Stupidity at high levels of government should offend everyone, especially when an example of it has to do with life and death. I posted a map of the Sunni/Shia breakdown in the middle east a few weeks ago…wasn’t overly complicated, as you had a map with two colors that your average second grader could have memorized and understood, yet we have this:
Willie Hulon (chief of the bureau’s new national security branch), asked by a reporter about the difference between Sunni and Shia muslims:
- Hulon: “The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following”
- Reporter: What about today? Which one is Iran and Hezbollah, Sunni or Shiite?
- Hulon: “Sunni.”
- Reporter: Wrong.
Terry Everett (seven-term Alabama Republican Congressman), VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNICAL AND TACTICAL INTELLIGENCE:
- Reporter: Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?
- Everett: …low chuckle…”One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences with their religion, different families or something.”
Jo Ann Davis (Virginia Republican) – Head of a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information:
- Reporter: Do you know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites?
- Davis: “Do I? You know, I should. It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis who’re more radical than the Shia.”
- Reporter: Do you know which branch Al Qaeda’s leaders follow?
- Davis: “Al Qaeda is the one that’s most radical, so I think they’re Sunni, I may be wrong, but I think that’s right.”
- Reporter: Do you think it’s important for members of Congress charged with oversight of the intelligence agencies, to know the answer to such questions?
- Davis: “Oh, I think it’s very important, because Al Qaeda’s whole reason for being is based on their beliefs. And you’ve got to understand, and know your enemy.”
No intellectual curiosity, nor the desire to even be competent enough to do their jobs!
I thought one group broke their egg on the big end and the other… uh, wrong story.
I’m trying to figure out what you’re eluding to…
menace – shoot me an email (i’ve been tryign to find your email address over the past few days to no avail) – wanted to talk some shop w/ you.
You are basing all this on an opinion column from the New York Times? Not only is this not credible in the slightest, it’s barely journalism.
Hell, I can make up some names and make up phony conversations better than this guy. How about this:
Reporter: How do you feel about gays and blacks?
Made-up Republican: I HATES ’em, kill ’em all.
Reporter: What is 2 + 2
Made-up Republican: Bow down before Jesus lest he molest you!!!
Reporter: Can you spell CAT?
Made-up Republican: HRSDGONN…bring me young boys with which to fondle!!
Reporter: Is it daytime or night time right now?
Made-up Republican: I love war, I love to kill people, YYEAARRRRRGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Hell, I should get a job at the Times.
Show me one of these people denying what the guy wrote then!
Show me one of these people denying what the guy wrote then!
I doubt the Times would give them any sort of rebuttal. I’ll see what I can find but I doubt these people even dignified this trash with a response. That’s the nature of Yellow Journalism.
Citing the Editorial page of a rabid, left wing, attack vehicle is hardly credible. How about you find these exchanges in a regular newspaper artile and post that?
It’s not “news” really…I can’t imagine a news editor would green light a piece that was essentially examples of idiots in high places being idiots…seriously though, if the Times ran this and it wasn’t accurate (no doubt the guy had tape), you’d hear about it.
Are you doubtfull that people in these positions could possibly not know the difference between Sunni and Shiite?
seriously though, if the Times ran this and it wasn’t accurate (no doubt the guy had tape), you’d hear about it.
Who has the time? There is so much to correct, who could do it all. Of course, the Times has refused to issue retractions or they publish them weeks later in the fine print. Editorials are just one guys opinion about a subject and this is perfect example. What would an Editor say? I disagree with your opnion so it’s not going on the Opinion page?
Are you doubtfull that people in these positions could possibly not know the difference between Sunni and Shiite?
I’m doubtful it matters, a Sunni terrorist is just as dangerous as a Shiite terrorist. I don’t care whether a bank robber is from Alabama or from Michigan because it doesn’t matter to me.
Why should these people be religious experts, it’s not their jobs to spew religious trivia or to learn to speak arabic. The CFO of my company doesn’t know anything about my job and I wouldn’t expect him to.
This is another nothing story to try to expose something that doesn’t exist, like with Rove that I predicted nothing would come of.
Ah, but it’s not “religious trivia” – – – this is about knowing the enemy we are fighting, and part of this battle is understanding who the players are within the Iraqi government…if one of these people receives a report on one leader’s death squads targeting a judge or the family of another high ranking Iraqi official, without understanding the cultural rift that provokes such violence, the person is pretty much not understanding the matter at all.
