I bet Trent Lott and Terry Everett could go on for hours about the subtlties of the US Civil War and why it wasn't about slavery and name every battle their daddy's graddy fought in.

Just a matter of priorities;>

This is not surprising at all.

It is difficult if not impossible to bring a whole nation to the precipice of disaster if you understand the culture and tradition of the people living there.

Easier to kill the people you don't know.

That is truly depressing. I though Jr. was uniquely uninformed and willfuly ignorant, but I stand corrected. Even people mildly interested in current events know that al Qaeda is Sunni. We are lead by ignorant fools.

Ignorance is strength.

I'm scared. Very scared.

Ugh. It's fascinating that anyone here, including our pal Charlie, might make a better Chairman/President.

So how did Hastings and Harman do on this quiz?

So are the Wahhabis an extreme branch of the Sunnis? Because I thought Bin Laden et al were Wahhabi.

although I'm not paid a six figure salary to know this. Doesn't seem that hard for anyone to figure out.

?:

Nope. You were fooled by the trick question.

Wahabi Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. Wealthy Saudis, most of them royalty, support Wahabi madrasa schools all around the world which, though not exactly teaching Reading, Writing and Jihad -- *are* based on rote memorization of the Koran and *do* have history lessons with maps that don't have Israel on them.

It's very easy for a *Salafi* ideologe to come along to these students in a mosque or somewhere and radicalize them into an even purer flavor of purist Islam, and introduce them to *takfir*, which is the Sunni extremist doctrine which makes it righteous to kill apostate Muslims and depose apostate Muslim regimes. This is obviously opposed by Saudi Wahabism.

But many Wahabi-taught fundamentalist Muslims around the world are perfectly peaceful people. The point is, purist doctrine can always be polluted -- and that goes for fundamentalist Christianity as well.

Bob

This is not only depressing, it is embarassing.

I don't know this Reyes, he might end up being okay or even outstanding in his new job, but this is not a good sign.

First, it shows that he hasn't even thought about one of the most critical questions of his time. Bloggers who have yet to graduate college can answer this question, and provide links to back up their answers.

Second, it shows that either he does not use his staff effectively or his staff is incompetent. An incoming chair of an intelligence committee has to be able to talk about the major issues under the committee's jurisdiction. Nothing ranks much higher than a working knowledge of Al Qaeda.

If you are his staff, you do not allow him to sit for any interviews until he can pass a much tougher Q&A than the press/media will ever give. If you are Reyes, you listen to your staff and read the stuff they prepare for you.

Is it too late to get Nancy to change her mind and pick Jane or Alcee?

I'm not quite so ready to dismiss people like Reyes, who've been willing to put their names on a ballot and go before the people of a Congressional district. You'd never find Kevin Drum doing that.

However, I do believe in breaking Washington conventions. I've always wanted to hear someone on Meet the Press or this week ask questions like:

Sen. Clinton, who really wrote your book?

Sec. Rice, when people leave positions in your department, the positions tend to stay vacant for really long periods of time. Are you just not paying attention, or does someone else make hiring decisions for you?

Sen. Frist, we all know that sticking rigorously to prepared talking points is crucial for candidates today. Since you've declared you're not a candidate for the Presidency, would you mind telling us who wrote the talking points you're using with us today?

Sen. Levin, you've accomplished more in public life than Barack Obama and John Edwards combined, but because they look like they could model underwear and you don't they are considered Presidential candidates and you're not. Does that ever strike you as, well, stupid?

At least we don't have any 'so-called experts' in government anymore. Fifty years of Republican contempt have cleared the air.

Zathras:

LOL ! Send that post to Colbert :)

The most troubling line in that article?

Trent Lott, after asking the obvious (and bonehead) questions about why these groups just haven't managed to get along with themselves or with Israel:

"They seem to look the same to me."

Haunting, indeed.

Bob

I've got nothing else against Reyes but CLEARLY this man is not qualified to chair the Intelligence Committee. He just isn't. And I don't care if he served in Vietnam. That's not a qualification.

There is no way a country of our resources and sophistication has to settle for unqualified intelligence personnel.

If these people we elect are so stupid, then we are best to rely on the wealthy to run government; something I believe.

The way to get intelligent people into the decision making process is to make them pay for it, with a progressive tax.

This is one more instance of intelligent, wealthy people just letting government go on destructive rampages because the wealthy cannot stand the incredibly stupid people in elected office. Voters are about as ignorant.

Is their any evidence that the previous chairman was any more knowledgeable? Even if he was, it's clear that he was not particularly good at his job, as otherwise the Iraq fiasco would have been decelerated a bit. His counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Roberts (R) was definitely a court jester for GWB.

You may be talented at politics but have an unfortunate deficit of historical knowledge much as you may be talented at painting but know little about the history of art.

The trouble of course is that as an artist you are not generally making decisions that affect the welfare of whole societies.

I don't know when the interview was conducted, but from the perspective of December 2006, I don't find any of the questions difficult. I would hope that if they were asked recently any member of the house intelligence committee would score 100 %.

On the other hand, I have to confess that before 9/11/2001 the beliefs of the Wahhabis were fuzzy at best.

