OPPRESSED AND OPPRESSORS: THE ERGENEKON DOG AND PONY SHOW

"From the beginning of their first term the AKP, starting from their leader to the lowest-ranking party member, created and shared a mythology of being oppressed."
~ Ece Temelkuran.

It looks like Leyla Zana may be going to prison for ten years. From the BBC:

A Turkish court has sentenced a Kurdish politician to 10 years in prison for spreading propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The court ruled that Leyla Zana had violated the penal code and the anti-terror law in nine different speeches.

Ms Zana, 47, has already spent 10 years in prison for links to the PKK, though that conviction was later overturned.

Ms Zana was not in court, and this latest conviction will not be imposed until her appeal has been heard.

Her lawyer called the sentence an "unfortunate" decision in a country working to join the European Union, and said her client's words were well within the bounds of free speech.

The prosecution sought a sixty year conviction for Leyla's crimethink. She had spoken out in London earlier this year when she spoke in London. Hevallo also had an eyewitness report on Leyla's speech in the UK parliament.

The next step will be to hear the outcome of the appeals process. I wonder if all the world's liberals will be concerned with the case of this Sakharov prize winner this time around? I'm inclined to doubt it. Our only friends are the mountains.

Of course, Leyla's conviction, and all similar prosecutions, expose clearly the weakness of the Ankara regime, which functions out of terror that truth will be spoken and heard.

Speaking of liberals, there's a very good article at Counterpunch from a Turkish Leftist, female political columnist. Thanks to the Vineyardsaker for sending the link. From the heart of the article:

A friend from the socialist left stopped me on the street the other day. His voice was anxious: “You know what, maybe you should not write about Ergenekon for a while”. He paused and sulked: “I think the way you do on this issue but you know… They made two little boxes: a Kemalist box and a liberal one. Even if you don’t fit to either of the boxes they break your arms or legs and make you fit one of them at the end. They don’t open a third box for you. This is a dangerous political climate and we are all going to be wasted in the end”.

He is right. If you ask questions about the indictment, or even if you express your concern about the seriousness of the case, there you go into the Kemalist box. If you clap your hands whenever you hear the name of the Ergenekon case, then you can be considered a democrat and can inhabit the same box as those I mentioned above. In that box the concept of democracy is reduced to freedom of faith, and its links to social justice or equality have been cut mercilessly. That is why in Turkey at the moment, if you are coming from the left, in order to be recognized as ‘not a fascist’ you are obliged to bow your head before right-wing perceptions of democracy. Even though it was the left that has been the ultimate victim of the deep state, they are for the time being the ones accused of being the deep state itself. This discourse or political climate has such a strong character that even the most intelligent and experienced spin doctors on the left have been stammering since last January about the Ergenekon case. Meanwhile the right-wing democrats, the liberals, are making noise saying that this time the gang was caught before it managed to carry out the coup. Thank god, the AKP government at the last minute busted them in the very act!

This reduction of politics to barren dualities didn’t actually start with the Ergenekon case; on the contrary, it had already been creating an intellectual industry with interesting products since the political polarization deepened with the start of the AKP’s second term. On almost every news channel there are talk-shows featuring a pro-AKP liberal democrat and an anti-AKP democrat. Since their controversies are the product on sale, these programs are visually exaggerated as well. In one of them, before the show begins they show two tigers attacking each other and in another program one, side has a black, the other a white background. The AKP, beyond its other achievements, gave Turkey this amazing present: intellectual and political discussions are now made in little boxes between black-and-white tigers!

I urge a close reading of the entire piece, particularly for the history that is recounted and the role of the Islamists in that history, particularly the fact that the Fethullahcı were founded in the wake of the 12 September coup. Not coincidentally, that was the same timeframe that saw the implementation of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis and Turkish Hezbollah.

Finally, check Hevallo's recent post on defense lobby conflicts of interest in the UK. What a shock--they are linked to Lockheed Martin! Or, maybe not so shocking.

CHANGE? YOU SAY YOU WANT CHANGE?

"Barack Obama's first appointment, that of Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, is quite frankly unsettling and suggests that voters who had hoped for real change in Washington will be disappointed."
~ Philip Giraldi.

Thanks to the heval who sent me this piece of interesting information, from Reuters:

Russia has evidence that citizens from NATO member states including the United States and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day August war, Russia's top investigator said on Monday.