Let’s not pretend that warfare has changed over time to the point where understanding who the enemy is and what motivates them is somehow unimportant.
Deadliest month in 2006 – sectarian violence on the rise from an already unmanageable level – and you think it doesn’t matter knowing the who or the why behind all of it?
this is about knowing the enemy we are fighting, and part of this battle is understanding who the players are
You are talking about profiling, which is different from security enforcement. I’m very sure that the people who need to know these things get the info. Like I said, my department head knows nothing about what I do but my job still gets done.
without understanding the cultural rift that provokes such violence, the person is pretty much not understanding the matter at all.
Culture and religion are very different. The police, for example, don’t care what provokes a bank robber to rob a bank, they respond to the actual robbery. The Mayor doesn’t need to be an expert on bank robber psychology, that is what police detectives are for.
These guys need to run departments and manage bureaucracy, not nit pick details about what town some terrorist is from or which relative of Muhamamd is the rightful heir to islam.
Let’s not pretend that warfare has changed over time to the point where understanding who the enemy is and what motivates them is somehow unimportant.
I agree but let’s not also pretend that every government employee is an expert in everything. These higher ups get briefings and make decisions based on that information. If these people were experts in islam then we wouldn’t need terrorism analysts.
Deadliest month in 2006 – sectarian violence on the rise from an already unmanageable level – and you think it doesn’t matter knowing the who or the why behind all of it?
We already know who is behind it and why.
Gulliver’s Travels. The Lilliputians.
This is code for a rightwing news mag? A regular newspaper? Is there such a thing?
And that comment is exactly why we will lose in Iraq. Like a foreigner coming to America to fix our corrupt political system and not being aware of what a Democrat or Republican is.
These leaders voted to go to war with Iraq, the least they could do is gain an understanding of the primary social drivers in that country. Religion is the only social construct that Iraqi’s accept above all others. Nah, we don’t need to know anything about that. They’ll be in such awe of our bombs that religion simply won’t matter. Right?
I use a hotmail account, and check it only about once a quarter (which causes hotmail to empty my account and place me on inactive status).
[email protected]
I’ll send you my real address via email. I would email you, but my hotmail got cleared out. Which is a real shame because I had some old emails from Washington which were really really really important to me… oh why oh why did Rolling Barrage die??? Boohoo.
Nah, we don’t need to know anything about that. They’ll be in such awe of our bombs that religion simply won’t matter. Right?
You are miss representing the issue, it’s not “we” need, rather, the point of the post was that these specific politicians and bureaucrats far removed from the specilist responsibilities show know, and that is wrong. George Bush doesn’t speak russian so should we just cease diplomatic relations with them? Accoerding to your logic the answer is yes.
Since every director doesn’t have the exact same expertise as the people in the field then the administration is a failure. This thinking is absolutely ridiculous.
Seriously, even if this conversation was true, what the hell business would Jo Ann Davis have trying to be an expert in Islam religion? She does have other responsibilites like taking care of her district and crafting legislation.
“We” do know a lot about Islam and terrorism and I’m fine with the idea that politicians are hyper-focusing on one issue and ignoring the rest of their duties.
Get a platform and a message and stop with all the witch hunts and trumped up charges. Seriously, this is getting really old.
A Conservative Plan for Iraq
Anyone who questions the lack of a realistic and comprehensive Iraq strategy is labeled a friend of fascism by the Republican leadership. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) recently said, “I wonder if [Democrats] are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people.” Republicans are paralyzed with the fear of being thought ineffective on national security and the war.
Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership cannot seem to accept that—regardless of how we got there—we are in Iraq. They have not made a convincing case that an arbitrary phased or date-certain troop withdrawal is in the best long-term interest of the United States. Rather, they seem to think that withdrawal will undo the decision to have gone to war. Rubbing President Bush’s nose in Iraq’s difficulties is also a priority.
This political food fight is stifling the desperately needed public discussion about a meaningful resolution to the fire fight. Most Americans know Iraq is going badly. And they know the best path lies somewhere between “stay the course” and “get out now”.
Some Truths
1) Iraq is having a civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites. The Kurds will certainly join, if attacked. It may not look like a civil war, because they don’t have tanks, helicopters, and infantry; but they are fighting with what they have.
2) Vast oil revenues are a significant factor behind the fighting. Yes, there are religious and cultural differences—but concerns about how the oil revenue will be split among the three groups make the problem worse.
