The Blind Leading the Blind
Public CQ discovers what the incoming Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a man he acknowledges to be better informed than other Washington politicians, understands about al-Qaeda. (Hat tip: Tigerhawk)
To his credit, Reyes, a kindly, thoughtful man who also sits on the Armed Service Committee, does see the undertows drawing the region into chaos. For example, he knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
That’s more than two key Republicans on the Intelligence Committee knew when I interviewed them last summer. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., and Terry Everett, R-Ala., both back for another term, were flummoxed by such basic questions, as were several top counterterrorism officials at the FBI.
I thought it only right now to pose the same questions to a Democrat, especially one who will take charge of the Intelligence panel come January. The former border patrol agent also sits on the Armed Services Committee. Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East. We warmed up with a long discussion about intelligence issues and Iraq. And then we veered into terrorism’s major players. To me, it’s like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: Who’s on what side? The dialogue went like this:
Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.
Commentary
If readers take this as data, not confirmation of any partisan political view, then it is easy to understand why Washington has been so ham-handed in fighting the war on terror. It goes a long way toward explaining why Michael Scheuer of the CIA and John O'Neill at the FBI were voices crying in the wilderness in the days leading up to 9/11. It may provide some insight into why the US officials during the early days of the occupation of Iraq behaved the way they did. Because we didn't have a clue.
Neither did I, frankly until the months and years after the war on terror started, but then, it wasn't my profession to understand the threats to America and to defend against them. Now I'm beginning to understand what I should never have forgotten: that a man in an expensive suit behind a big desk is still just a man. Ok. That's where we are. What do we do about it?
posted by wretchardthecat at 12/10/2006 03:43:00 PM
30 Comments:
There aren't a lot of people who understand the difference in the blogsphere. Not sure how many times I have read how everything evil can be traced back to Wahhabism as if the Shite terror we faced for all these years had never existed. Forgetting the deaths of Marines never tells well of a persons ability to discuss solutions to terror. They don't even know the enemy.
The enemy is not sects within Islam but Islam itself.
Stateless Terror …or how the Government avoids holding Iran and Iraq responsible for Terror
Pierre Legrand said, "The enemy is not sects within Islam but Islam itself."
No, the enemy are violent men who have hijacked a monotheistic religion as moral cover for murder.
I've got it. We'll call it "No Congressional Leader Left Behind." A series of standardized tests on pertinent contempory and historical material. Scores to be published in the NYT on a quarterly basis.
No, the enemy are violent men who have hijacked a monotheistic religion as moral cover for murder.
Yes at one time I believed that as well. No longer. After reading so much history of Islam there simply isn't any way to excuse that violent religion. The founder was violent and his followers follow in his path. Trying to project the Christian way of religion onto Islam is nuts.
The Battle for Civilization…pick your partner and dosey doe
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I don't know. How much did we know about Aryan rural romanticism, bushido or any of the other animating features of our existential enemies in WWII? Think our boys went into battle armed with an understanding of Hegel and Neitsche or Samuri warrior culture?Yet we annihilated them and rebuilt them from the ground up.
How intimidating these -- the most formidable militaries of their day -- must have seemed to a far less wealthy and unprepared West. With fresh memory of the Great War's slaughter, one can almost understand the impulse to appeasement.
What we had then that we don't have now are civilizational confidence and will to succeed.
That's much worse than not knowing Musharaff's name.
It's like calling Hitler a communist.
"Education" means to emerge from school feeling ignorant and curious. Many a MacMansion in our area houses people making pots full of money, who take pride in never reading anything. Their fancy digs are cultural, intellectual, thereby moral deserts.
"Facts" are not the issue. Training as such is available in any field. What is vanishingly rare is someone interested in finding things out-- from astrophysics and cosmology to ancient Scythia's connections with Arthurian Grail Legends, if you don't ask you'll never know.
First Rule: Know your enemy, and act accordingly. Al Capone is not Mother Teresa.
Second Rule: Disaster can only be prevented, never cured. Had France reacted to Hitler's re-occupation of the Rheinland, there would have been no Fuehrer, no World War II. But of course, no-one would ever know... one must take pre-emptive action, always in face of nay-sayers who perceive no threat or do not dare confront it. Take the initiative, or you will not survive.
Third Rule: Once hostilities begin you must win out, at any but suicidal cost. Once dead, civilization will not return, and you with all you cherish will have perished with it. Commissar, Gauleiter, Mullah-dullah-- in the end, it's Light and Life versus Darkness and Death. Alas, on fundamentals there can be no compromise. Those who neither know nor care are worse than enemy cadres charging ahead to slit your throat.
