Obama Targets Iran for Human Rights Violations and Shields Bush Officials for Engaging in Same Abuses
Friday 01 October 2010
by: t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: sunilgarg, kzappaster, ~Brenda-Starr~)
This week, in a burst of stunning hypocrisy, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that imposes sanctions on Iran for human rights abuses and targets eight Iranian government and military officials who are blamed for the torture, abuse and murder of citizens who protested Iran’s 2009 presidential election.
“The United States is strongly committed to the promotion of human rights around the world, including in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the White House said in an accompanying news release. “As the President noted in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, human rights are a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity for the United States.”
A State Department fact sheet added, “protesters [in Iran] were detained without formal charges brought against them and during this detention detainees were subjected to beatings, solitary confinement, and a denial of due process rights at the hands of intelligence officers under the direction of [Iran’s then-Minister of Military Intelligence Qolam] Mohseni-Ejei.
“In addition, political figures were coerced into making false confessions under unbearable interrogations, which included torture, abuse, blackmail, and the threatening of family members,” the State Department said.
Yet, President Obama has taken no action against US officials who under the direction of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld imprisoned without charge “war on terror” detainees at secret black sites and at Guantanamo Bay.
These prisoners also were subjected to beatings, solitary confinement and a denial of due process. They, too, were coerced into making false confessions under unbearable interrogations, which included torture, abuse, blackmail, and the threatening of family members.
President Obama has excused his failure to exact any accountability on complicit US officials by saying that he preferred “to look forward, not backwards.” It is apparently easier to look backwards in Iran and demand accountability than it is in Washington.
Even as the Obama administration insists on punishing alleged Iranian abusers, it continues to use the state secret privilege and other legal maneuvers to derail civil lawsuits that seek some justice against US officials responsible for the abuse and deaths of detainees in American custody.
As Obama appointees were congratulating themselves for going after those eight Iranians, a US District Court Judge in Washington, DC, was dismissing a lawsuit filed against Rumsfeld and two dozen other US officials by the families of two Guantanamo detainees who, along with another prisoner, committed suicide at the detention center in 2006, , according to the government’s official account.
Judge Ellen Huevelle noted in her opinion that there was compelling evidence the detainees were murdered. But last year the Obama administration said in a legal brief that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 stripped the courts of jurisdiction to hear lawsuits that challenged the "detention, transfer, treatment or conditions of confinement" of "enemy combatants."
Moreover, in court papers filed in June 2009, the Obama administration said, "Judicial intrusion into this politically sensitive area by creating a damages remedy for detainees could subvert these military and diplomatic efforts and lead to 'embarrassment of our government abroad.'"
Besides, the Obama administration said, just as torture memo author John Yoo is entitled to absolute immunity, Defense Department officials like Rumsfeld are entitled to "qualified immunity" because the "Fifth and Eighth Amendments do not extend to Guantánamo Bay detainees." Judge Huevelle ultimately agreed to dismiss the case.
Three weeks ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Obama administration and blocked another lawsuit, this one filed against Jeppesen DataPlan, a subsidiary of Boeing, that was accused of knowingly flying people kidnapped by the CIA to secret overseas prisons where they were tortured.
The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, argued that state secrets would be at risk if the case were allowed to move forward.
In a 6-5 decision, the appeals court judges said the lawsuit presented “a painful conflict between human rights and national security” and agreed with Obama’s Justice Department attorneys that the latter trumped the former.
Essentially, the decision means that victims of the Bush administration’s torture program are not entitled to have their day in court if the government believes sensitive national security information would be disclosed.
Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case on behalf of the five plaintiffs, said, if the “decision is allowed to stand, the United States will have closed its courtroom doors to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers."
Obama’s aggressive efforts to protect his predecessor’s crimes are not limited to the United States.
Last year, the Obama administration told British officials that intelligence sharing between the US and the UK could be halted if seven redacted paragraphs contained in secret US documents relating to the torture of Binyam Mohamed, one of the victims named in Jeppesen lawsuit, were made public by a British High Court.
According to legal papers filed by the ACLU, Mohamed was beaten so severely on numerous occasions that he routinely lost consciousness and during one gruesome torture session “a scalpel was used to make incisions all over his body, including his penis, after which a hot stinging liquid was poured into his open wounds.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Obama said that while he has been unable to close Guantanamo as promised, he “has been able to ban torture” since being sworn into office.
But Obama’s use of the word “torture” to describe what had taken place during George W. Bush’s tenure obligates him under the Convention Against Torture to conduct a full investigation and to prosecute the offenders.
