This is scary....the vice chairman of the House Intelligence Sub-Committee

[RedEarth]

This is from Kos....

Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 12:51:56 PM PDT
This is why Republicans can't do anything right. This is why everything they touch turns to crap.

Because they are idiots.



Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

"Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?" I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: "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 in their religion, different families or something."

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. "Now that you've explained it to me," he replied, "what occurs to me is that it makes what we're doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area."

This idiot isn't some backbencher. He's the vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/17/155156/09

more.......from the Hullabaloo blog....

Scandalous Ignorance

by tristero

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when the sound of the military airplanes patrolling the skies of Manhattan were still traumatizing everyone, I picked up some books on bin Laden, the Middle East, and Islam. I also peppered with questions the few people I knew back then who had some expertise on the subjects. In fact, lots of people I knew were doing the same thing; we were passing around books, articles, and clippings, emailing links to each other.

This strikes me as totally unremarkable behavior. We were scared stiff, and the first thing we wanted to know - other than that the attacks had stopped for now - was what the hell was going on.

But even today, people involved in counterterrorism policy in the United States still don't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.

This is scandalous, as in worse-than-covering-up-for-Mark-Foley scandalous. Why? Well let one of the ignorant buffoons explain it to you:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116108457720750984

[Hosnon]

1. Utterly amazing. Very few people absolutely need to know the difference...

and he's one of them.

The rest of us can get by with a working definition.

I wish committee positions were given based on merit instead of seniority.

[razors edge]

2. For people who hate unions

they sure love seniority and job security, for themselves.

[Parche]

3. sunni

Arn't the Sunni's getting the shi ite kicked out of them?