Donald Rumsfeld (Rummy) contributed to the propaganda to justify invading Iraq with a set of notions: Rumsfeld argued that we have the “known knowns” which are the things that we know that we know.

Then, we have the “known unknowns,” which are the things we know that we don’t know (for example, we know there are cars on Main Street, but we may not know how many, or exactly where they are).

Thirdly, Rumsfeld argued, we have the “unknown unknowns,” or things we don’t even know that we don’t know, and these are the ones that necessitate invading Iraq.

The philosopher, Slavoj Zizek argues that there is a fourth category that Rumsfeld failed to mention: the “unknown knowns.”

These are the prejudices we have, and the assumptions that we make, which we may not even be aware of.

I thought of this when I heard the government was very upset about the current scandal in Afghanistan.

I was thinking how strange it is that we are abhorred by our soldiers urinating on the dead bodies of Afghans, but shooting them aroused no ire whatsoever.

We assume shooting poor people in a country that we invaded under false premises 10 years ago is OK. Kill them, yes, but don’t pee on them.

Nelson Strasser lives in Kelseyville, Calif.