Of course, I read a lot of newspapers, blogs, books, etc. I also know people who have been to Iraq or who are training to go. I want them all to come home safe. Like most Americans I have a dog in the Iraq fight.

We really can't expect Congressmen and Senators to actually know anything about Iraq? Can we? Except for James Webb and Kit Bond how many of them really know anybody with their ass on the line.

Foreign policy experts advising the President are a different story. Those folks need to know all the basic facts and most of the players before we regular civilians find our attention drawn to a region. If they don't they need to be replaced. That is why I have never found Condi Rice to be particularly inspiring. She had to learn the middle east while on the job. She didn't start until you and I did on 9/11 and I don't see any signs that she has learned all that much.

It would be interesting to see more people in public life tested/interviewed. Typically, you'd find that they don't know jack. Look, the overwheleming majority went for the idea that Iraq was the coming threat, that Saddam had managed an invislble (no physical signs, no hard evidence of any kind) Manhattan project while broke, under sanctions, and 60% illiterate.
A big fraction of our ruling elite was either enthusiastic about the notion that Iraq was one swift kick away from a democratic governmetn that would an an ally of the US (!) and friendly to Israel (!!), when Iraq was in fact one of the lest

Oh come on, stop acting like a bunch of suprized ninnies.

For decades it has been plain that the only things a successful member of Congress needs to know is how to comb their hair and how to raise money.

For god's sake, these are American politicians. By and large, a species with less cognitive ability than the average high school homecoming king.

Why do Americans need to know that stuff? Do you think the Germans studied the theoretical subtleties of Marxism-Leninism during Operation Barbarossa?

was in fact one of worst candidates foe a democratic governemntin the entire world. And of course an effort that started with invasion and occupation had even less chance.

Concerning Rice: I've never her seen her show the slightest sign that she knew what she was talking about. Look, she can't keep the players straight either: she seems to have thought that Iran was backing the Taleban. And, of course, that our occupation of Germany was plagued by guerrilla resistance.
You'd think that people would be constantly calling for her resignation. Whyever not?

If at this point the people on the Intelligence committee and top FBI counter-terrorism officials know less than I do about these subjects I think it's important to ask what have they actually been doing and why should they remain employed?

It seems clear that so little progress has been made in these areas because these are the people in charge of them.

I wonder if there are ten people on Capitol Hill who can spell al-Qaeda.

Trent Lott, after asking the obvious (and bonehead) questions about why these groups just haven't managed to get along with themselves or with Israel:

"They seem to look the same to me."

Haunting, indeed.

In semi-defense of Lott, I would say that the people on the two sides of the Northern Ireland conflict look alike to me, and I am related to most of them.

reyeswatch

On average, no. Most Congress punks are just that. Party makes little difference.

Remember the bias that 'Mercan popular culture has against four-eyed nerds.

Holy frigging shit.

I saw the FBI interviews earlier this week, but at least those guys are focused on capturing "bad guys," whoever they are, inside the US, where whether they are Sunni or Shia may matter less.

This is the guy Pelosi picked to head the Intelligence Committee?

We've only been at war in Iraq for almost 4 years. We were only attacked by a Sunni extremist (most recently) 5 years ago. Maybe we need to wait until 10 or 20 thousand of our men and women are killed until we understand just who the hell killed them.

Tho, on second thought, as both Sunni and Shia are killing our troops in Iraq, maybe it doesn't matter too much and we should just nuke the country (other than the Good Kurds) and get it all over. Randy Newman comes to mind: "Are they grateful? No, they're spiteful and they're hateful. They don't respect us, so let's surprise the, we'll drop the Big One and pulverize them."

This seems to be the new favorite policy of the defeated loonies of the right like Limbawl and O'Lielly.

I must also respond to Keith G's comment "For decades it has been plain that the only things a successful member of Congress needs to know is how to comb their hair and how to raise money."

I don't think they need to know how to comb their hair. From the consistency of their plastic haircuts, it's obvious that they all go to the same (free) barber, and that the Senate barber is better at hairsprayed helmets than the House barber.

As to Godwin's question about why our "leaders" need to know "that stuff," I can only surmise that knowing your enemies (and their thinking) is a GOOD thing, ESPECIALLY when the "all look alike."

Tom:

That's not exactly much of a defense, even a semi-one (says the fourth-generation Irish Catholic -- who escaped from his religion after Confirmation).

Bob

Godwin--

How did that invasion of the Soviet Union work out for the Germans, anyway?

Cal Gal:

Great observation on House vs Senate helmet hair!

Or it's more like patent-leather hair, like Reagan's. Or maybe it's of a newer squishy plastic, with a button on the back of their skulls that you press so they can remove it at night.

Heh, what a picture *that* would make. Joe Biden cosied up in bed and reading some biography of a Great Man In History while bald, with little slots in his dome :)

Bob

Marble Mountain is a large outcropping, and there was a large Viet Cong stronghold at its base, but the Marine airbase called Marble Mountain was miles away from the outcropping and not on top of it. The base was actually on the water at sea level and subject to periodic flooding because of that. It seems the author is misinformed about Reyes.

"Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“Pocito,” I said—a little.

“Pocito?! “ He laughed again.

