There was a discussion on this list recently about support of the invasion of Iraq on the part of a student.  Here is an interview with an American student who opposed the invasion and went to Baghdad as the bombing began with a so-called 'Christian Peacemaking Team'.  An unusual thing to do, but 
indicative in some ways of widespread opposition to the war from church leaders worldwide.

-- 

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: Getting in the Way

http://www.globalengagement.org/issues/2003/04/jwhiniraq.htm


Twenty-four hours after George W. Bush handed Saddam Hussein a 48-hour ultimatum, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove left Philadelphia for Baghdad.

Though an American headed for Iraq in a time of war, Wilson-Hartgrove was on a mission that was decidedly non-military in nature. Joined by his wife, 
Leah, the long-time IGE Research Associate and Eastern University senior was headed to Baghdad as a member of a Christian Peacemaking Teams (CPT) delegation. Over the next 14 days, the nine Americans would secure Iraqi visas, make the perilous journey across the desert from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad, and spend four unsettling days in the besieged Iraqi capital.

During their trip, the Wilson-Hartgroves were never far from the thoughts and prayers of IGE staff. But for many here, questions persisted. Of course, there were the obvious concerns -- how was Jonathan doing today? Would he and Leah make it home in one piece? However, more strategic questions lingered as well: Wasn't this course of action simply naïve? What good could this possibly do? While informed and shaped by IGE's internal ethos, Wilson-Hartgrove had taken this action on his own, and some questioned his methodology.

On the afternoon of April 7, IGE Vice President for Education Chris Hickey sat down with the recently returned Research Associate to talk about his time in Iraq and the motives that drove him there.


You recently spent two weeks with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the Middle East, a good chunk of that time in Iraq. Tell me a little bit about CPT-how 
they got started and what their story is.

Christian Peacemaker Teams was founded about fifteen years ago by the historical peace churches ? the Anabaptist denominations. These are the churches that are pacifist in their theology, but this organization was founded because some folks said that if we say we believe in non-violence, we have to be able to put it into practice in the face of evil. So they put 
together teams that will go into violent areas and "get in the way," which is their slogan. They get in between the violent parties and try to find creative ways, by the Spirit's leading, to be there and to be a presence for peace in the midst of violence. They work in Hebron in the West Bank, in Columbia, in Haiti, and on some Native American reservations in the United States and Canada. They've also some short-term projects in other areas, but I think those are the regular teams.


Now, you said that CPT's mantra is "getting in the way." But in various interviews you did leading up to your trip and since the trip, you insisted 
that you weren't going as a human shield. The two sound very similar to the 
outsider. How do you distinguish between the two?

The situation in Iraq is such that "human shields" there have been solicited and employed by the Iraqi government. People who were going into Iraq as human shields were registering at the border, and then the Iraqi government was taking them and placing them at sites where they wanted them 
to be. We felt like in that situation it was important not to be a shield because, just as you hold a shield in one hand so you can wield a sword with the other, we felt like to be a shield for the Iraqi government would be to enable their sword of violence. On the other hand, being a human shield in other places can be much more like a mother covering her child in 
the midst of a disaster. So CPT has done that, for example, in Hebron, standing in front of Israeli bulldozers.


Tell me a little bit about how you and your wife, Leah, came to the decision that going to Iraq with CPT was what God would have you do.

It was a long process of us trying to discern within our church community what the proper response to this conflict would be. At our church we'd been 
studying Revelation in the context of the global situation, and were pretty 
much asking, what does it mean to be a witness for peace in the midst of this? One of the things that we said is that some of the people in the church should be with those who are suffering from violence. We decided when we learned about the CPT delegation that, at least for this short period of time, that could be us. So we prayed about it and fasted a bit and then, along with the church, made the decision to do this. And they commissioned us and blessed us and sent us off. It was from December, when we first started asking those questions, until mid-March when we actually left.


So you had been laying plans for a while. Then the president gives his 48 hour ultimatum 24 hours before you leave. Suddenly, the abstract concept of 
being in Iraq becomes a different sort of thing. What was going through your mind as you prepared to leave in those last hours?

