Liz Cheney on the WaPo Editorial Page

The Spawn of Satan™ was given a spot on the editorial page of the Washington Post today, and boy does she never fail to disappoint! She chugs the Kool-Aid and churns out a propaganda piece that would make Brezhnev blush. And I can only assume it was aimed at the 28% that comprises the Armageddons-a-comin' crowd because I have read more cogent arguments from 12-year-olds. The kindest descriptives I can muster are vapid, insipid, trite and vacuous. Proof once more that a world-class education can be, and indeed often is, wasted on it's beneficiaries.

Let's parse her *points* and rip her to shreds, shall we?

Let's start with the real reason she wrote this. Reasons, actually. First, it was a generic drive-by smear against Hillary Clinton, who came back from a trip to Iraq speaking out about the ab-surge-ity that Bush is advocating; election be damned.

But the main reason is more below the surface - it's written at a the level of a 12-year old because it's the talking points for the dead-enders - and that is about their level of comprehension. If they were not uneducable, they wouldn't be continuing to ingest the spoon-fed poison dished up by this administration.

We are at war. America faces an existential threat. Really? I thought the military was at war, and America was at the mall. As to the existential threat she wants us all to set our hair on fire about - Bullshit. Any *existential threat* our nation faces is due to undermining the Constitution, suspending Habeas Corpus, the Insurrection Acts of 1807 and Posse Comitatus. The threat to America is from her president and her father and the fools who follow them. Terrorism is a tactic, it is not an entity, and fighting this tactic militarily is just, well, stupid.

Quitting helps the terrorists. Don't take my word for it. Read the plans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman Zawahiri to drive America from Iraq, establish a base for al-Qaeda and spread jihad across the Middle East. Don't worry, you miserable bitch, I wouldn't take your word that the sky is blue. if you said it, I would go outside and look up. Zarqawi is dead, so scratch him off the list-o-threats. Let's all remember, as well, that al Qa'eda is a Sunni organization, and Iraq is majority Shi'ite. That civil war in Iraq? It's between Sunni and Shia. Anyone who believes that the Shia would stand for an al Qa'eda takeover of their country should contact me immediately, because I have millions sitting in a bank in Nigeria that I need your help and $50,000 dollars to retrieve...

Beware the polls. In November the American people expressed serious concerns about Iraq (and about Republican corruption and scandals). They did not say that they want us to lose this war. They did not say that they want us to allow Iraq to become a base for al-Qaeda to conduct global terrorist operations. They did not say that they would rather we fight the terrorists here at home. Until you see a poll that asks those questions, don't use election results as an excuse to retreat. Anyone catch that whiff of desperation? A Republican snatches at the straw of Republican corruption, claiming that was more to blame for the electoral disaster the Republicans were handed than the war. Anyone remember the post-election analysis and exit polling? It was about the war!!! Here is the defining race that crystallized that point: The Kansas 02, home to Fort Leavenworth and Fort Riley, tossed Jim Ryun out on his ass and installed Democrat Nancy Boyda. Listen up, bitch. We took a poll in November - the only poll that matters - and the results weren't what you wanted, so you tell us to "beware the polls." Oh for fucks sake. Grow up and deal. The jig is up and you guys have been repudiated. As for that "fighting them there, rather than here" bullshit...Did you ever play sports? I did. Still do in fact. Homefield advantage is not to be underestimated. We fought them here at home just fine prior to the cock-up that is Iraq and the travesty that is the Bush presidency. We caught the first WTC attackers without a Patriot Act, without suspending Habeas and without launching an illegal war. Of course, we used to have a President, not some fucking idiot who dismissed the August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing with an "Okay, you've covered your ass now." And then cleared brush rather than attempting to prevent the attacks of September 11, 2001. Personally, I would rather be the one who can fade into the populace, rather than a sitting duck.

Retreat from Iraq hurts us in the broader war. We are fighting the war on terrorism with allies across the globe Allies are bailing right and left because of the incompetence and fecklessness of her Daddy's war-mongering. The War on Terror™ and the war in Iraq are two separate and distinct entities, and conflating them is the height of intellectual dishonesty.