As well he might, since the word is "Poquito". Yes, yes, this journalist isn't being paid to know Spanish, and his mistake isn't likely to kill people. I was just really amused that in this very context, he was ready to parade his ignorance in print.

Cal Gal:

Great quote from Randy Newman's Political Science. I was at a Seattle performance a few years ago of a muscial based on his songs. Afterward the cast came out to talk with the audience and brought out Randy himself.

A woman in the audience told him she was from Australia and had always wanted to thank him for sparing the kangaroos.

Rcmk1: Wahabi Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia.

This is true, in that their branch of Islam derives from the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, but as you point out, they would describe themselves as Salafist.

Wahabi Islam rejects modernism, but Salafism tries to reconcile fundamentalist Islam with the modern world, which means they like TV and computers but hate what is on them.

Al Qaeda is also Salafist. Various groups would describe themselves as Salafist, although they may vary in their understanding of what it means.

gregor: Is their any evidence that the previous chairman was any more knowledgeable?

No. In fact, several other members of the committee were asked similar questions a few months ago and also failed similarly.

Godwin: Why do Americans need to know that stuff? Do you think the Germans studied the theoretical subtleties of Marxism-Leninism during Operation Barbarossa?

No, but the relevant point is not the difference in how the think the Caliphate should be decided but the social and political differences between the groups. It would help if the chair of the intelligence committee knew, for example, that Shiites have a religious hierarchy but Sunnis don't, or that in countries where both live, the Sunnis tend to be the elite and the Shiites tend to be the downtrodden poor, or even just that they hate each other and where they are located, so he would know that Al Qaeda, Saudis, and the Iraqi resistance are natural allies, as are Iran and Hezbollah.

Several years ago, I had the good fortune of meeting Congressman Reyes. He is an amiable person but he is not an amiable dunce.

My latest missive to his office as well as on our internet site, Cactus Juice Commentaries, I suggested that Congressman Reyes provide the leadership to craft a counter-factual study that rebuts the ISG Report. And to wit, authored by all 126 House Democrats that were opposed to the Invasion of Iraq. If so, my fellow Democrats would be far more informed and have a paper study to prove your level of knowledge. So, in this instance, I will hold you harmless for dribbling from the lip.:-)

But lost among all the chatter, his duties and responsibilities on the Armed Services Committee has coalesced to a body of knowledge that will be brought forth to be effectively utilized by all the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.

And if you have any direct experience lobbying, you will know that it is impolite to talk about the upwardly mobile ladder of success for Chairmanships, is that the Chairmanship of either the House or Senate Intelligence Committee is that first rung on this ladder of ambition. Unless, of course, you are a "line breaker".

Just a couple of thoughts to pass along.

Ya know, speaking of intelligence, the only sign of intelligence are the 100,000 Iraqis per month that are taking to foot and pouring out of that hell hole. At least they have an exit strategy.

I guess if we wait long enough, the only ones left there will be our soldiers, the insurgents/militias, and KBR.

If you are a patriotic Marine rifleman, which do you shoot first?

This is why the government spends so much money on hiring young, unelectable smart people as staff to tell the congressman what to ask people in hearings and then tell him what their answers mean.

Things will be fine, because I trust Democratic committees to draw more intellectually honest and curious people than whatever witch-sniffers sought work with Republicans.

My preferred candidate for chair was Rush Holt, who I'm sure would have done much better on this quiz.

That said, this kind of thing explains a lot: how can the Bush folks get away with claims that the Iranians are secretly supplying the insurgency? Because so many in Washington are confused about who's who, that's why. Similarly, why can't Washington understand that it is Hakim that is the tool of Iran and Sadr who is the anti-Iranian Iraqi nationalist (not that they both aren't thugs, of course)? Again, plain ignorance.

My thinking is that congresscritters have to spend so much of their time on the permanent campaign that they have few mental cycles left for anything else. Their experienced staff people can make much more money as lobbyists, so there's a huge brain drain.

I think, the bloggers, the trolls and other commentators are missing the point--these questions are not new. I don't know if it was Stein or some other journos, but the exact same questions were posed to other Congressmen and people in the admininstration last summer. The results were as bad as Reyes's response or worse. We SHOULD be troubled by this incompetence, no matter who's in charge.

I'm having a hard time digging up exactly when Reyes joined the House Intelligence Committee, but it's safe to say he's been on it a while.

And this is the extent of his knowledge?!

He's also on the Subcommittee on Terrorism/HUMINT Analysis and Counterintelligence.

So how is he supposed to know when they're just feeding him complete bullshit?

Are all Congressmen this stupid in every subject?

buck turgidson

Trolls, what trolls? This has been the best day ever on political animal.

Good point, however. If you watch closely you can learn Congressmen, but you can't learn them much.

I probably shouldn't criticize, since the author in this piece, Jeff Stein, seems to be asking a couple hard-hitting questions of the schmucks in charge of our government. (Easy questions, actually, which makes Reyes, Lott's ignorance more noteworthy).