We knew that the conflict had been escalating all along, and so there was at least the threat that war would begin while we were there. And we were obviously concerned that there would be bombs falling as we were going in and as we were there with the people. But then we thought that, if that was 
going to be the case, then that was really at the very heart of what we were going there to do. We were going to be with the people while they were 
suffering from violence. So we went with full knowledge that that might happen and were ready to be in there in the middle of that.


You land in Amman, Jordan, and find, not much to your surprise, that it's not easy to get into Iraq. You spent a number of days in Jordan. Tell me a little bit about that time and the process of trying to get into Iraq.

We spent five days sending someone every morning to the Iraqi Embassy to ask once again, "Has the letter come from Baghdad?" And every morning the answer was, "No, please come back tomorrow. No, please come back tomorrow." 
Until, on the fifth day, the fellow behind the desk said, "Maybe we can do something here." By the end of the day, we had our visas. Through those five days there was a lot of waiting, a lot of praying, a lot of trying to figure out if we should try to do something else. We considered going over to the West Bank or to some of the refugee camps that were being set up in Jordan and Syria. But there really was a sense among the team that we had come to go to Baghdad and we would get there if we would just wait and be patient and be faithful in making our request. Jesus said that even an unjust judge, if you ask persistently enough, will grant your request. And maybe that was the case here. We just kept asking and finally they said, "Come on in."


In that context of your time in Amman, when did the military strikes by the 
U.S. start?

It was the early morning hours of our first night there. We went to sleep and when we woke up the next morning the bombs had started falling on Baghdad.


And what was the local reaction in Amman?

Almost everyone we spoke to in Jordan was outraged that the United States would engage in a war without U.N. approval. Being an Arabic country, they very much feel a sense of brotherhood with the people of Iraq ? as they do with the Palestinians. And they understand those two conflicts to be very much connected.

I went down stairs in the hotel early that first morning in Amman, just after the bombing had begun, and I saw a copy of the Jordan Times with George Bush and Colin Powell's faces on the front page. Someone had drawn a 
Star of David on each of their foreheads. Very much, they see a connection between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the American-Iraqi war that had just begun. So, yes, they were angry.


After five days of waiting, you get in. You get your visas. You were going to join some folks who were already in Baghdad. How many CPT-ers were already in Baghdad?

There were six in Baghdad, and ten of us were going to meet them.



Tell me about your trip across the desert.

We drove in the middle of a dust storm, so the trip was intense the whole way, just trying to keep visibility. We saw along the way a number of vehicles that had been bombed out along the sides of the road. They were eerily left there, charred with their doors open. And we wondered if the people got out or not.

On our way in, we crossed the Iraqi/American lines. We came to a point where we saw a car on the right shoulder burning. When we passed through the smoke of the car, we saw four Iraqi soldiers with their guns on the ground and their hands in the air, and we quickly realized that a U.S. Special Forces unit was in the process of taking them prisoner. And we had driven into the midst of that. The U.S. troops motioned for us to stop, so we sat for about five seconds staring at them as they pointed their guns at 
us and tried to figure out what to do. Then we saw them hurriedly waving us 
to move on, and we looked back and saw that the Iraqi troops were running toward our vehicles, evidently trying to use this situation as a getaway. So we drove off and narrowly escaped a bad situation there.


Your drivers were Iraqis?

They were Iraqis who had been in Jordan and wanted to go back home to Baghdad. They were part of a taxi service. But they had ended up outside of 
their country and wanted to get back in. There weren't a whole lot of people going into Baghdad, but these two wanted to go back in. It took us about fourteen hours to make the trip.


Tell me about your time in Baghdad and what it was like to be an American in enemy territory during wartime.

When we got there, bombs had been falling for six days at that point. So there was that sense of fear that you would expect when bombs are falling. The ground shakes when you hear them and you sense that your life could be in danger. However, it was surprising to see how much life went on for the Iraqi people. As we were driving into town we saw a man plowing his field on the outskirts of Baghdad. We got into town and saw kids playing soccer in the street. The day after the dust storm, when we woke up, we saw people 
out in the street washing their cars. There were fresh vegetables in the market and most shops were open the days we were there. We realized that we 
were with a people that had been at war for twenty-some years and who very much understand that life goes on, even in the midst of war.

As far as being the "enemy" in enemy territory, it was striking to see how much the Iraqis are able to distinguish between the American people and the 
American government. And how they were able to recognize why we were there and who we were. Everyone we met told us, "We understand why you are here. We appreciate you being with us during this time. We love the American people. We wish you could choose a better president, but we love the American people, and we're glad to have you here." We received some wonderful hospitality from people who invited us in and offered us drinks and food.