What about Iran? There is no doubt that an American retreat from Iraq will embolden Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Read a fucking newspaper. Ahmadinejad is a figurehead, and a fading one at that. The only reason he was ever allowed to be ensconsed was to stick a thumb in Bush's eye after that Axis of Evil crap. Iranians dished up a thumpin' for him along the lines of the one Bushbaby took.

Our soldiers will win if we let them. Read their blogs. Talk to them. Fine. Here is a comment left on the 75th page of overwhelmingly negative comment to your piece on the WaPo website in response to your blathering, and I will let this soldier have the last word:

Since you decided to invoke soldiers and what we think, I will tell you: Liz Cheney, you're an idiot. You have no idea what you're talking about. I could go on and on about every point you make here, but in particular Ill address your comments about the courage those of us who have actually been to war unlike you, your father, the president, etc.. Of course terrorists cant beat us militarily, but guess what. They're beating us. Why? Its not a military victory were looking for. Its a PR fight. Its hearts and minds. If you had ever been there, or knew anyone closely who had, you'd know its a counterinsugency, and I can only assume from your column that you know nothing about counterinsurgency. Its easy to talk tough when you have no personal stake in the fight at all. You have evidenced a complete misunderstanding of this conflict, and all of us in uniform would be better served if you either educated yourself on the issue, or you just shut up. This administration has left those of us fighting this war out in the cold at every opportunity, from resources in the field to VA funding to brain injury research. How dare you try to use our collective voice to support a policy and an administration that don't support us.Jan 23, 2007 3:08:34 PM

Meet the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean Region - Great Food and Bad Blood

Too many people are woefully ignorant of the part of the world we have squandered so much blood and treasure over for the last five years...Not the people who read this blog, of course, but the readers of this blog are painfully aware of that tragic fact.

The region is steeped in history and historic rivalries. The history of the region predates the overthrow of the Shah and the seizing of the American Embassy. It predates the Munich Olympics massacre. It predates the overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddegh by a CIA-backed coup. It even predates the British Mandate!

The people of that region have fought over scarce resources and religion for thousands of years, and the rest of the world pretty much ignored the Middle East and left them to their internecine rivalries.

And then some British geologist discovered oil in the region, and the race was on...

Who could meddle first, who could meddle best, who could meddle most effectively, and who could screw the natives the hardest? (It was nearly always the British, for the record. Those Brits really knew how to run an empire back in the day.)

For a century now the western world has been sticking their noses into the affairs of the region, overthrowing heads of state, hoarding the regions one resource and in general, sowing all manner of ill-will and planting the seeds for a bumper-crop of hatred and animosity among the people of the region.

Sending more troops into a region we should be withdrawing from is folly. Instead of extracting them from this clusterfuck, the president wants to send in even more and ramp up the death and destruction, and that is criminal.

What the hell kind of sense did it ever make to declare war and send in the military to fight a transitive verb, anyway?

I'm Underwhelmed

Remember when the mission was accomplished? Hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, thousands of dead Americans, one live dictator and a civil war ago?

Ah, the good ole days.

The president just addressed the nation from the White House library. He needed to offer a healthy dose of reality and determination, and he needed to offer specifics and accept responsibility. He didn't pull off the first two at all; and he only hinted at the last two. For instance - specifics - here are his "specifics" for restoring security to Baghdad.

1. Clear and secure neighborhoods.
2. Help and protect the Iraqi people.
3. Train Iraqi security forces.
4. Increase Activity against Iranian actors.
5. Increase naval strength in the Gulf.
   

Never forget - the number of troops he calls for we have had in-country in the past, and we have always engaged in clearing and securing neighborhoods, and we have always (supposedly) held as part of the mission assisting the Iraqi people, and we have been trying to train Iraqi security personnel since day one, so I didn't hear anything new and inspiring that would lead me to believe that this time it will work! This time for sure! We have been engaging Iran, in case you didn't know, and for the first time in my life all seven Carrier Strike Groups are at sea...But they have been since late last summer. For the first time ever, all are in the east and middle east.

Interesting times indeed.

There were two things that deeply disturbed me in the choice of words his PNAC-lovin' speechwriters went with. It really sounded like he was taking sides in the civil war. The Saudi's can't be happy right now. Bet you cash money Bandar is on his way to Washington right this very minute. He probably watched the speech from the runway in his private luxury jet, and they started to taxi the second those words were spoken.