Jeff Stein, in the linked article Dec 8, 2006 "...the mistaken [Iraq] invasion itself, despite the preponderance of expert opinion that it was a terrible idea"

Jeff Stein and Kidhir Hamza, in their book "Saddam's Bombmaker" in 2000, quoting "I have no doubt that Iraq is pursuing the nuclear option." The Gulf War slowed development, but failed to shut it down. The coalition that knocked Saddam out of Kuwait has fallen apart, and United Nations inspectors no longer try to keep him in check. Hamza urges policymakers to confront Saddam...

It's not exactly a fair comparison, but there it is.

anandine:

That's all true. "Wahabi," though a useful term, is really kind of a misnomer. In the West, it's been ressurected as an empirical descriptor for the Saudi state religion; in the Arab/Muslim world, it's essentially understood as an insult to Saudis by Saudis and non-Saudis alike -- with a vernacular meaning closer to something like "degenerate in-bred camel jockey."

The Saudis aren't exactly well-liked in the region.

Salafism is the more religiously correct term as you point out. A pious, thoroughly orthodox Saudi Sunni would never call himself a Wahabi but rather a Salafi. But it's important to understand something: Just as the purist doctrines of the cleric Wahab developed as a reaction to the decadent, Western-influenced Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century -- so, too, did Salafism arise to purify the corruption Wahabism underwent by sanctioning the Saudi royal family.

Since Wahabism describes the history of the House of Saud with Islam, it's accurate to say that it rejected modernity as a central tenet; clearly this was the case when Wahab, who inspired Saudis to battle when they conquered what was to become Saudi Arabia, was given the reins of civil society as a token of appreciation. But then a funny thing happened: The West struck oil. And as the extraction made the royal family phenomenally rich, their state-sponsored clerics fudged Wahab's purism and carved out all sorts of exceptions for the Saudi royals. For instance, the hadiths say that Muslim men should wear a simple kayffieh head scarf; the Saudi princes (known as the "double zeros" in Morocco) have those fancy, banded headscarves that appear nowhere in the hadiths or the Sunnah (the body of traditions surrounding Muhammed). These things infuriate some of the pious.

And of course, with all that oil wealth rolling into the Kingdom, it became ever-more-difficult to maintain the doctrinal rejection of modernity with the princes playing with all their new toys and wanting to build infrastructure projects. So Wahabism as a coherent body of beliefs (as opposed, again, to an empirical description) essentially crashed. Salafism -- just as Wahabism before it -- arose to reaffirm that all aspects of life's problems are answered by harkening back to the life of Muhammad and his early followers. Like the main strands of Protestant fundamentalism, this developed in the early 20th century as a reaction to encroaching modernity. Only Salafism didn't make the same mistake as Wahab; like American Prot fundamentalism, it strove to incorporate modernity itself (especially banking practices; Muhammad's views on usury are impractically extreme) into Muslim life while rejecting modernity's decadent cosmopolitan morality.

I learned this stuff mostly from British Islamic websites and confirmed it with a Moroccan neighbor (he's where heard of "the double zeroes.")

Bob

I don’t think the right-wing wants to play the game of “who knows what”, given the retard they have in the White House. If Reyes didn’t that al-Qaeda is Sunni Muslim, is that worse than George W. Bush not knowing that there are two major sects of Islam? I don’t think so.

How about dipshit Bush not knowing about the Dubai Ports World furor until after his Administration had approved the deal. What leadership, huh?

And of course, Bush famously flunked a foreign affairs quiz before becoming president in 1999.

Bush didn’t know al-Qaeda had attacked the U.S.S. Cole, until the 9-11 Commissioners told him and Bush also hadn’t heard of the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

So, morons who live in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing too many stones.

In GWB's and the neocon's defense,you don't need to learn their language/customs if you intend to kill the leaders and cow the rest into submission. They're just Arabs after all.
There aren't even any incentives (scholarships,grants etc.) to study Arabic or Persian let alone Pashto or other useful dialects. We're Americans god-damn it and we don't even need to learn Spanish so we can learn about many of the other Americans.
It's too complicated,let's just hope people keep shopping and driving to get there.

Bob,

Great rundown on Wahabism/Salafism. It always fascinates me how Iran is presented as the great evil of the Middle East when Shiites are clearly *much* more accepting of modernity and Western notions of personal freedom than the citizens of our "allies" in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The difference lies in the leadership - the Saudi family is Western-friendly, while the Mullahs of Iran are just the opposite.

If you ever had a fair and honest election in those countries, however, I think it's fair to say that the Salafi/Saudi candidate would be a whole lot less congenial towards Western values than the Shiite/Iranian.

Michael Martin: You are mostly correct about "Marble Mountain". The marine base was not actually on a mountain as it would be very hard to build there. There actually is no "Marble Mountain", there are a group of five mountains called the "Five Elements Mountains." Tourguides will also refer to them as the "Stone" or "Marble" mountains because of the rocks quarried from them. Each mountain has a different stone: white marble, green marble, red marble, brown marble, and grey sandstone. The hospital was in a hollow in the mountain that contains white marble. I've been inside and it was quite impressive. But it is clear that there were no US military installations above it because there is a large opening in the ceiling that acted as a skylight. In the process of constructing any installation, this hole and the hospital below would have been easily discovered. The skylight and the cool, moist interior climate made the hollow ideal for a hospital and it required almost no electricity, which would attract attention. The cave's proximity to a Buddhist temple also helped. It was assumed that the traffic to the hospital was just people making pilgramages to the temple. As for the communists digging the tunnels, they did no such thing. Those tunnels had already been there for hundreds of years. Previous kings had used the hollow in the mountain to store treasure.