A senior security official in Tbilisi dismissed the statement and said by law only Georgian nationals could serve in the country's armed forces.

Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: "America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Turkey."

OOPS!

I guess that's why Russian special ops types were joking around about invading Turkey:

"Next time we should invade Turkey. It's nice down there," said the second soldier, who wore a ski mask and drank bottles of beer with Georgian lettering on them.

On the other hand, maybe the Russian wasn't joking. And as for the secretary of Georgia's security council blowing off the information, I wouldn't be so quick to do that. After all, Condoleeza Rice admits that Georgia started the war and that great whore of the American media, the NYTimes finally admitted at the beginning of this month that Georgia started the war . . . in sharp distinction to everything else it ever published on the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia.

So who are you going to believe? The Russians or some Mickey Mouse Georgian security council dude?

I hope the Russians holds everyone's feet to the fire over this Reuters report of foreign fighters doing their dirty deeds for Georgia and the US.

And now, for those of you who wanted change and thought you would get it with a new American administration, you need to spend 36 minutes of your time and listen to a recent interview by Scott Horton with Philip Giraldi, here.

Some of you may remember Philip Giraldi's name from a number of Rastî posts about the Sibel Edmonds case. Once upon a time, Giraldi served as the CIA's Istanbul chief of base. In the interview linked above, Giraldi talks about Obama's pick as White House chief of staff, the congressman from Illinois, Rahm Emanuel.

Like Obama, Emanuel comes from Chicago. Chicago was the hub of Turkish activity in the US on the FBI wiretaps that Sibel Edmonds translated. From the Vanity Fair article:

. . . One counter-intelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case has told Vanity Fair that the F.B.I. opened an investigation into covert activities by Turkish nationals in the late 1990’s. That inquiry found evidence, mainly via wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians in at least two major cities—Washington and Chicago. Toward the end of 2001, Edmonds was asked to translate some of the thousands of calls that had been recorded by this operation, some dating back to 1997.

[ . . . ]

. . . Vanity Fair has established that around the time the Dickersons visited the Edmondses, in December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

[ . . . ]

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates.

The Turkish "cultural" crowd in Chicago would appear to be problematic. The Turkish "cultural" crowd in Chicago has been active in fundraising for other politicos besides Dennis Hastert, including one Mehmet Çelebi. Çelebi was a big time fundraiser for the politico who's been nominated to become Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. From Luke Ryland:

In the meantime, another important angle to Edmonds' case has opened up. Earlier this week, the New York Post ran a Page 6 piece, ODD FILM BY HILLARY BACKER, which highlights the close relationship between Hillary Clinton and Chicago-based Turkish businessman Mehmet Celebi.

Celebi, "one of the national leaders of the Turkish-American community in the US," is a key fundraiser for Clinton, and is one of Clinton's Chicago delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Celebi was also heavily involved in the controversial 2006 movie "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq" which has been widely regarded as "anti-Semitic, anti-American, conspiratorial agitprop."

Mehmet Celebi is also a key figure in the Sibel Edmonds case - he is heavily involved in the narcotics trade in the US and the corruption and bribery of high-level US officials.

According to Celebi's bio:


"He has been serving as the President of the Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) since 2000, and as Member of the Board/Vice-President of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA), a Washington, D.C. based umbrella organization representing 57 organizations."


The Chicago-based Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) and the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) both figure prominently in Sibel Edmonds' case. Both are reported to be front groups for criminal activity involving illegal weapons sales, narcotics trafficking, and the bribery and corruption of high level US officials.

Mehmet Celebi first came to my attention in my first interview with Sibel in January 2006. My notes from that interview read:


"Sibel mentioned the mafia nature of the Turkish business establishment - in particular she mentioned Celebi as one of the key players - apparently they are involved in an arms trading cartel, and they ship narcotics in the cargo of their planes as they zoom around.

"One of the Celebi family members (Mehmet Celebi) is chairman of the Turkish American Cultural Association (TACA) in Illinois. (Sibel has often pointed to both Chicago, and also to 'cultural exchanges')."


TACA and the ATAA were both targets of an FBI counter-intelligence operation investigating the corruption and bribery of high-level US officials from 1997 onward, including the period when Celebi had high level positions at these organizations.