And your days were spent doing what?

Because the bombing had started we visited bomb sites. We went and talked to the people ? talked to them about their families, about who had been hurt. We also visited a hospital and talked to the patients who were there. 
Many of them had been victims of shrapnel from bombings. We went to a monument from the 1991 Gulf War, the Amariya shelter which is in Baghdad. It was hit by U.S. forces in the Gulf War because some U.S. intelligence said there were munitions in the bottom of this building where 408 women and children were during the bombing. They bombed through the people to get 
to the munitions that weren't actually there. And we walked through it with 
a woman whose daughter died there and we heard that story from her. So we did those sorts of things.


Around day four you ran into some trouble. Tell me a little bit about that and what led to your expulsion from the country.

We woke up to a bomb very close to our hotel the last Friday morning, and we got up, got dressed, and went out to see what had happened. It was about 
eight o'clock by the time we got out there. A communications center had been bombed. It was about three blocks from our hotel. Across the street from this center, as we were walking toward it, some men in a hotel came out and invited us to come and see what had happened to their hotel. We went in, and they showed us stained glass that had been blown out, and it was scattered on the floor in there. And they showed where they'd been sleeping close by on some bed rolls, and the older man showed us that he'd been so afraid that he urinated on himself. They were just really shaken by 
the experience.

But, again, these folks were also very hospitable. They went into the back and grabbed cases of Pepsi and brought them out and said, "We're glad to have you here, and we'd appreciate it if you'd take pictures and tell people what has happened to our hotel." So we did. We took some pictures, and as we were going out of the hotel, one of the guys with us had a video camera and was videoing the glass that was on the ground in front of the hotel. Some Iraqi police drove by and saw a white guy with a video camera on the street and were suspicious. They came over and asked us who we were, 
what we were doing. We explained that we were with the peace team, but I think these guys were really nervous. They had picked up 150 spies from Kuwait and Jordan the day before, and were anxious about people being that close to a bomb site with cameras. So they arrested us, took us to the police station, and we spent about four hours there. They were very nice to 
us. They gave us food and water and didn't put us in the cells. They kept us in the chief's office. Then our foreign ministry representative came and 
met us after about four hours and told us that we shouldn't have been at a bomb site without any supervision and that we would have to leave the country.


So you drive back across the desert. What was that like?

We had a car accident at Rutba, which is about four-fifths of the way out. We were almost to the Jordanian border, in a convoy of three cars. The back 
car evidently hit a piece of shrapnel in the road. The road was scattered with all sorts of stuff. And our drivers were moving very quickly because they were nervous and knew that just like the cars on the sides of the road 
that were bombed out, they could easily be hit by these fighter jets that were flying overhead frequently. So at about 70 mph the car hit a piece of shrapnel, the tire blew, and they ran off in a ditch. Everyone in the car was injured, some more seriously than others.

We were in the front car and didn't realize this immediately, so some folks 
stopped and told us that this had happened. We got back to the car and our friends weren't there. We assumed that someone had taken them to town, which was indeed the case. A car of Iraqis had come by almost just as it happened, and they took all the folks there into their car, bleeding and everything, and they took them into town. These guys were nervous too. They 
understood that people were getting bombed on that road. But they risked their lives to pick up our friends and take them into Rutba, which is where 
we found them. We drove into town and asked where the hospital was, and they said, "Come, come, we'll show you."

And they took us to their children's hospital that had been bombed three days before. They said, "Look, our hospital has been bombed. Why did your government do this?" And we said, "We're terribly sorry about your hospital, but we're really looking for our friends who were brought here." And they said, "Oh yes, yes, they're down at the clinic." So we went down there and found them. They had taken wonderful care of them. They stitched up our friend Cliff's head. They saved his life. Then we got everyone into two vehicles and headed out of town. And as we were leaving, we asked them, 
"What do we owe you? What can we pay you?" And they said, "Nothing. It's something we would do for anyone who's hurt. Please just tell the world what has happened in Rutba.

You've been back now for a little less than a week. Obviously it's been a busy time for you, not only with press interviews, but also, I assume, many 
conversations with friends and family. What kind of reactions have you gotten?