The Convention declares that: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Moreover, the Convention says individuals who resort to torture cannot defend their actions by saying they were acting on orders from superiors and it mandates that torturers be prosecuted wherever they are found.
According to that provision, "each state party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."
However, while Obama and his team give the Bush administration a pass on torture, different standards are applied to officials from “enemy” states.
During a news conference last Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the eight Iranian officials, saying that under their “watch or under their command, Iranian citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, blackmailed, and killed.
“Yet the Iranian Government has ignored repeated calls from the international community to end these abuses, to hold to account those responsible and respect the rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens.”
The hypocrisy has passed virtually unnoticed in the mainstream US news media. Yet, it’s hard to take the Obama administration’s moralizing seriously when they have taken pass on evidence of American abuses, such as this:
Dilawar was chained by his wrists to the ceiling of his cell for four days and brutally beaten by Army interrogators on his legs for hours on end to the point where he could no longer bend them. He died on Dec. 10, 2002.
Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, an Air Force medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Dilawar, said Dilawar’s leg was pummeled so badly that the ”tissue was falling apart and had basically been pulpified.”
“Had Dilawar lived,” Rouse told Army investigators in sworn testimony, “I believe the injury to the legs are so extensive that it would have required amputation. I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.’”
According to a report published by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Dilawar and another detainee whose death was also listed as a homicide, were killed within one week of Rumsfeld issuing a memo to military authorizing the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques against prisoners in Afghanistan.
Published reports claim Obama continues to operate secret prisons in Afghanistan where detainees have said they were tortured and where the International Committee for the Red Cross has been denied access to the prisoners.
The Armed Services Committee report said those “aggressive interrogation techniques conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in US military custody.”
As the New York Times reported, when Dilawar had died, “most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.”
Obama also has not taken steps to investigate the explosive claims leveled in a sworn declaration by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top Bush administration official, that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew the "vast majority" of the 700 or so prisoners sent to Guantanamo were innocent.
Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell during George W. Bush's first term in office, said the administration refused to set them free after those facts were established because of the political repercussions that would have ensued.
President Obama apparently has made a similar political calculation regarding the partisan recriminations that would follow if he allowed the prosecutions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other officials implicated in “war on terror” torture cases.
It appears to be much safer politically for Obama to turn a blind eye to crimes by his predecessor while pointing the finger at Iranians.
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Comments
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Leopold would make the
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 17:03 — Tom Paine (not verified)Leopold would make the perfect the enemy of the good. The failure to take action against all human rights abuses does not prove that those who succeed in penalizing some human rights abuses are insincere or hypocritical for not going after all of them. Leopold would also have Obama turn his administration into a nonstop vendetta against his predecessor's administration, which would only terminate Obama's ability to devote political attention to anything else, including a myriad of progressive priorities with which he's otherwise engaged. But Obama's proclivity to choose fights he can win -- the mark of any successful politician -- rather than turning his administration into an inquisition on the past eight years, which would incinerate his presidency in a media bonfire, will at least keep Leopold in business launching periodic jeremiads against this president.
22:03 If Bush had been a
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 17:22 — Anonymous (not verified)22:03 If Bush had been a Democrat and the Republicans controlled Congress, Bush and all his minions would be awaiting execution or serving life sentences now. The Democrats are too afraid of Fox News/PAC to do the right thing.
JL you deserve a sudsy
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 17:32 — Anonymous (not verified)JL you deserve a sudsy beverage for acknowledging the double standards set by this administration as well as congress. Are we living in bizarro world, the matrix, in a rabbit hole.....I dunno.
@22:03 Human, clearly it is
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 17:43 — Anonymous (not verified)@22:03 Human, clearly it is Friday and I offer no time to analyze your weak minded comment to prove to you how foolish of a human you are. Good day.
"Tom Paine" above is no
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 18:48 — BillyDoc (not verified)"Tom Paine" above is no human. Any human would be outraged and sickened at our government's selective enforcement of laws and especially at the filth that rubs off on every American from the despicable acts of Bush, et al, and now Obama.
Our country has been completely taken over by criminals. Murderers, and torturers, and thieves. Filth and scum occupy the halls of congress and the White house. AND WE LET THEM. We are obedient for obedience's sake, and thus we all loose our honor. The people who call this place "The Great Satan" are exactly right. This oh-so-Christian country.
More Obamanible smoke and
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 20:27 — Vic Anderson (not verified)More Obamanible smoke and mirrorspeak!