It's all just the tired old sunni/shia bit. Your damned if you do and you're damned if you don't answer. Stupid questions.

Also, begging the question shouldn't refer to a question. Begging the question is the supposition of an answer to a question that has not been asked.

I have two observations:

1) Reyes ignorance is indicative of the beltway culture. There is not much expectation in Washington that knowledge of Arab culture & history is particularly important. And that is truly alarming.

2) Press scrutiny of our politicians is almost always greater for Democrats than for Republicans. The press is easily cowed by Repubs because they advertise well their (Rovian) ruthlessness. Democrats, softer and gently by nature, make more inviting targets.

I like the congressman's response, "Why do you ask me these questions at 5'clock?" Basically he's saying that he's drunk (I don't have a problem with that. I like that our congressmen can do their jobs drunk. I just think it's funny).

Hezbollah is a "creature" of lebanon. They take support from Iran because Iran offered it while the arabs did nothing while Isreal carried out it's brutal occupation of lebanon.

Actually, that whole Iran contra thing was basically all about creating Hezbollah.

owenz:

kayffieh = kaffiyeh

Thanks.

Here's my take Sunni vs Shi'ite extremism, and how they both play out with the leaderships of Saudia Arabia and Iran, if you happen to be interested.

Bob

Excellent article on how current politics in Iran works,

http://www.arabnews.com/services/print/print.asp?artid=89770&d=9&m=12&y=2006&hl=Ahmadinejad%20May%20Be%20Heading%20for%20His%20First%20Major%20Political%20Defeat

A few days ago on another thread I was talking with another poster (whose name I unfortunately forget) who insisted that it was impossible that Bush, Cheney et al. really could not have been so ignorant about the Sunni/Shia rift and Middle East history, that their failure in Iraq had to be due to outright malice and not incompetence because it was impossible for educated, successful men in government not to know these things. I disagreed...

I wish Jeff Stein had asked the same questions of the Iraq Study Commission. I bet they would have done just as badly as the Congressmen.

What a strage idea. Gather a group of people who aren't military experts, don't speak Arabic, haven't been in Iraq, and who haven't been involved in the current conflict. Then pretend that this group of losers has done a better analysis than the pros who are involved day in day out.

Instead of the ISG, the group studying the war should have been a joint, bipartisan committee of Congressmen and Senators. People from the Armed Services and foreign policy related committees.

cld:

I'd very much like to read that, but I'm too *yawnnn* lazy to turn that url into a textfile to plunk it into my browser.

So here's a quick tutorial on how to make a hyperlink. If ol' Luddite me who eschews HTML to format his posts like some geeky grad student from the late 80s on USENET can do it, so can you.

Can you say ... "hyperlink," cld? Sure ya can. *wink*

So here goes:

First, replace all the "[" brackets I'm going to use in the example with angle brackets. Angle brackets are HTML code, so you can't post them. Here's how you do it:

[a href="http://yourURLhere.htm"]highlighted link[/a]

Replace the [ brackets with angle brackets, use the above URL in that syntax, and you're there.

Now don't say I never did nuttin' fer ya :)

Bob

I dunno, Kevin, Stein seems to be missing the point here. I would have thought that Reyes is on the committee because he represents the American people and not because he's an expert in Middle-Eastern affairs. It's true that his knowledge on the score seems abysmal but that's not the point -- he can always have advisors who do know the subject and rely on them. After all, most politicians need advisors -- they can hardly be experts on everything under the sun.

No elected official gets a pass from me if they don't know the difference between the Sunni, Shia and Wahabist sects of Islam.

As a high school geogrpahy and history teacher, this doesn't suprise me in the least. My students routinely express complete disdain for studying what has happened in the past or what is happening outside the US, as if it was completely irrelevant to their future.

Not suprisingly, therefore, we have an adult population that is also widely ignorant about other countries and cultures and their history.

For that matter, they are also widely ignorant of our own history and government as well. More than a few polls have shown that many adults do not know the basic facts about our own history and methods of government.

Our society today is too focused on entertaining itself, which is why in another 20-30 years we will no longer be a superpower.

Can you say ... "hyperlink," cld? Sure ya can. *wink*

Or you could just copy and paste.

You hold down the left side mouse button and back it over the area of interest to highlight it. Then right click and select 'Copy'.

Click the box at the top of the screen, right click again and select 'Paste'.

If you have Firefox there are a couple of things that can help if the yawning gets real advanced.

There's an extension that directly translates a text url into a hyperlink by highlighting and clicking it, but I found it seemed to slow my browser. Instead I have a button made for Custom Buttons extension that allows you to just highlight something, then click the button to open it in a new tab.

For the even lazier (and I am this lazy) there's an extension called Auto Copy that copies whatever you highlight to the clipboard without having to right click and hit 'Copy' at all!

Some day in the future we won't have to do any of this. We'll just be able to think it.

Why do Americans need to know that stuff? Do you think the Germans studied the theoretical subtleties of Marxism-Leninism during Operation Barbarossa?