A lot of our families and friends are happy we're alive, so they give us big hugs. A lot of the media, especially for the first few days, just wanted the first-hand report from inside. So they were calling and asking us for that. We're not entirely convinced that much good can come of that, so we tried to steer clear as much as we could. But, some other media and some people who heard the story through e-mail and such really wanted to hear more about why we did this and what we learned and what we saw. Those have been good conversations to have. It's really been good to hear from folks who say, "You know, you've helped me see the kingdom of God in a new light, and I want to thank you for that." Those have been really encouraging conversations.


Let's talk a little bit about that. When you first left to go, I tried to think of words to describe what you were doing ? "brave," "act of faith," 
"an act of courage." But, on the other hand, there was part of me that thought, "Isn't this naïve to think that you can go off as a well-to-do American, traipse through the desert, show up without really knowing anything about the country, and think that you'll make a difference?" What's your response to that sort of critique? I'm sure you've heard it from some folks. And if you haven't, I'm sure some folks have at least thought it.

I think it would have been naïve if we had thought we could stop the war. 
We had no illusions that we could do that. I think it would have been naïve if we had thought that we would be received with open arms. We were actually surprised at how well we were received by the people there. But, I 
do think, in some ways, that it was "foolish" in the way that I really do believe God calls us to be foolish ? to proclaim the kingdom in the midst 
of a world that really doesn't believe that the kingdom is possible because 
it's not what we see in the politics of this world. In that sense I'm not going to argue with the folks who say, "That's a crazy thing to do." I mean, I agree. If you only believe in the political realities that we see, then it would be a crazy thing to do. But we believe in a kingdom that is more powerful than the U.S. government and certainly more loving. So we wanted to go and proclaim that kingdom to the people there, and, perhaps more importantly, to the people here ? people who know us better than the 
Iraqis know us.


Let me go back to this issue of press coverage. Many people might look at this, especially if they are not aware of CPT's longer history, simply as a 
"stunt" to get the attention of the press. Generally, citizens of super-powers don't traipse off to impoverished nations that the super power 
is bombing. So it's certainly going to draw attention. How did you handle the press coverage you got? I would imagine that this was probably the first time that you've had to deal at that level with members of the press.

Is it a stunt? Well, if a stunt is something done to draw attention to the people doing it, then no. But, was it an intentionally public act that was meant to draw attention to something? Yeah. We intentionally stepped into a 
global conflict because we wanted to draw attention to Jesus and to Jesus' way of non-violence in the world. So, in that sense, it was a direct action 
? the sort of non-violent direct action that I see Jesus doing all the time when I read the gospels. You know, if you ride a donkey from the Mount of Olives down into Jerusalem you're doing a "stunt" in a very real sense. So I guess that's the first half of your question. The second half was, How do 
you deal with the media?


I guess the way I mean it is this: I would think that for a 22 year-old kid 
from King, NC, this could easily go to your head. So as a Christian who believes in humility and, in many cases, doing things in secret, how do you 
balance those competing issues?

I don't have a lot of confidence in mainstream news media's ability to convey the heart of the matter in most things. So, the media attention that 
we've gotten hasn't been extremely attractive to me or to Leah. We just don't think the world is going to change by doing flashy things for the media. However, we were somewhat impressed by a few of the journalists who really wanted to get at the truth of this story ? particularly Jim O'Neill at the Philadelphia Inquirer. I felt like he really understood the story and understood what we were doing and why we were doing it. And he wanted to tell that story to other people. But he was also writing back and forth with us, telling us about the calls he was getting and the people he was talking to and the responses they were having. That was good to see. It was 
good to see that even these large structures are made up of people ? and that those people can get excited about the kingdom of God.


As you know, here at IGE we're all about being used by God but also thinking strategically about how that happens on a global stage. So we've developed these principles that you know well, one of which is, "Sense God's timing." Given that you had several hundred thousand American and British troops amassed, a lot of angry Iraqis and, by I think everybody's admission, a cruel dictator who wouldn't know a human right if it slapped him in the face ? all together in one place ? why did you think of this as the right time to do what you did?