These Washington commissions, study groups, whatever, exist for political purposes only. There is no enemy; if there were, we need not confront him; in any case, "victory" is a mere word. To us, of course, not them... when your daughters sweat in burkhas on pain of death; when secular humanists lift nether posteriors to Mecca five times a day on pain of death; when any asininity a mullah-dullah utters is God's word on pain of death-- then today's weasely little creeps will say, "Actually, we rather like it this way." In overweening State bureaucracies, in media, in schools, they are sabotaging representative democracy, long-term peace and prosperity at the very root.
Warnings have issued, events confirmed, time and again these seventy-five years. Comes now the due-bill, like a credit-card scamster's "balloon payment" after many a moon of blissful shortfalls.
Ben Franklin; Hamilton, Madison, and Jay; Jefferson and Lincoln depicted just this descent to nihilism where Clintons and Ward Churchills, Kenndedys and Kerrys endlessly stomp PC jackboots in their country's face.
Failure of imagination, failure of nerve... the world's short-lived brush with Science and Enlightenment
teeters on knife-edge, and our sad-sack eminentoes can't so much as crack a book. "Learn nothing, forget everything", and violently disparage any voice that cries in the Agora: You-- you lie.
The hour is later than we know.
Yes, anyone in need of a sinking feeling, it has been provided.
Pierre Legrand said...
After reading so much history of Islam there simply isn't any way to excuse that violent religion. The founder was violent and his followers follow in his path. Trying to project the Christian way of religion onto Islam is nuts.
Too bad you haven't spent as much time reading about the founding of Christianity, Pierre. Our religion's founder, Constantine, wasn't exactly a pacifist. In hoc signo vinces Pierre, you really should look it up.
Islam is just as violent as any other religion, as there are Buddhist and Hindus who've been known to self-detonate for religious reasons. Good Christian men operated the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Yes, religious cleavages matter, but let's not delude ourselves too much about a Christian way of peace. A realistic view of human nature is sine qua non for any functional political ideology. Which is why, I suppose, so few have a real sense of politics.
Constantine founded Christianity? That's rich.
Great writing, Pyrthroes. Keep doing it - as much as possible in as many places as possible. Consider running for office.
It goes without saying, of course, that Wretchard makes a great contribution, but I've said it anyway.
Pythroes:
"Had France reacted to Hitler's re-occupation of the Rheinland . . ."
And in today's environment -- with Nazi ambitions at the time still vague, and all with of the horrors yet to come far beyond the imagination of any -- France would have been pilloried for over-hyping a Rhine 'occupation' force carrying wooden guns, etc., etc.
Similarly, despite consensus of the world's intelligence agencies about Iraq's WMD ambitions, the U.S. is now pilloried for doing exactly what we say the French should have done with the Nazis.
Unfortunately, we can't run a parallel version of recent history, in which the Europeans and the Russians -- subverted by oil-for-influence money and the organized crime concession they'd been running in Iraq -- succeed finally in having the sanctions they'd been subverting removed altogether. Thus, freeing Iraq to pursue its stated ambitions.
Had the logical conclusion of this alternative version of history unfolded -- a WMD knife at the throat of the world economy, the livelihoods of hundreds of millions around the world in the hands of a single gangster, how forgiving would history be of our failure to act?
Never again, my ass.
the dems should reconsider putting jane harman in the house intelligence cmte. chairmanship.
Too bad you haven't spent as much time reading about the founding of Christianity, Pierre. Our religion's founder, Constantine, wasn't exactly a pacifist. In hoc signo vinces Pierre, you really should look it up.
What a bunch of foul smelling nonsense. Founder of Christianity Constantine? Ever heard of a fellow named Jesus? He founded Christanity. Mohammed founded that sick violent religion that we have been at war with since its inception. I am through playing this silly little game where we talk nice about a religion that celebrates death the way that Islam does. I am sick of projecting my view of Christanity onto a religion that may as well been founded by an alien since Mohammed seems to have known as much about morality as I do Quantum Physics.
Mohammed set the example and it was a bloody terrible example. Great religion where the founder starts off by hijacking caravans to steal and carry off slaves.
An Islamic Primer
Comes Reocon to demonstrate the quotidian moral equivalence that is the liberals' all purpose tool for putting those who challenge their world view back in their place.
The Soviets felt threatened by independence movements on their borders, surely they had the right to support Marxists in Latin America.
Iran feels threatened by US nuclear weapons, surely they have the right to possess them too.
And now we have the fact that the christianization of Rome (some 350 years after the death of the founder) did not stop Roman military adventures. So surely Islam was merely protecting itself.
It is just fine that we get to see that regular reading of the BC cannot make the liberal leapord change his spots! As Wanda tells Otto, certainly an ape can read philosophy - he just can't understand it!
Thank you Pierre and Wretch for your moral and intellectual clarity.
Mike H. said...