Great article. I have almost
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 20:58 — Gerald Bertholl (not verified)Great article. I have almost given up hope for our government punishing Bush,Chyney, Rumsfeld and the rest. I only hope the international courts get involved and do what our politicians should have. Based on Obama's logic of not looking back,I guess if one had robbed a bank or committed some other federal crime before he came into office they wouldn't be prosecuted.
What does the American
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 21:19 — Anonymous (not verified)What does the American military bring wherever it goes? "torture, abuse and murder of citizens" : that which they claim to fight against.
Looks like human rights are
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 22:09 — EDGEOFNOWHERE (not verified)Looks like human rights are still "off the table" in the US Empire.
RIGHT ON, JASON LEOPOLD!!!!!
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 22:28 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)RIGHT ON, JASON LEOPOLD!!!!! I haven't even read the article yet; but, with that title, I'm probably with you all the way! Obama is also evil, plain and simply. He long has been, and he is even more so now. He's a "Manchurianized" president, the MICC (military-industrial-congressional complex) completely pulls his strings. That's why we should be seeking to impeach him, as Dave Lindorff has said or alluded to, whether we will succeed at impeaching him or not. He's not willing to die to save this country, he has proven himself to be nothing but a puppet and coward, and he is a tyrant and traitor to the country, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and to The People, so we have the duty to at, completely seriously, try to see to it that he is removed. If we fail to at seek to bring this about, we are complicit in (all of?) his evils that he perpetrates while in office, which are already a great many and getting worse and worse every day.
If you haven't already, check out Dave Lindorff's article, the "Case for Obama’s Impeachment", at:
http://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/?p=6039&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ImpeachBushForPeace+(Impeachment+News)
- or -
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Case-for-Impeachment-o-by-Dave-Lindorff-100401-690.html
Paraphrase,
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 22:29 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Paraphrase, "EdgeOfNoWhere"...
"Looks like human rights are still 'off the table' in the (Evil) Empire."
Well, I've read the article
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 23:19 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Well, I've read the article in its entirety now; and, as I was reading it, I was shedding tears for what our country has come to... COMPLETE INSANITY! If the inaction of the ObamaCONS to what extreme criminal acts and human rights violations, as well as Constitutional violations [just claiming that the "War (OF!) Terrorism" detainees supposedly do not have Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights is a violation of the Constitution, and a human rights violation, in and of itself!] the Bush administration all-the-way-to-the-top (actually, from the top down) perpetrated, and the Obama administration is continuing to perpetrate, including obstruction of justice, are not human rights violations and criminal acts, nothing is, and lawlessness is king, thus putting every single American in jeopardy at the hands of their own government! God help us all! If We, the People don't extricate this country from the deluge of evil, every single one of us is in grave danger at the hands of "our own" government, and is in extreme jeopardy of retribution and retaliation for the promulgation of Truth, especially those True Patriots who promulgate it!...
...I am praying for you,
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 23:20 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...I am praying for you, Jason, that God protects you and preserves you to continue telling it like it is; because, there's no doubt, particularly after an article such as this one, that you are on the "'terrorist' watch lists" and are a target of the "military-industrial-executive-congressional-judicial complex" to be exterminated; and, if you haven't already been visited by the modern-day "Department of Homeland 'Gestapo' and '(In)Security'" as I have, you (very?) soon will be. Therefore, because your life is in danger at the hands of the U.S. government, I suggest you go underground, into hiding, and/or "disappear" yourself RIGHT NOW, and that you continue to expose the truth as you do here from wherever you are! Come on, Jason and/or those connected with you and TruthOut, in reality you KNOW what I'm saying is true without ANY doubt(s); so, PLEASE, take completely seriously what I'm saying and take complete and appropriate actions to preserve yourself and the continued promulgation of nothing but the Truth so help us God! And, obviously, for God's sake, take your family with you, because they are in jeopardy as well!
[Corrections (in capital
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 00:52 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)[Corrections (in capital letters)---forgive me, people, I keep leaving whole words out of sentences, sometimes in two or more places]:
RIGHT ON, JASON LEOPOLD!!!!! I haven't even read the article yet; but, with that title, I'm probably with you all the way! Obama is also evil, plain and simply. He long has been, and he is even more so now. He's a "Manchurianized" president, the MICC (military-industrial-congressional complex) completely pulls his strings. That's why we should be seeking to impeach him, as Dave Lindorff has said or alluded to, whether we will succeed at impeaching him or not. He's not willing to die to save this country, he has proven himself to be nothing but a puppet and coward, and he is a tyrant and traitor to the country, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and to The People, so we have the duty to at LEAST, completely seriously, try to see to it that he is removed. If we fail to at LEAST seek to bring this about, we are complicit in (all of?) his evils that he perpetrates while in office, which are already a great many and getting worse and worse every day.