I think IGE is right that you should sense God's timing. I think it's also true that if you're going to do that, you need a strategy and a method. I think the method for sensing God's timing is watching the world and reading 
the Scriptures and praying and fasting in a community of believers, which is what we did. That was the process for us. We were praying with our church and trying to discern what God wanted us to do, and because we believe that the way of Jesus is intentionally confrontational while also being non-violent, we thought that this particular situation was one in which we could be a witness to that way of peace in the world and we could be there ? though as a small community ? in the midst of that violence, and we could practice the way of the cross that Jesus taught us.


When you go into that sort of complex, awful situation, there will inevitably be a "law of unintended consequences" ? things will happen which you would have never intended at all. While it sounds as though your motive, from a Christian perspective, was one of denying self, putting yourself at risk ? clearly Christian motives ? aren't there certain unintended consequences? For instance, the taxi drivers that take you into Baghdad who are putting themselves at risk. In many ways you could argue that, in a sense, you were jeopardizing others by doing what you did. How do you respond to that?

I think the real question is, were we jeopardizing the taxi drivers or was the U.S. government jeopardizing them? I mean, they were dropping the bombs. I think it was certainly a situation where a lot more people than our particular drivers and just us were at risk. A good deal of the civilian population of Iraq was at risk because there were bombs falling all over the place.

Are there unintended consequences when you do things like this? Sure. I know there are. I've read enough sociology to know that there are always unintended consequences. But what does that call us to do? I think it causes us to try to be wise ? to try to think strategically and carefully 
when we do things like this. But I don't think that the law of unintended consequences should paralyze us, because ultimately we have to act to the best of our ability in the world that exists. We have to act as faithfully as we know how in the time and the place where we are.


In a sense one could look at you and Leah and see a lifetime of service, a lifetime of ministry ahead ? especially at age twenty-two. You've been accepted at Duke Divinity School. Heaven knows you've done some great stuff 
here at IGE, and we have seen the kinds of things that God can do through you. You've got many talents. In a sense, aren't you called to be a steward 
over that? Would the kingdom have been well served by your untimely death? And what would it have gained that wouldn't have been gained by you staying 
here?

I'm not sure what an "untimely" death is. Jesus died at thirty-three or so. 
That seems a little early if you just think about it in terms of, "How do you maximize the potential of a life?" I think it would have been a disservice to the kingdom to be unfaithful to the call that we heard to go and be there. When we went, we knew that we might die. But, then, that's very much a part of what the kingdom is, right? I mean, Jesus said if you're going to be born to new life then you have to die. And I think he meant more than just a spiritual death. He certainly did in his own case. I'm not all that eager to die. I'm glad that we came back alive. But I do think that there's something disturbing about American Christianity that isn't willing to die for much of anything. That's just not the faith that I 
see when I read the gospels and when I read about the early church. We ought to be willing to say that there are some things worth dying for, and that one of those things is that we'd rather die than kill other people in the name of things like justice and liberty and freedom and democracy.


You went to have, in your own language, a "ministry of presence" ? an incarnational ministry. Wasn't that hindered by the very political circumstances you found yourself in ? reporting to a government minder beholden to an oppressive regime?

Well, one of the things I believe in is a witness to the state. So even our 
time with government minders was an opportunity to be a witness. If anybody 
needs the good news of Jesus, I think Iraqi government officials do. I mean, if we'd had an opportunity to talk to Saddam Hussein, I would have been glad to be a witness to him also. So, as far as that goes, it's important to realize that systems are made up of people, and that those people are human beings who can hear and respond to the message that Jesus proclaimed.

But we weren't with government minders all the time. We spent a lot of time 
walking around on the streets around our hotel. We met people and we chatted with them. When we went to a bomb site, even though we were escorted there by government minders, we just walked around and talked to people. The minders often sat on the hood of the car or something. But I don't feel like the Iraqi government was especially good or helpful to us in our attempts to be with the people. We actually got kicked out because we were with people they didn't want us to be with.


What about the charge that by going and standing with the Iraqi people you were, in a sense ? by implication ? standing with a tyrant, with Saddam 
Hussein, with someone who's gassed thousands of his own people? What do you 
say to that?

I would say that we wanted to, on the one hand, clarify that distinction. The U.S. rhetoric has certainly been that there's a difference between the government and the people. We have seen evidence that that's not true. The bombs are hitting people. We saw anti-personnel weapons that were used. You 
don't use those to blow up munitions; you use them to maim people. And we saw them in residential areas. That's deeply disturbing, and part of our presence was to get at the fact that the distinction isn't being made very clearly. If the U.S. government isn't able to distinguish between the two then, yes, they may very well confuse us for being with the government there.