3) Most Iraqis support partitioning Iraq into Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish regions. (Their current arrangement resulted from a pen stroke during the British occupation, not some organic alignment.)
4) Most citizens of the Middle East who support groups that kill and terrorize civilians—such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or al Qaeda—in part because of their aggressive stance against Israel and the United States, but also because they provide much needed social services, such as building schools.
5) Both Republican and Democratic administrations have spent decades doing business with the tyrants who run the Middle East in exchange for oil and cheap labor. This has been the one of the rallying calls of Bin Laden and Hezbollah—that we support tyrants who abuse people for profits. In fact, our latest trade deals with Oman and Jordan actually promote child and slave labor; it’s so bad the State Department had to issue warnings about rampant child trafficking in those countries.
6) Iran is using the instability in Iraq to enhance its political stature in the region. Leaving Iraq without a government that can stand up to Iran would be very destabilizing to the region and the world.
From the U.S. perspective, this is all mostly about energy. As things stand, a serious oil supply disruption would devastate our economy, threaten our security, and jeopardize our ability to provide for our children.
New Directions
Success in Iraq and the Middle East in general requires us to work in three areas simultaneously: (1) fostering a more stable Middle East region, including Iraq, (2) pursuing alternative sources of oil, and (3) developing alternatives to oil. To these ends we must:
1) Insure that the oil revenues are fairly and transparently split among all three groups: Shiite, Sunni, and Kurds based on population.
2) Allow each group to have a much stronger role in self government by creating three virtually-autonomous regions. Forcing a united Iraq down their throats is not working. Our military would then be there in support a solution that people want, rather than one they are resisting.
3) Become a genuine force for positive change, thus denying extremist groups much of their leverage. Driving a fair two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem should be our first priority. We should also engage in projects that both help the average Middle Easterner and Americans, such as supporting schools that are an alternative to the ones that teach hate and recruit terrorists. We should also stop participating in trade deals that promote child and slave labor by insisting on deals that include livable wages and basic labor rights.
4) Declare a Marshal Plan to end our Middle Eastern energy dependency with a compromise between exploring for new sources, reducing consumption, and developing of alternative energies. For example, we should re-establish normal relations with Cuba so we can beat China to Cuba’s off-shore oil. We should also redirect existing tax breaks for Big Oil into loan guarantees for alternative energy companies.
Once we no longer need so much oil from the Middle East, we can begin winning over its people by using our oil purchases to reward positive and peaceful behavior from their leaders. This would ultimately reduce tensions and encourage prosperity in the region.
We will have to live with the threat of Islamic radical terrorism forever; but these solutions are a start to reducing the threat. Both parties have to put politics aside and put together an honest and reasonable plan that the American understand.
No, I wouldn’t expect him to speak Russian, but I would expect him to know a bit about Russian history. You’re arguments are weak man, I can only assume that you’re high on a crack/heroin cocktail of some sort.
What’s getting old is your blind devotion to a political party that has really put a hurting on this country. Really old.
I liked your post John. But I disagree with this statement. The same was said by every single U.S. foreign policy expert about Vietnam. “SE Asia will fall into communist hands for generations.” It just didn’t work out that way. Twenty years after the last of the American troops left we re-established diplomatic and trade relations with Vietnam. There is a possibility that immediately leaving Iraq could be the very best thing for us to do. Our troops there aren’t protecting lives. Hundreds a day are dying, and that will continue. Leaving now means eating crow, but if that what it takes then so be it.
Congress forms committees that specialize in the oversite of specific functions of the federal government. Jo Ann Davis is a member of one that specializes in the intelligence operation aimed at recruiting spies from the middle east to work with us. Coincidentally, at the CIA, Valerie Plame was in charge of the operations unit tasked to do this very same thing (recruit spies from the middle east)…
How can Davis know whether or not our methods are working if she doesn’t even understand the culture we are attempting to pull sources out of?
You say it’s not important because the reality of all this is inconvenient for your political beliefs and your belief in the ability to Republicans to govern effectively. An oversite committee has a job to do that is seperate from the responsibility of a Congressman/woman to represent the interests of their district.
Up to half of what is pumped in a given month today is stolen and sold on the black market, w/ proceeds going to the insurgency (translation: the organized crime element within Iraq). We should go, but even hoping that the muscle doesn’t continue to steal is foolish in my opinion. So much of the organized crime is sanctioned, known about and condoned by people in the government today, that the only hope is for a great leader(s) to step up once we leave. Any plan put in place to divy up the oil proceeds will not be honored unless the government is powerfull and most importantly, PURE. If our own government is an example of the goal…phew…they’re fucked.