If you haven't already, check out Dave Lindorff's article, the "Case for Obama’s Impeachment", at:
http://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/?p=6039&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ImpeachBushForPeace+(Impeachment+News)
- or -
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Case-for-Impeachment-o-by-Dave-Lindorff-100401-690.html
S.Wolf Britain's comments
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 11:31 — Anonymous (not verified)S.Wolf Britain's comments are understandable,but let's use election upcoming to show the door to most of those complicit with these abuses.The hypocrisy of this article's point & the recent revelation of spreading disease in Guatemala,only encourages the disgust with which some foreigners hold for our Country's actions-past & present.Herein lies a real security threat!
Obama is clearly an enormous
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 12:32 — Liced-christ (not verified)Obama is clearly an enormous hypocrite and liar of the highest order. He's a status quo politician in sympathy with right wing policy making and criminal activity.
Yes, in this area, Obama is
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 13:07 — Brian (not verified)Yes, in this area, Obama is a huge hypocrite. Still, Bush was a thousand times worse, he was a torturer (and many other things).
It's just too bad we can't have a leader who isn't a horrible human being like Bush and isn't a hypocrite and "pragmatist", like Obama. Why can't we have a leader with morals and principals? Because he would never be elected. Apparently, that is not who people in this country want in office.
@22:03 Your "thinking" has
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 13:07 — Liced-christs (not verified)@22:03
Your "thinking" has nothing in common with Thomas Paine, so please drop the title. You should have Adolf Hitler as your internet username instead. Never have I read such idiocy framed in compete sentences.
This does not sound like
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 13:30 — Jeannette (not verified)This does not sound like President Obama. I have no doubt that he disagrees with human rights violations, but I was under the impression, and hoped, that he was against waging wars and policing the world. We know he's painfully aware that human rights have been hugely violated right here in our own country very recently. The human rights of citizens and noncitizens alike were violated. The Bush administration arrested people...all kinds...elderly...pregnant...didn't matter...for something so simple as someone wearing a T-shirt. The Bush administration labeled benign people like school teachers and animal advocates 'terrorists' simply because they did not agree with Bush policies.
Judges just overruled a federal criminal law against the making and selling of crush videos using live animals, saying the law 'violated freedom of speech'....yet totally disregarding the laws it violates to torture and kill living animals. Before leaving their posts at the end of their term, the last administration carefully protected their backsides by passing laws to 'prevent' anyone from going after them. In return for money, they did the same for big businesses...oil...pharmaceuticals...communications, and on and on.
There's just too much craziness and waaaay out of the norm things going on in our government today. I know that the obsessions for power, money, and oil fueled the previous reign of insanity. What I want to know is who is holding the axe now and what is it?
Oh come on Jeannett Blah
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 16:02 — Beefeater (not verified)Oh come on Jeannett
Blah blah Bush, Blah blah business, blah blah oil, get a new line.
Realizing what Obama is really all about is like being smacked with the reality that Liberace was queer.
Wow, talk about coming out of lefty field, never saw that coming.
Obama first priority is to
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 17:29 — Anonymous (not verified)Obama first priority is to be reelected, the country and its people are the last one. The Republicans treat Democrats like servants. The Democrats’ servility has been progressive overtime, as they have been absorbed by Mrs. Big Money. Roosevelt and Johnson (despite some mistakes) had the courage to advance their policies. Remember what the Republicans did to Clinton. The Democrats are so scared to act and show themselves as totally different from the Republicans. It’s appalling. We need more third parties are the alternative, with more cojones.
The corporate powers are not
Sun, 10/03/2010 - 00:17 — Danny B (not verified)The corporate powers are not going to let Dennis Kucinich get elected President. While I disagree with much of Obama's decisions we must realize one man cannot change the course of an Empire, nor does this man want to so it seems, but we have to know and keep in mind that Obama is a thousand times better than the Republicans and we need more Democrats (albeit progressive democrats) in power rather than more lunatic fringe Republicans.
We can continue to work towards third parties, etc, but in the present day we need to do what it takes to keep the Republicans out of office.
IF possible, getting money out of politics is our only hope to bringing the Dems back to the left.
By NOT looking backward, we
Sun, 10/03/2010 - 00:32 — FBuckley (not verified)By NOT looking backward, we carry criminality and despotism forward. More of the same. Without investigation, finding out how to do a better job of STOPPING terrorism, we allow the true terrorists to walk among us as if nothing happened. As in torture, kidnapping, voter suppression, e-voting corruption, rigged banks with Overdraft Maximazation Fees, credit scams, mortgage fraud, de-reg of oil drilling, energy price manipulation, stock market manipulation, insurance company fraud or whatever pre-existing denials they can offer....almost every element of the current Administration is a continuance of the previous.....