The Germans ultimately failed in both that specific campaign and the broader war, so, all other reasons not to emulate Nazi Germany aside, perhaps they aren't the example you want to cite in terms of how one should run an effective and successful military effort to achieve a desired end result.

cld:

I run *DOS*, bro :) No mouse (except for my music program). No graphics. A unix shell ISP with a BSD command prompt.

So I'd have to use my comm program to create a textfile and then ascii upload it into my browser. Which I do all the time, but it's easier to hit return on a hyperlink :)

Bob

cld:

But because I happen to be very interested in Iranian politics, I'm going to go do just that ...

Thanks for the link.

Bob

Auto Copy does seem to mysteriously clog up sometimes, though.

Actually the awful truth is I simply cannot remember html and would have to look it up each time I wanted to use it. It's a miracle I can remember the code for italics.

I can't remember numbers, either. I have an impression that the math area of my brain is chugging away at whatever nature intended it for, but there isn't any direct connection to my conscious mind. This same area seems to be associated with things like html and rules of grammar.

You're running DOS?!

cld:

I completely hear you. I'm a virtual innumerate myself and know just what it feels like (often it feels not too good).

Wasn't meaning at all to bust your chops, only thought I might be helpful -- but I can relate to your trepidation about learning new code.

Bob

cld:

That's right. DOS 5.0 baby, on a 386 with a monochrome Hercules monitor that's older than the GHW Bush Administration.

Now that the noxious trolls have been kicked out, I can admit that without being flamed for the next half hour :)

Bob

My interest in politicians is mostly for entertainment. It's reality TV without the script.

It's worse than this. A friend's nephew, serving in Iraq, killed an 8-year old girl at a security checkpoint. The little girl's life has ended, but her killer, who was only 11 years older than she, will live with this forever. He's a mess.

It is outrageous that we would send these young people over there and not take the time to teach them a few simple phrases. "Stop." "Stay where you are." "Hello," "Thank you." Easy, right?

Oops! Not our fault. It's the Iraqis who should have learned our language. Silly me.

Barbara Chew:

Oh my ... what a heart-rending story.

Kid's got any conscience at all, he'll have nightmares about that for the rest of his life. All because we felt that Our Values(tm) were God-Given(tm) and all they needed was a little *awakening*, because dontchaknowit, everybody in the world has an Inner American(tm) just *waiting* to burst out.

I feel awful for your friend and his poor guilt-stricken nephew.

Bob

By not talking about them, this whole thread has let off the hook the entity that is the 2nd most responsible for this mess: the media.
If these incidents (elected officials revealing their utter cluelessness in spot "quizzes" by reporters) are brought up at all in the mass media, it's almost always in a cursory, mocking, and dismissive way... which buys into and furthers the Repuke anti-intellectual meme that is part of what made W so popular between 9/11/01 and the Fall of '03, when his approval ratings dipped below the 50% line. Until the last couple of years -- and only after Katrina, the inescapability of the catastrophe that is Iraq, Abramoff, Foley, etcetc -- the majority of the American public still bought into the "regular guy" imagery that Rove and the Repuke machine crafted for W. Having leaders who clearly didn't know the details was not only not a problem for most voters, it was a plus. Remember the scathing treatment of Gore's "sighs" and "eye-rolling" in the first W campaign debate?
And they're STILL trying to sell memes like that.
Until we re-take the media -- or build our own -- we can expect no improvement. And until that happens, it almost doesn't matter (politically -- it clearly matters very much, in terms of what we continue to do wrong in the world).

rmck1:

All true

Not trepidation, it just won't stick. It took me over twenty years to remember my social security number and even now I'm not too sure of it. (Is there or isn't there a 2? I think there isn't. I am really fairly certain, but I'd have a heart attack if it came up on Who's Afraid of a Million Dollars).

It's true that his knowledge on the score seems abysmal but that's not the point -- he can always have advisors who do know the subject and rely on them.

This was the exact same argument made to excuse Bush's ignorance in the 2000 election. Need I say more about that worked out....?

Yikes. In my view, unless you can answer the following question, you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near US foreign policy unless you can answer the following question:

Imagine you are a big fan of seventh century leader Abu Sufyan and you love to talk about his various virtues. Would you be better received in a group of Sunnis or a group of Shi'ites? Explain your answer in full.

keptsimple:

My guess (without gooling) would be neither -- as, if I'm not mistaken, he founded the Sufi tendency in Islam.

Although truthfully, I'd had to guess the Shi'ites, only because as perennial targets of Sunni accusations of apostasy, their underdog status might make them more doctrinally tolerant. Plus, there are well-developed schools of Shi'ism, each with established clerical hierarchies which differ -- and as far as I know, they don't war with each other the way, say, 18th century Scottish Protestants did :)

Good guess or what :)

Bob

Mr. Drum:

We are not talking about just any old American here. We are talking about the one who is supposed to provide knowledgeable oversight of Intelligence and his ignorance is both alarming and disgusting.

gooling = googling

Getting back to Sylvestre Reyes --how does he even merit being on the intelligence committee if he isn't informed of even the most rudimentary elements of our principal national security questions?