That said – it’s not our problem. Less than 2% of the Iraqi population does not see us as an occupying force…the other 98% see us for what we are, thieves playing Risk.
I like this idea. The oil is still crucial to making it work, but the people of Iraq would probably be better off if they didn’t share the flag with people they’d like to kill.
With this in mind…I think we should seriously consider giving Texas back to Mexico. No more Presidents from that state would go a long way towards ensuring we don’t have any more of these bullshit foreign massacres to debate for years like we are now…while all the suits bullshit, hoping when they wake up tomorrow it’s inaguration day 2008…
Al
You make very good points!
Better yet, let’s move all the Israelis to Texas. It can be their new nation. Two problems solved.
A while back I was in Colorado, Vail…lucked out as my friends knew people and we ended up partying after and before the shows (Phil Lesh and Friends) in the Lodge, super rich rich rich…anyway, the Israel-Palestine thing came up and I (spun but not stupefied like others were) suggested transplanting the entire country to Miami Beach…probably wasn’t appropriate to say, but my next point was on how the concept of a “holy site” keeping them there seemed foolish.
Needless to say, I wasn’t really part of that particular conversation after that. Is that anti-semetic? I really don’t think I am, but I’m not Jewish (yet), so how would I know?
menace – click on John’s name – his site is cool, I’ve been posting there today. He hosts a radio show in Georgia, I’m going to try to catch some of it before the boys are up from their naps. He’s a Republican, and a polite one at that…on the internet…imagine! Heh – – –
I respect anyone who comes over here and says what they believe without throwing doo-doo on the walls. I’ll keep his site on my hitlist and check out the show. As long as he doesn’t sound like Michael Savage, I’m sure I’ll be able to enjoy it.
Al
Thank You for the plug. BTW Michael Savage is a little over the top for me. If you call the radio show I will plug your site. We have listner all over the country via the web link on my site.
I also think your site is great.
Thanks! The show goes off around the time the boys are waking up from their naps and hungry, but I’ll do my best to call in. I like that you have the archived shows available. I’ve been enjoying those.
Your stories about the primary battle and how the party really stuck with the incumbent is interesting to me. Very rarely am I exposed to that aspect of the political scene. Up in the northeast there was a lot of coverage on Lieberman-Lamont, but for the most part I’d imagine that what you experienced is the norm.
If in the future you ever need help digging through the congressional record, matching up your opponents’ votes and their consequences, etc. don’t hesitate to ask. I’m sure I could help out in some way.
Sounds like you weren’t missing out on much then. If you can’t speak your mind and at least have your idea considered then what’s the point of having a conversation?
I bet those same folks walked out of the Borat movie. I can’t wait to see it myself, I’ve been watching snippets on the web.
OT: Have you ever read the poem If, by Rudyard Kipling? It was one of those rare life changers for me… enjoy.
Indeed…in their defense though, it was after the show + altitude + booze + (it being dead tour you can imagine what else) – – – – the poem I haven’t read. Thanks for suggesting it – I’ll post thoughts on the site once I do.
What do you think of John’s site? I’m listening to the archived broadcasts, and the callers are given time to speak their mind and aren’t talked over. I saw that you posted over there. W/ the midterms in mind, I asked John if he would post this one from back in the day – – – did you ever read this one? Had my prognisticator hat on:
http://deadissue.com/archives/2005/09/12/suits-cronies-and-spreadsheet-jockeys/
I’m fairly sickened by all Republicans these days. Or should I call them turncoats? They really seem to enjoy eating their own. I don’t think I’ve seen so many jump ship since I last watched the Titanic. Gutless wretches, all of them. They are the first to cast dispersions, and the last to be accountable for their own actions (voting crooks into office).
I’m not too excited by the recent election results. I see a bunch of Democrat power grabbers partying like it was 1999. Nevermind that people are still dying daily in Iraq. The glee exhibited by the winners just doesn’t seem all that appropriate to me. I say use the power you have been given to fix things, and after they have been fixed, then you can celebrate. We’re in a war for God’s sake, act like it. I was sure Pelosi was going to piss in her Depends, she looked so excited.
Anyway, read that poem. It’s times like these that the poem helps to remind me what is important.
As for John’s site… I don’t visit it too much, no offense intended. I don’t have much time to peruse the blogs these days. Work is killing me.