But Clinton wasn't the only one Çelebi has raised funds for. He's fundraised for Rahm Emanuel as well (The photo below shows Emanuel, center, and Çelebi, far right):

Well-versed in international policies, Emanuel acknowledges the importance of Turkey in such a strategic part of the world. "I encourage the continuation of strong ties between Turkey and Israel and would urge European governments to admit Turkey into EU as soon as possible," he said. "Such a move would benefit the U.S. which is highly appreciative of Turkey's membership in NATO."

Emanuel said he would support the construction of the pipeline to go through Turkey. He also touched upon the Cyprus controversy as a difficult challenge and said he did not know enough about the Turkish point of view dealing with the Armenian conflict of 90 years ago

Mehmet Celebi, TACA's president promised to send him material on the Ottoman-Armenian conflict and encouraged him "to keep politicians out of the debate and analysis of historical events that took place during the demise of the Ottoman Empire." Historians, not politicians, should research and write about this subject, was the consensus of those attending the meeting.

Here's a photo from Yeni Şafak, which shows Clinton on the left and Çelebi on the right:




Remember that the Clinton administration gave more arms to Turkey than anyone else in US history. I do mean "gave" because those arms were funded 80% by the US taxpayer, meaning they were virtual freebies for Turkey.

Remember that in February, Bill Clinton left no doubt as to Hillary's support for Turkey:

"Turkey is a very significant country for us. We need to have good relations with Turkey. The biggest contribution to this will come from Hillary. There will be great progress in relations if Hillary is elected."

He went on to thank the many Turks who "contribute a lot to Hillary's election campaign" and assured readers that relations with Turkey will prosper under a Hillary administration.

She can do all of that as the head of the State Department.

Remember the Clean Break Strategy of the neocons, specifically Perle, Feith, and their International Advisors, Inc., which have also been brought up in connection with Sibel Edmonds' information. More on that can be found at The Nation.

Remember, too, that they're all running together--Hillary Clinton, Mehmet Çelebi, Rahm Emanuel, and the American Deep State.

Is that the change you voted for . . . chumps?

THE DEEP STATE'S CANDIDATE

"We should work more to both protect the Kurds and make sure they will not provide shelter to terrorists in their territory."
~ Hillary Clinton.

A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for the war industry, according to Britain's Independent. The military-industrial complex (MIC) realizes that the Republicans stand a proverbial snowball's chance of winning the White House in the next election, so the employees of the MIC have chosen Hillary with their campaign bucks:

Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency [Bullshit--Mizgîn]. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.

Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon – gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

In spite of what the article says about Bill Clinton's relationship with the military itself--certainly not as cozy a relationship as he had with any number of women--Bill Clinton was the MIC's dream come true. From Multinational Monitor, 1995:

Arms industry lobbyists say they are delighted with the Clinton administration’s record. “Clinton has been very helpful through [Commerce Secretary] Ron Brown,” says Ana Stout, executive vice president of the American League for Export Assistance, Inc., an industry association that promotes unimpeded defense sales to U.S. “friends and allies.”

“We’re quite satisfied with what we see the thrust of the policy to be,” adds Joel Johnson, vice president for international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association. “It’s 180 degrees different from Carter. They won’t throw up obstacles to every arms sale to every country. The Clinton people are very supportive of specific sales. They are more dynamic than any administration we’ve seen.”

Under the sidebar:

A fellow NATO ally, the United States is Turkey’s closest military partner. Between 1987 and 1991, 77 percent of all arms deliveries to Turkey came from the United States, according to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

For fiscal years 1986-1995, Congress has appropriated $5.1 billion in military aid for Turkey, making it the third-largest recipient after Israel and Egypt. In terms of commercial sales, Turkey is the fifth-largest consumer of U.S. arms after Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan and Egypt. Turkey bought $9.4 billion in U.S. arms during fiscal years 1984-1993. In 1994 alone, Turkey’s counterinsurgency campaign cost an estimated $6.5 billion.

The Clinton administration helped Turkey acquire more cluster bombs, which were used on the Kurdish people:

Human Rights Watch’s Arms Project revealed in December 1994 that the U.S. government is weighing a Turkish request to buy almost 500 U.S.-made CBU-87 Combined Effects Munitions (CEMs), or cluster bombs.

[ . . . ]

One type of bomb the Turkish air force dropped on Zaleh in January of 1994 was the U.S.-made, Vietnam-era Mk20 Rockeye cluster bomb. This is the only cluster bomb now thought to be in the Turkish arsenal. “Turkey already has [cluster bombs] in its inventory,” says an arms lobbyist, who asks not to be identified. “Human rights shouldn’t be involved. What does [blocking new cluster bombs exports] accomplish?”