An Islamic Primer
12/11/2006 01:23:11 AM
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Given that simple test and Mohammed is known...
reocon wrote, "Too bad you haven't spent as much time reading about the founding of Christianity, Pierre. Our religion's founder, Constantine, wasn't exactly a pacifist."
If a deathbed conversion to a pre-existing religion counts as "founding" that religion, then Oregon GOP Senator Gordon Smith is the founder of the Iraq peace movement.
Fred said, "Perhaps 'Reocon' and 'Woman Catholic' could expound upon their reasons why those of us who have read the Qur'an, some English translations of the authoritative ahadith (Sunnah), and true biographies of the life of the Prophet (not hagiographies)have got it all wrong?"
The girl who knows nothing else, and was raised her whole life a Muslim, and became some bearded asshole's fourth wife "or else" is not my enemy. Therefore approximately half of all Muslims are not my enemy.
So, it’s all about gender? Sorry to burst your feminist bubble, Catholic woman, but while Islam(ism) is sanctified misogony, medievalism, and to some extent racism, there are plenty of fundy women who choose Islamic “submission”, even opting for the niqab in western society, and who can be as hateful as men whether in the east or west.
Most Muslim women raise their children to conform and to be oppressed by harsh Islam. While some do try to intercede on behalf of their daughters or to teach their sons better, many Muslim mothers do not, out of conviction or cowardice. Muslim boys could be considered "victims", as well, in the sense that they “know nothing else, raised their whole life Muslim”. Your facile retort would have little boys be guilty of Islam, but their grown Muslim mothers and aunts blameless, as if only females can be brainwashed and oppressed and not males. News flash for you: many Muslim men are trapped in their parochial social/religious ways, too.
Mothers reinforce society at the most basic level, that between primary caregiver and child. Muslim mothers are not all or even mostly victims of Islamism, since many are willing perpetuators of this lifestyle and belief, as are their husbands. Most Islamists accept their respective “roles” and the outward power differential between men and women as god-ordained and fitting. The ones who don't, both men and women, boys and girls, suffer and a few brave ones cry out.
Brave Muslim women do not include those Palestinian and other radical Muslim mothers who celebrate children jihadists or teach their children to hate Jews and westerners, who carry out genital mutilations on Muslim girls, and who are shamed by sons and daughters who try for a better way out of Islamist hell.
Look at all of the Muslim women living in the West who politically support Islam and jihad, holding up protest placards about the evil US, UK and Israel. Who rarely speak up for their oppressed Muslim sisters but who go on television as spokeswomen for the Islamist cause. Who don the chador and burqa, and who choose to veil their visages and go faceless, as either a religious statement of woman as temptress needing to be “modest”, or as a political separatist gesture in defiance of assimilation and western mores.
Muslim women shouldn’t be counted among the enemy? Bah.
If Christians are peaceful and Muslims are bad, then why are Christians supporting the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon?
Sheik Naim Kassem, Hezbollah's deputy leader, said the opposition was willing to stay on the streets for months to achieve its goal.
"Does Bush want popular expression in Lebanon? Do the West and the Arabs want to hear the voice of the people in Lebanon? Tell them 'Death to America!' Tell them 'Death to Israel!'" the crowd repeated behind him.
Michel Aoun, a Christian leader allied with Hezbollah, warned Saniora he had only "a few days" to accept a national unity government or face further action...
Aoun added that the opposition was committed to "to peaceful means, but even other means are legitimate."
Link
If Christians are peaceful and Muslims are bad, then why are Christians supporting the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon?
Wu Wei, be mindful of scale, please.
And be sure to let us know when large swaths of today's Christendom wish to destroy, suicide bomb, behead, and tyranically dominate the East in the name of its God and sadistic release.
Wu Wei said...
If Christians are peaceful and Muslims are bad, then why are Christians supporting the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon?
No one said Christians are peaceful. We said that Jesus was peaceful and Mohammed was not, that is the issue you must address if you are trying so hard to find some equivilancy between Christainity and the violent religion known as Islam.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
That is specifically a test to give to so-called prophets and Mohammed fails it miserably. By his fruits we know him to be deserving of our contempt.
And yes I know this is radical but it is time to stand up or we will be run over. If I have Islam wrong then they have only to prove me wrong by their actions. So far they have answered those sorts of accusations with riots. Not a very hopeful sign for those of you believing in the tooth fair...oops Religion of Peace.
No not one more step into comprimise will I take...not one more. This far, no farther.
For those of you who see Islam through a glass eye, darkly, and refuse to differentiate between the Sunni and its sects and Shia and it sects, I have the utmost pity.
It is apparent that you have no idea what you are talking about regarding our enemy. Let me bring you back to a time when the most terrible terrorist attacks were committed by Shia Muslims...not Sunnis.