We took intentional steps not to be though. We knew that it would be very easy to get into Iraq if we registered as human shields. Those people got in the day they applied. We refused to do it. We said, "We're not going to be placed wherever the government wants us to be." So that's why we waited for five days. When we got to Iraq, we spent our time with civilians. We weren't placed in front of government buildings or electrical plants or anything like that.


The other charge that people might bring is that you were breaking the law in going to Iraq. As a Christian believer, how do you justify that?

The text that often gets quoted when Christians talk about breaking the law 
is Romans 13 ? that you ought to be subject to the authorities that exist. Studying that passage has been helpful for me because I think it has been important for me to understand the context in which that was written. It wasn't written by the church that was in power and had authority, but, instead, it was written by Paul who was part of a church that was in fact being persecuted by the powers. So what he was saying to the Christians in Rome was, "You should submit to the emperor even when he persecutes you," not, "I have granted you unchecked power; quote this verse when people question it."

Martin Luther King Jr. here in the United States said to people, "Of course 
we submit to the powers. We tell them that they're wrong and we suffer the consequences." And, you know, that was very much a part of the civil rights 
movement ? civil disobedience here in the U.S. We tried to do the same thing. We submitted to the powers in Iraq. When they arrested us we went to 
jail in Iraq. And we submitted to the powers here in the United States. We went against the orders of the U.S. government because we thought they were 
unjust orders. But when we returned to the U.S., we went to the immigration 
office at the airport and said, "We want you to know that we broke the law. 
We went to Iraq against U.S. orders and we broke the sanctions because we took medicines in. We did it because we think those laws are unjust, and we 
hope you'll let us come through, conscious of the fact that we're breaking those unjust laws." And they did. They said, "You're alive. Welcome back to 
the United States." So it was one of those confrontations where you have to 
scratch your head and say, "What do laws mean?" If you speak of laws that there are no repercussions for, I'm not sure what that says about them. But 
that was the response of the U.S. government in this case.


Last question. In a number of your interviews before leaving, what you said 
was that part of what you wanted people to hear from your time there was that "Jesus is Lord and America is not." I think it makes for good press, and I think it's true. But, at the same time, doesn't it oversimplify a bit? What I mean by that is that the two ? that is, Jesus and America ? 
might not always be completely contradictory to one another. And some would 
argue that in this case, in fact, the U.S. is doing something that God would approve of ? getting rid of a tyrant and bringing self-determination to a people that have been oppressed for thirty years. Is it possible that in this situation the U.S. may, even though acting out of self-interest, also be advancing the sorts of things that God would approve of?

Is it possible that God is using this situation? Sure. God's ways are well beyond our understanding. Throughout history God has used the sins of nations to carry out his purposes, and I think it very well may be that the 
United States is sinning and that God will use it. However, is it possible that this action is something that God wants his people to be part of? I don't think so, because I think when we ask that question about possibility, we have to look at it through the lens of Jesus ? God's revelation to us about how human beings should live in the world. "Here's the example: God's going to come and be a human being. Look at him. See how 
he lives." And when we look at Jesus we see that he rejects the temptation in the wilderness to have economic, political and religious power. He turns 
aside from all of those things to follow the way of the cross to Jerusalem and to suffer nonviolently for the sake of the liberation of the whole world. I mean, Jesus liberated the whole world without a single bomb. Why can't his church be faithful to that example today?

Still, I do think it's important to recognize that, as you noted I've said before, "Jesus is Lord and America is not." I think there is a clear dichotomy there on the level of lordship. America should never be lord. Jesus is Lord. It doesn't mean that America is terrible. I mean, all kinds of good things shouldn't be lord. My possessions shouldn't be lord. My wife 
? great person ? but she shouldn't be lord. And I shouldn't worship her. So when I say that Jesus is Lord and America is not, I'm simply trying to remind Americans, who I think I are particularly tempted to worship the idols of our nation, that we're called to follow Jesus. We're called to be members of the kingdom of God. And there's nothing better than that. There's nothing better than that for us, and there's nothing better than that for the United States of America.