We know that Turkey is using cluster bombs against the civilian population in South Kurdistan yet again.

And there's more on Bill Clinton's illegal arms transfers to Turkey, from Human Rights Watch and at the Federation of American Scientists.

Let us also remember that our friends at The Cohen Group all worked for the Clinton administration, with William Cohen as Defense Secretary, Marc Grossman in a number of State Department jobs including ambassador to Turkey, and Joseph Ralston as military head of NATO.

Deep State Hillary will not be any better than her husband when it comes to the situation in North Kurdistan? The situation there is a return to the Dirty War, complete with the state's black operations, a new OHAL, and greater efforts at enforcing a media blackout on the area.

In fact, she may be worse; females are always the more deadly of the species.

TREACHERY

“Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.”
~ François de la Rochefoucauld.

The new American-Shi'a alliance has bribed the corrupt Başûrî non-leadership into sending pêşmerge to die for the Arab nation, as I feared a week ago. Here's the story from Reuters:

Three Iraqi army brigades from the Kurdish north and the Shi'ite south will be brought in for a security crackdown in Baghdad seen as central to hopes of averting civil war, a senior Iraqi official said on Sunday.

Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the extra troops were part of the plan which foresees Iraqi forces taking responsibility for inner Baghdad while U.S.-led multinational forces will be in charge of the surrounding areas.

[ . . . ]

Askari said two from the north, mainly Kurdish soldiers, and one from the Shi'ite south would come to Baghdad to take part in the operation which aims to clear areas that are "bases for terrorist groups" and to station troops there permanently to hold them in the long term.

[ . . . ]

Askari said he was confident the additional three brigades would be in place soon, and said the government was also determined to crack down on infiltration by militias in the armed forces.

"There's a plan alongside this security plan to try to clear the ministry of interior and defense ministry of these elements," he said. "It takes time because it's not an easy task.... (but) without it the people will not trust the security forces."

Bullshit. Askari claims it will take time to clear out the whorehouses euphemistically named "Interior Ministry" and "Defense Ministry" because the Shi'a have absolutely no intention of clearing them out, just as they have no intention of making "limited" strikes against the Mehdi Army. Moqtada al-Sadr, whom the Americans have enabled since 2003, is in charge of Baghdad and there will be no strikes against his militia. Al-Maliki, for whom al-Askari works, is al-Sadr's politician. It was these two, and their American allies, who collaborated in rushing the execution of Saddam in order to bury the Anfal trial and their complicity. Yet there is no rush to execute Saddam's co-defendants. In fact, no date has even been set for their executions.

Add to this the fact that the wildly incompetent US military is putting Petraeus in command of the whole enchilada and you will have the recipe for a complete Kurdish disaster because Baghdad is no Fallujah. How many times have I said it before that it is long past time to stop all cooperation with these enemies of Kurdistan?

What will happen to Kurdistan, then, if Turkey invades in the spring, something which is a distinct possibility?

Maşallah for every single PKK gerîla who ever drew breath or ever will draw breath! They are the ones who are left in the North to protect Kurdistan from the animals out to destroy her. For the people of Başûr, it is time for serhildan. It is time to call the corrupt leadership to accountability. The PUK has reached critical mass and has imploded due to nepotism and corruption, charges which can also be applied to the KDP and its control over the KRG. If anyone still has any doubts, compare today's situation with history. Or reminisce with this editorial from KurdistanObserver, February, 2003. In all this time, nothing has changed.

Let the PUK reformers take over and let us see if they have the will to work only for Kurdistan. Let them begin talking immediately with all other Kurdish political organizations, intellectuals, and politicians, including those in Diaspora, with emphasis on one, united Kurdish voice. It is also time to give the US notice that all of their business contracts in South Kurdistan will be immediately cancelled if the US insists that Kurdish pêşmerge deploy to Baghdad. All the people of Kurdistan should show their support for these efforts by a general strike in the South as well as in all parts of occupied Kurdistan.

While the US prepares for its change of strategy in Iraq, now is the golden opportunity to bring Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan together to stand up against a common enemy.

Berxwedan jîyan e û jîyan berxwedan e!


