYRIA and its President Bashar al-Assad

Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad (b. Sept. 11, 1965, Damascus, Syria)

In office since 2000, Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Ḥafiz al-Assad, who had ruled Syria since 1971.  In 1994 Bashar al-Assad’s older brother, Basil, who had been designated his father’s heir apparent, was killed in an automobile accident, and Bashar returned to Syria to take his brother’s place.  On June 18, 2000, after the death of his father on June 10, Assad was appointed secretary-general of the ruling Bath Party, and two days later the party congress nominated him as its candidate for the presidency. The national legislature approved the nomination, and on July 10, running unopposed, Assad was elected to a seven-year term.

“Though reform hopes for Assad’s first term had been met mainly with cosmetic changes, minor progress had been made with economic reforms. In 2007, Assad was reelected by a nearly unanimous majority to a second term as president through elections generally received by critics and opponents as a sham. At the start of Assad’s second term, Syria’s capacity for meaningful political change remained yet to be seen.”

Assad studied medicine at the University of Damascus and graduated as a general practitioner in 1988. He then trained to become an ophthalmologist at a Damascus military hospital and in 1992 moved to London to continue his studies. Before taking office, he trained at a military academy and gained the rank of colonel in the elite Presidential Guard.

SYRIA

The country is located on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea in southwestern Asia. Its area includes territory in the Golan Heights that has been occupied by Israel since 1967. The present area does not coincide with ancient Syria, which was the strip of fertile land lying between the eastern Mediterranean coast and the desert of northern Arabia. The capital is Damascus (Dimashq), on the Baradā River, situated in an oasis at the foot of Mount Qāsiyūn.

After Syria gained its independence in 1946, political life in the country was highly unstable, owing in large measure to intense friction between the country's social, religious, and political groups. In 1970 Syria came under the authoritarian rule of Pres. Ḥafiz al-Assad, whose foremost goals included achieving national security and domestic stability and recovering the Syrian territory lost to Israel in 1967.

Assad committed his country to an enormous arms buildup, which put severe strains on the national budget, leaving little for development. After Assad’s death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad became president.

Islamic sects

Sunni and Shiite, Salafits

Salafists: Sunni Islamists

Sunnite; plural: Sunni

A member of one of the two major branches of Islām, the branch that consists of the majority of that religion’s adherents. Sunnite Muslims regard their sect as the mainstream and traditionalist branch of Islām, as distinguished from the minority sect, the Shīites.

Shiite; collective Shiah; plural Shiites

Early in the history of Islam, the Shīites were a political faction (Arabic shiat Alī, ‘party of Alī’) that supported the power of Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (the fourth caliph [khalīfah, successor of Muhammad]) and, later, of his descendants.

Starting as a political faction, this group gradually developed into a religious movement, Shīism, which not only influenced Sunni Islam but also produced a number of important sects to which the term Shīah is applied.

CAPTION

Syria, Palestine: Sites important in Syrian and Palestinian religion

Qatar and Doha

QATAR

An independent emirate on the west coast of the Persian Gulf occupying a small desert peninsula that extends northward from the larger Arabian Peninsula, continuously but sparsely inhabited since prehistoric times.

The capital is the eastern coastal city of Doha (Al-Dawḥah), which was once a center for pearling and is home to most of the country’s inhabitants

DOHA

Probably founded by Sudanese refugees from the sheikhdom of Abu Dhabi, Doha is the capital of Qatar, located on the east coast of the Qatar Peninsula in the Persian Gulf, the original quarter of the city, Al-Bida, is at the northwest.

More than two-fifths of Qatar’s population lives within the city’s limits. Situated on a shallow bay indented about three miles (5 km), Doha has long been a locally important port.

UAE

The global economic downturn of 2009 affected all the emirates composing the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E). The formerly booming emirate of Dubai, however, suffered the most and had to be helped by the oil-rich Abu Dhabi. Dubai's stock exchange, real-estate values, and construction industry declined markedly, and thousands of residents and workers left the emirate. In November world markets were shaken when Dubai asked to delay interest payments for six months, and Abu Dhabi was forced to extend bailout funds. Nonetheless, in September Dubai inaugurated an ultramodern subway line, the first of its kind in any Arab Gulf country.

Tensions between the U.A.E. and its neighbour Saudi Arabia rose over border issues and the selection of Riyadh by members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as the headquarters of its proposed central bank. The U.A.E. considered the decision to be both politically motivated and dismissive of the competitive advantages of locating the bank in the emirates. Subsequently, in May the U.A.E. decided to join Oman in withdrawing from the planned GCC monetary union. This left only four countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait) committed to the project, which aimed at creating a single GCC currency.

JORDAN

In the rocky desert of the northern Arabian Peninsula, Jordan (capital city Amman) is an Arab country of Southwest Asia, a young state occupying an ancient land that bears traces of many civilizations. Jordan is separated from ancient Palestine by the Jordan River.

Amman is one of the region’s principal commercial and transportation centers and one of the Arab world’s major cultural capitals.

Slightly smaller in area than the country of Portugal, Jordan is bounded to the north by Syria, to the east by Iraq, to the southeast and south by Saudi Arabia, and to the west by Israel and the West Bank.

The West Bank area (so named because it lies just west of the Jordan River) was under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967.

Jordan’s constitution declares the country to be a constitutional, hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary form of government. Islam is the official religion, and Jordan is declared to be part of the Arab ummah (‘nation’).

The king remains the country’s ultimate authority and wields power over the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The king appoints a prime minister who to head Jordan’s central government and chooses the cabinet.

KING OF JORDAN

ABDULLAH II (in full: Abd Allāh ibn Ḥusayn, b. January 30, 1962, Amman, Jordan)

Abdullah II has been king of Jordan since 1999 and a member of the Hashimite dynasty, considered by pious Muslims to be direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad

The eldest son of King Ḥussein, Abdullah served as the crown prince until age three, when unrest in the Middle East prompted Ḥussein to name Abdullah’s adult uncle, Prince Ḥassan, heir to the throne.

In January 1999 King Ḥussein, whose health was deteriorating, named Abdullah the new heir to the Hashimite crown. Hours after the death of his father on February 7, 1999, Abdullah became king of Jordan; he was officially crowned on June 9. In his new role, Abdullah continued to follow many of his father’s policies.

Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Abdullah supported the United States’ efforts to combat terrorism, and, after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.S. forces were permitted to maintain bases in Jordan.

Abdullah was educated in Great Britain and the United States. In 1980 he graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England. He later served in the British Armed Forces as well as in Jordan’s Armed Forces in the 41st and 90th armored brigades. In 1993, he was appointed deputy commander of the country’s elite Special Forces, a post he held until assuming the throne. 

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