What we can be confident in is that we have NO CONFIDENCE IN MORE OF THE SAME FROM THE BUSH ERA. What PART OF THAT DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? That includes the widespread surveillance and wiretapping that goes on around the clock 24/7 ON EVERYONE. You only cherry pick the description of the processes like the Busholes to justify Multi-Billion Dollar pillaging of the country. Thank you for opening up ALL those prisons for profit (starting at $60/Day a few years ago and now up $200/Day or more....good job....fraud and total corruption is by those who hope most to profit by it) we all look forward to our stay there in those "solution centers." Or maybe you can think of ways to avoid going there yourselves? Government above the Law. Those in OUR GOVERNMENT CLEARLY BELIEVE THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW AND THE STATE SECRETS CLAUSE WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE. NO OVERSIGHT FROM A CORRUPT COURT ADMINISTERING AND UPHOLDING THAT CLAIM IS ONLY TOO REAL. [court established the secrets privilege in 1953, in United States v. Reynolds. It said the government could withhold evidence if revealing it would jeopardize national security. This was PROVEN TO BE FRAUD....and you want it to CONTINUE? Criminality is here to stay because of this. Unless there is real OVERSIGHT, by outside, unbiased, objective, revolving, counsel.] GET REAL. STOP THE FRAUD, now. {I have to be delusional to even think that MIGHT happen. Lol. tic}
Think of all the disasters and crap that went on in the Bush Admin and multiply it by ten, twenty or a hundred times....it's okay because it will happen again and again and again......because it's okay. We have all allowed it, by listening to the morons that sold out the country for their gains, and only their aggrandizement. These are essentially the same people that have serious human rights abuses domestically. And there is no accountability whatsoever anymore. This claim against Iran is an act of throwing stones in glass houses.
buffalo soldier,buffalo
Sun, 10/03/2010 - 09:26 — Anonymous (not verified)buffalo soldier,buffalo president soldier=Buffalo Obama
Thank you for reporting on
Sun, 10/03/2010 - 21:31 — Anonymous (not verified)Thank you for reporting on this, Mr. Leopold. We must hold our officials accountable on issues of human rights and torture.
They cannot simply point the finger elsewhere, and expect to be regarded as possessing moral collateral, when they are doing the same thing.
The hope of the world lies with the ordinary people of every nation. We will not allow them to drive us into war with Iran, just as the good people of Iran will not allow their leaders to drive them into war with us.
Let us develop energy independence through alternative resources and to hell with the bloody oil companies that fuel, not only cars, but this mass death march.
"The hypocrisy has passed
Mon, 10/04/2010 - 08:40 — Ron (not verified)"The hypocrisy has passed virtually unnoticed in the mainstream US news media."
Ask Rich Sanchez about what happens to media people who talk about subjects they're not supposed to. Any reporter foolish enough to query Clinton on U.S. torture, etc., would soon be pounding the streets.
Wide Asleep in America's
Mon, 10/04/2010 - 11:57 — Jabbawock (not verified)Wide Asleep in America's Nima Shirazi wrote a similar piece about this blatant imperial hypocrisy last Wednesday. Check it out:
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2010/09/international-flaw-with-new-iran.html
Great article, Jason, keep up the good work.
Obama presides over Human
Wed, 10/06/2010 - 03:36 — Anonymous (not verified)Obama presides over Human Rights Age of Darkness, not much difference with Dubbya,its understandable he would`t permit Bush to be taken to Court,if he does it, he will risk it himself.
Ron, which subject did Rick
Wed, 10/06/2010 - 11:24 — NoOneYouKnow (not verified)Ron, which subject did Rick Sanchez talk about that he's not supposed to? That "The Jews" control the media? http://www.slate.com/id/2270045
That might be a start, but I'm tired of schooling lazy-thinking bigots.
As for Obama's "stopping torture," he hasn't. We know that JSOC/CIA have been operating black prisons in Afghanistan, Camp No is probably still operating at Gitmo, and the CIA lies in its sleep; if it still has employees, it's still torturing people. Also, it seems likely that the Honduran coup regime is getting American assistance with its death squads and torturing, as the US has been providing those benefits to rightwing regimes for decades.
Obama's not just protecting torturers and murderers, he's abetting and creating new ones. Helluva guy, right?