In relation to something I posted about The Oil Pashas back in December, check Britain's Independent for more:

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

What a shock. If the oil pashas are pocketing up to "three-quarters of profits," how is that supposed to help anyone . . . except the oil pashas?

Greg Muttitt, a researcher for Platform, a human rights and environmental group which monitors the oil industry, said Iraq was being asked to pay an enormous price over the next 30 years for its present instability. "They would lose out massively," he said, "because they don't have the capacity at the moment to strike a good deal."

[ . . . ]

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the international government watchdog, said: "It is not an exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi] parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire."

But all of the politicians who have been hard at work crafting the oil law will certainly benefit personally. That would be politicians like Barham Salih. There's more at another Independent article on the same subject:

Despite US and British denials that oil was a war aim, American troops were detailed to secure oil facilities as they fought their way to Baghdad in 2003. And while former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld shrugged off the orgy of looting after the fall of Saddam's statue in Baghdad, the Oil Ministry - alone of all the seats of power in the Iraqi capital - was under American guard.

Halliburton, the firm that Dick Cheney used to run, was among US-based multinationals that won most of the reconstruction deals - one of its workers is pictured, tackling an oil fire. British firms won some contracts, mainly in security. But constant violence has crippled rebuilding operations. Bechtel, another US giant, has pulled out, saying it could not make a profit on work in Iraq.

All of this, in spite of what they said:

"Oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people"

Tony Blair; Moving motion for war with Iraq, 18 March 2003

"Oil belongs to the Iraqi people; the government has... to be good stewards of that valuable asset "

George Bush; Press conference, 14 June 2006

"The oil of the Iraqi people... is their wealth. We did not [invade Iraq] for oil "

Colin Powell; Press briefing, 10 July 2003

"Oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50bn and $100bn in two or three years... [Iraq] can finance its reconstruction"

Paul Wolfowitz; Deputy Defense Secretary, March 2003


"By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies"

Dick Cheney; US Vice-President, 1999

WOW! What is that smell? Oh, somebody must have let Baker-Hamilton in.


The mention of Paul Wolfowitz reminds me . . . On another subject, let me direct your attention over to Lukery's place for an excellent read titled, "Sibel Edmonds & the Neocons' Turkish Gravy-Train." The burning question here is why did a recent World Bank report on the Afghani drug industry include only one reference to Turkey? Here's a snip:

Let's have a closer look at the title of the World Bank report: "Afghanistan's Drug Industry: Structure, Functioning, Dynamics, and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy"

Note that this isn't a report 'about Afghanistan' - but about the INDUSTRY - and given that Afghanistan supplies 90% of the global heroin market, we might expect to read in the report at least something about the major purchasers of Afghani product.We might even expect to learn something about the major traffickers. We might even expect to learn something about the major trafficking routes. Right?

In fact, the title of the report promises to look at the "Structure, Functioning, Dynamics, and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy" - and the report does pretend to cover many of these issues, using fancy terms like 'value chain analysis,' 'vertical price structure' and 'price margins at different stages' and so on - all the things that you'd expect to find in an industry analysis. However, the analysis is conducted primarily (with some notable, and telling, exceptions) on an 'in-country' basis - which is essentially meaningless for analysing a global industry. This World Bank report is akin to an attempt to understand the global soft-drink market by looking really, really closely at the logistics around Atlanta - and as Sibel suggests, the 'frame of reference' of this report is unlikely to be an accident, and is most likely an intentional attempt to whitewash Turkey's role in the heroin industry.

Lukery then cites information from a State Department report which dishes out a lot of dirt on Turkey's involvement in the global and illegal narcotics industry:

That's quite straightforward - Turkey is a key player up and down the value chain - yet the comprehensive 228 page report from Paul Wolfowitz' World Bank essentially ignores Turkey's role using various mechanisms of sophistry and mendacity - just as Sibel predicted.

At least three quarters of all heroin sold in Western Europe comes from Turkey - 4 to 6 tons every month - yet the World Bank report mentions Turkey exactly... once!

[ . . . ]

Why would Wolfowitz want to erase any mention of Turkey from his report?

From there, it gets into Deep State, the Genelkurmay Baskanligi's business interests, the American defense industry and illegal gun-running to places like Pakistan and China . . . and I will leave it at that because I think you should go read it for yourself. Make sure you check out all the links, too. Lot's of good information there.

Bijît, Lukery, for putting the whole thing together for us!