Besides all the Iranian activity to murder US Soldiers in Iraq right now we have this nice long list of Shia terrorism to mull over. Yes please leave out the couple of items of Saddam terror. This is from a post on my site that got some favorable attention by a lot of folks.
Stateless Terror …or how the Government avoids holding Iran and Iraq responsible for Terror
Behind the 9/11 Report by Edward Jay Epstein For instance, the commission uncovered CIA documents that threatened to complicate matters by dragging Iran into the 9/11 conspiracy: The documents revealed that Iran had “apparently facilitated” the travel of most of the 9/11 “muscle hijackers” in flights from Afghanistan by not stamping their passports, and that Imad Mugniyar, the Hezbollah terrorist group’s infamous chief of terrorist operations, had flown with the hijackers. But the commissioners merely referred the “troubling” matter to the CIA project manager.
Iran takes over US Embassy
A series of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon, including
several Americans, in the 1980s;
April 18, 1983 Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut Hezb’allah sponsored by Iran.
Oct. 23, 1983 Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut 241 U.S. Marines were killed, 100 others wounded.
Dec. 12, 1983 Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait Six people were killed, 80 others were injured. The suspects were thought to be members of Al Dawa, or “The Call,” an Iranian-backed group
March 16, 1984 CIA Station Chief William Buckley kidnapped
Buckley was the fourth person to be kidnapped by militant Islamic extremists in Lebanon…– some, including Buckley, died in captivity or were killed by their
kidnappers. U.S. officials believed that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah was behind most of the kidnappings (It is reported that Mugniyah personally tortured and killed Buckley)
Sept. 20, 1984 Bombing of U.S. Embassy annex northeast of
Beirut In Aukar, killing 24 people, Hezbollah are “known or suspected to have been involved” in the bombing.
June 14, 1985 Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 TWA Flight 847 Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. sources implicated Hezbollah
1990 Iraqi Saddam Hussein warns Ambassador Glaspie that if the US hinders Iraq’s war to reclaim Kuwait that If you use pressure, we will deploy pressure and force. We know that you can harm us although we do not threaten you. But we too can harm you. Everyone can cause harm according to their ability and their size. We cannot come all the way to you in the United States, but individual Arabs may reach you (Prophetic words or merely a promise?)
1993 WTC bombing Abdul Rahman Yasin escapes back to Iraq and is given safe haven. Ramsey Yousef aka “the Iraqi” comes into the Country on an Iraqi passport.
Attempted Assassination of Former President Bush Iraq using car bomb
Radio Free Europe plot to blow it up using Islamic Terrorists, Iraq implicated by it’s former Ambassador.
9/11 Iraq implicated by meeting of Atta and Al Ani also by training conducted at Salman Pak. Where pre invasion photo’s confirmed reports by dissidents of a Terror training base. Later confirmed again by Marines who overrun the base finding suicide belts and other training materials besides the Airliner. Saddam was said to have explained the airliner to Weapons Inspectors by claiming he was training his own “counter terror” Squad.
9/11 Iran implicated by article referenced at beginning of post.
> And be sure to let us know when large swaths of today's Christendom wish to destroy, suicide bomb, behead, and tyranically dominate the East in the name of its God
Like they did during the Crusades?
I hope it isn't "large swaths", but I've seen plenty of Christians online who think we need to occupy the Middle East or nuke it.
Wu Wei,
I said today's Christendom. You couldn’t possibly believe current Islamists get a free pass on jihad and worldwide conquest because of the Crusades many, many centuries ago, when, among other reasons, Christians fought back against Muslim attacks and incursions into their lands, could you?
Also, think cause and effect, Wu Wei. Those people you see online who wish to "occupy or nuke" the ME aren’t Yankee imperialists wanting empire or Christian theocrats wanting to claim the globe for God. They’re reacting to terrorist attacks against the West with Islamist promises of more to come, and to a dark, spreading fundamentalism that is whipping up violent ambition and weaponizing to everyone’s peril.
Like they did during the Crusades?
Do you actually believe that passes as some sort of serious response? You stand the crusades up to threatening to eliminate Israel and the United States...?? My god what are our colleges teaching youngsters these days.
The crusades were a response to hundreds of years of war being waged against the west and you blame the west for fighting back???
Had we not responded you wouldn't be typing these responses into a computer...
You are not a serious person.
I take Islamists at their word...they make threats I believe them. I don't threaten I merely watch and wait. At one point or the other this fight will get taken out of the Governments hands if they are unwilling to win it. At that point madness will ensue...no one wants to get there but better that then defeat.
Yes I agree that this may be the course this war takes and it will be a terrible path to walk. But it is better than defeat.
Wretchard wrote a terrific article regarding just that scenario...the Third Conjecture.
Ultimately the quality of a democracy's leadership is a reflection of the values of the voting populace. We've made our bed and now must sleep in it.
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