I also noticed that he didn't metion that troops will be pulled from Afghanistan and repositioned in Iraq. He did say something about the brave men and women who freed Afghanistan from the grip of the terrorists, and we couldn't let them re-group in Iraq.

Newsflash! They have regrouped and they are re-emerging in Afghanistan. So apparently the terrorists can have Afghanistan, but hands off Iraq...

Oh yeah - the oil's in Iraq.

Un.Fucking.Believable

(I originally intended to write two posts. One telling the right-wing punditocracy to go Cheney themselves, we have every right to be angry and ill-tempered, and another about the obscenity of moving troops out of Afghanistan and into Iraq. Somehow I segued from one to the other in one post. And then I got started, and I tied obscenity and profainity up in a single bow.)

The right-wing punditocracy has been clucking about the profanity of the left-wing blogosphere lately. I guess you complain about your opponents methods when you've been absolutely fucking wrong about everything for six years. I figuratively moon them while blowing a kazoo and send up a rousing fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I can't swear to it, but I think that's what Ben Franklin would do, and that's good enough for me.

If you can't use profanity when you are talking about an obscenity, when the fuck can you use it?

The war in Iraq is an obscenity. The idea of a troop buildup is an obscenity. Turning away from the justifiable conflict in Afghanistan and allowing the Taliban to re-emerge in that country is an obscenity. And taking troops from Afghanistan and the hunt for terrorists and moving them to Baghdad in an effort to quell the sectarian violence that has seized Iraq is a fucking obscenity.

It is also a stab-in-the-back to our allies in the war in Afghanistan who have troops there and who in good faith want to check the terrorist threat. It's a big ole "fuck you!" to the Canadians, Dutch, British, French, Germans, Italians, Portugese, Spanish, Australians, Norwegians, Pakistanis, Czechs and New Zealanders - just off the top of my head. There are several more. And by pulling troops from Afghanistan and repositioning them in Baghdad exactly the opposite of what should be happening we are personally insulting every head of state who committed troops and every allied troop who has served in the conflict. Even fucking obscene isn't quite strong enough.

And how timely! Frank Luntz is on Fresh Air chastising left-wing bloggers for being angry. What the fuck do you expect? When you have been absolutely right about everything for the last six years...and had your patriotism questioned and general threats made against your safety for having the audacity to be right...about absolutely everything, lets see how fucking nice you are about it all. If you are squealing like bitches now, I am investing in earplug futures.

Oh! And lest you think we on the left have anger cornered, I give you a post reader/commenter Apollo 13 left at Political Animal

When Marla Ruzicka, the founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, was killed by a car bomb in Iraq, Little Green Football-ers just had to comment:

It’s probably George Bush’s fault for letting her wander around Iraq instead of putting her in a gulag.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer tool.

Oh, I know what’s next. Her parents will sue the car manufacturer, or maybe the tire maker.

There’s no better useful idiot than a dead useful idiot.

Nominate her for the Mincemeat/Pull-Yourself-Together Award

At least the moonbat parents aren’t yet saying "they killed their best friend."

I can guess what color her eyes were! BLEW!

I’m having another drink to celebrate another moonbat meeting a well deserved demise.

She went from "peace" activist to piece activist.

Another moonbat bitch slapped by reality....

And Hugh Hewitt had the audacity to say of the lefty blogosphere: "They are training a generation of young Democratic activists to be angry, vulgar, profane, and cruel."

So not only does the Wingnutosphere get it wrong, it's not so well-mannered.
Posted by: Apollo 13 on January 9, 2007 at 1:13 AM | PERMALINK

And then there's this: Our wingnuts don't send your hate-peddlers fake anthrax. Domestic terrorism seems to be the province of the wingnuts on the right. But the FBI infiltrates the Quakers.

Expanding Operations to the Horn of Africa

The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world, so we will remain on the offense until the terrorists are defeated and this fight is won.