At least this guy might be willing to learn, rather than assume that "god will sort them out".
BTW...the author's statement that Hezbollah "is
close to taking over in Lebanon" demonstrates an eqaully worrying amount of ignorance.

well, those who want to point fingers at the media at Not Doing Their Jobs.....

How many reporters know the difference? Most of the real reporters quit the profession in disgust many years ago (I know, I'm close friends with an ex-UPI news reporter) and right now we've been left with the bimbo-heads and the talking idiots.

Anyone want to get up and ask Hannity or O'Reilly about the differences between Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Wahabis?

grumpy realist:

Apologies if you knew this already, but NB Wahabi is a term used primarily by the West to describe Saudi Arabian Sunnis and the religious schools that they fund around the world.

It is not a schism in Islam a la Suuni and Shi'ite (and Sufi, too, for that matter).

Bob

It's true that his knowledge on the score seems abysmal but that's not the point -- he can always have advisors who do know the subject and rely on them.

If people either are unable or can't be bothered to find out the basic things that any responsible person in their position would know, why would you assume they are both competent and inclined to select faithful and knowledgeable advisors?

I mean, seriously, the US has been fighting a "global war on terror", and particularly al-Qaeda, for half a decade, its negligent for an adult citizen not burdened by a intellectual handicap not to know some of those things, much less a US Congressman.

Just a try out.

I was not permitted to post last night.

notthere:

The comments were shut off the night before last because of a spam attack. That's been fixed.

What may have happened last night is that PA has a program to deal with spammers that blocks out IP numbers by ranges. Once in a very great while, a regular poster will get a dynamic IP from his/her ISP that will be in one of those ranges. If you kept getting throttled (what happens when you try to post within something like two minutes) over and over again -- that's the likely culprit.

You fix it by logging out and in again a few times from your ISP, and you can also try rebooting. Eventually you'll get a new IP number outside of the spam filter range.

Bob

aaron: My interest in politicians is mostly for entertainment. It's reality TV without the script.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The problem is that it's almost all scripted. It's only fun when it's not.

aaron> Actually, that whole Iran contra thing was basically all about creating Hezbollah.

Wrong again. Part of Iran-Contra was about secretly sending arms to Iran and one of the paybacks was for Iran to tell Hezbollah to back-off kidnapping Americans. At the time one of the main tenets of Hezbollah was the destruction of Israel [Hezbollah was started right after the Israel invasion of Lebanon in 1982] and another part of the deal was to get the arms to Iran through Israeli sources.

And the answer to keptsimple's question was that Abu Sufyan is held in high esteem by the Sunni. I thought so, but I had to check it out. The answer was obvious when I read that he was rejected by Ali and his son established the Umayyed caliphate.

natural cynic & keptsimple:

Yeep. I was dead-ass wrong on that one. The Shia also take a dim view of him because they view him as a hypocrite -- having resisted Islam for most of his life, only to make a late conversion into Muhammad's inner circle.

Nothing whatsoever to do with Sufism -- my bad.

Bob

Instead of the ISG, the group studying the war should have been a joint, bipartisan committee of Congressmen and Senators. People from the Armed Services and foreign policy related committees.

And which of those, 'ex', are the Arabic-speakers?

Sure, the ISG was a collection of worthies whose aim was to create a domestic-consumption consensus, but given the conniptions of the GOP at the thought of a black Muslim convert entering the House, the idea that you'd embrace advice from Arabic-speakers, Arabs, Iranians, or people with general clue is fucking disingenuous.

why not jane harman for house intelligence chairman?

"Sen. Levin, you've accomplished more in public life than Barack Obama and John Edwards combined, but because they look like they could model underwear and you don't they are considered Presidential candidates and you're not. Does that ever strike you as, well, stupid?"

Somewhat, but this isn't like news or anything, right? It is obvious that there are certain things that provide you with presidential timber. Ask Abe. And, sorry, the deciding factor isn't ability to model underwear.

Obama is ahead because of his ability to attract audiences because of his personality and so forth. Apparently, Levin isn't as personable. Edwards as well -- various under 'cuties' that don't get anywhere. Edwards, of course, is a longshot, particularly because of his lack of public experience.

Why btw is McCain ahead, I wonder. Push comes to shove, aren't there a few other Republicans that aren't such big Bush enabling phonies? Media relations, again. Not likely to be in underwear ads, though.

Jeff Stein (from the article):

On the day in 2003 when Iraqi mobs toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Bush was said to be unaware of the possibility that a Sunni-Shia civil war could fill the power vacuum....

Ummm, Jeff needs to start paying attention as well. That statue-toppling was a staged event by the U.S. troops (the long-distance shots of the event are quite revealing as to just how much of a artificial photo-op it was), and IIRC, they even trucked in some Chalabi thugs -- who came into Iraq on the heels of the troops to start giving the troops 'grateful kisses' for 'freeing' their fat butts -- for the festivities.

Cheers,

rmck1:

Replace the [ brackets with angle brackets, use the above URL in that syntax, and you're there.

You mean replace the "[" with "<" and the "]" with ">"?

Might be easier to just say, "do this":

<a href="http://yourURLhere.htm">highlighted link</a>

;-)

Cheers,

cmdicely:

[Godwin]: Why do Americans need to know that stuff? Do you think the Germans studied the theoretical subtleties of Marxism-Leninism during Operation Barbarossa?

The Germans ultimately failed in both that specific campaign and the broader war, so, all other reasons not to emulate Nazi Germany aside, perhaps they aren't the example you want to cite in terms of how one should run an effective and successful military effort to achieve a desired end result.

Methinks you (and a couple others above) gotta tune your sarcasm detectors up a notch. I think
"Godwin" chose Barbarossa with specific intent....

Cheers,

The money, networks, and weapons for Iran contra essentially financed and supplied Hezbollah, and were given as part the deal to end the Iran hostage crisis.

I read Stein's article yesterday via TPM. Here is my email to Reyes. I suggest every Democrats write him something similar.

Dear Congressman Reyes,

I'm a Democrat. I just spent the last 9 months volunteering my time and money working very hard in a losing cause to get Tammy Duckworth elected congresswoman from the IL-06. While she didn't win we did manage to drain resources from the NRCC they desperately needed in other races. Duckworth lost her legs in Iraq and her right arm was broken in three places. She almost sacrificed her life for this country. Many others have in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's why I was so appalled to read your interview with Jeff Stein of CQ magazine. You sir are going to be the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and you don't know Al Qaeda is Sunni? You don't know Hezbollah is Shiite? What exactly do you people do on that committee? For the country's sake please take a crash course in what's going on in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

Here are several resources you can start with:

Professor Juan Cole's website:

http://www.juancole.com/

Professor Marc Lynch's website:

http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/

For God's sake please do not give any more interviews until you've educated yourself about the issues.

Sincerely,

markg8

PS I'm not from El Paso, I'm from Illinois. You now represent the entire country as head of the House Intelligence Committee. Please change your website email page so all of us can contact you when need be.

cmdicely, If people either are unable or can't be bothered to find out the basic things that any responsible person in their position would know, why would you assume they are both competent and inclined to select faithful and knowledgeable advisors?

And what kind of 'advisors' would keep their man this ignorant? To what purpose?

By what right do these pompous twits think they an obligation to be uninformed? If anyone has no right to ignorance it is surely someone who is in a position of serious public authority.

Arne Langsetmo:

How in god's grey earth did you get the post editor to display the angle brackets without interpreting them as HTML code?

Seems to me that if someone typed that into a post, they'd create a hyperlink, not display the code used to create it.

But there's prolly some li'l formatting trick you used of which Luddite me is entirely ignorant ...

Bob

Bob,

replace every occurrence of "semicolon" with a real semicolon in the following:

<semicolona href="http://yourURLhere.htm">semicolonhighlighted link<semicolon/a>semicolon

The real danger posed by ignorant people in responsible positions like Mr. Reyes is that their ignorance actually convinces them they are not only infallible but visionary.

To see the technical explanation, see "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments", a 1999 APA paper. (Requires Adobe Reader)

The link is:

http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

Sam Thornton: Thanks for that link. That paper should come in handy for future arguments.

It's like the fact that most people think they're above average.

Or as George Carlin put it, "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

Hezbollah is/was the result of the Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Syria. Iran was not "behind" it in the same way that America was "behind" the Shah. I'm getting really sick of the talking point that Iran is behind all the insurgencies in the Middle East.

From wiki:

Hezbollah's original 1985 manifesto reads:

"We are the sons of the ummah (Muslim community) - the party of God (Hizb Allah) the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran. There the vanguard succeeded to lay down the bases of a Muslim state which plays a central role in the world. We obey the orders of one leader, wise and just, that of our tutor and faqih (jurist) who fulfills all the necessary conditions: Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini....We are an umma linked to the Muslims of the whole world by the solid doctrinal and religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal principles laid down by the light of an overall political conception defined by the leading jurist....As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation.[58]"

Hezbollah was largely formed with the aid of the Ayatollah Khomeini's followers in the early eighties in order to spread Islamic revolution[59] and follows a distinct version of Islamic Shi'a ideology (“Willayat Al-Faqih”) developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.[55][24]

Although Hezbollah originally aimed to transform Lebanon into an Islamic republic, Hezbollah's spiritual guide Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah[57]claims this goal has been abandoned.

I also recommend reading the introduction to Journey into Madness.

Reyes represents us, is one of us, so he is the same result of the same mores which delivered the same education system. What did you all expect? It matters not how many staff they have because the staff are the products of the same dumbed-down, arrogant education system

What did Saddam know in 1990 that precious few Americans under 45 knew? The answer is “How to find Kuwait on a map!”

Telling ourselves for the past sixty years that we are perfect and all-powerful, that we do not have to know anything about the world and how all “those other peoples’ minds work” is why we are now in our mess.

And read this.

The idea that Hizbollah is not a creature of Iran is a myth and talking point the has developed only recently.

There's a point we should start to focus on:

Those Democrats now moving into senior positions are those who have been able to get along well in Jack Abramoff's Washington.

A large percentage of them are little better than the Republicans they've replaced.

There would be consequences for Stein if he wrote this sort of article about a Republican, but since it targets a Democrat, he will get praised for his courage and probably asked to talk about it on TV.

Good job!

Good job!