Guess what folks, he meant it. Under the cover of the regional conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia, the United States has conducted two air strikes against suspected al Qa'eda operatives. Hundreds of Islamists have sought refuge in southern Somalia's dense jungle and thick bush, where Ethiopian and Somali troops have chased them in a swift offensive that ran them out of their strongholds, including Mogadishu, before the New Year.

Intelligence officials from agencies in the U.S., Ethiopia and Kenya say some Somali Islamists have conspired to hide al Qa'eda members, including individuals suspected in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and a 2002 hotel bombing on the Kenyan coast.

I hope they were right, and I hope that the raids successfully eliminated terrorists who would plot further attacks against innocent life. I'm all for eliminating terrorists. But something about the timing here disturbs me, in a wag-the-dog sort of way, coming as it does right before the president is scheduled to unveil his *new way forward* for Iraq.

Getting pushback on troop buildups in Iraq? Take the fight to a third country!

Officially gone round the bend

The British have heightened security around the Chunnel for the Christmas holiday, based on intelligence obtained in cooperation with French intelligence agencies. I hope they had good intelligence and have averted a terrorist attack. I was feeling very good about the whole thing, and then I got toward the end of the article. And there it was...a pearl of hystrionic perfection.

Last week Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police, described 'the threat of another terrorist attempt' as 'ever present' adding that 'Christmas is a period when that might happen. It is a far graver threat in terms of civilians than either the Cold War or the Second World War,' he said. 'It's a much graver threat than that posed by Irish Republican terrorism.'(emphasis mine)

Unbelievable that someone would actually say that. Goodness me, I had no idea that the terrorist threat was capable of destruction on the same scale as global thermonuclear war and anhialation of the human race!

But insulting to his countrymen, Mr. Blair has apparently forgotten about the Blitz, in which 40,000 British citizens died, and 1500 were killed in one day. I'm sorry, but I don't see al Qae'da even reprising their success of September 11, let alone managing to kill 40,000 people in a sustained campaign.

I don't mean to dismiss terrorism, it is real and we need to deal with it, but setting up false equivalencies does not perform any valuable service whatever, it just makes the person setting them up look like a blooming idiot.

As British Parliamentarians are so fond of shouting from their seats while some proper Lady or Gentleman tries to peddle a sows ear by packaging it as a silk purse...Rubbish!

Retreating From Fear

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. Bertrand Russell

For the better part of five years, we were a nation ruled by fear. Worse than that, we were a nation controlled by fear. Right up to the final moments of the campaign, fear was flogged. There were terrorists everywhere who hated our freedoms and wanted to kill us all. A vote for the Democrats, we were told, was a vote to surrender to the terrorists.

I was rather bemused by the whole thing. What the whole fear of terrorism meme boiled down to was this: We were supposed to be afraid of fear. And the corpse of Franklin Roosevelt got up out of it's grave and departed the nation in disgust.

We as a nation owe the world an appology. We are better than this, or at least we like to fancy ourselves as such. Because we did not stand up to fear, we allowed our nation to be misled and a war with no end in sight is raging in the middle east, threatening to destabilize the entire region.

Because we were afraid, we allowed this war to be launched illegally. Yes, pre-emptive war is illegal.

The mongers of fear were also the self-appointed guardians of patriotism, and they became parallel indicators...The more afraid you were, the more patriotic you were, apparently. Dissention was shouted down and dissenters were branded as traitors. The divisive language continued right up until the election returns started to roll in. In fact, dissent is not unpatriotic. Quite the contrary - dissent is the quintessential element that makes a free society truly free. Again I was bemused - because we are free, we have an obligation to not question our government? I started looking for evidence I had fallen through a looking glass.

Because we allowed ourselves to be manipulated by fear, we allowed our rights to be undermined by the patriot act. When it was reported that the NSA was spying on Americans, the outrage was not at the government for the spying it was at the paper for the reporting of the spying. People were proud to say "I have nothing to hide!" And in my Jewish heart, I heard breaking glass.

The final straw for me was the Military Commissions Act, the suspension of Habeus Corpus and the acceptance of torture as an interrogation technique. The Defense Authorization Act changed fundamentally the relationship between citizens and their Government by altering The Insurrection Acts and Posse Comitatus. The changes undertaken make it easier to use the military to restore order in the nation. There's a word for that folks. It's called Martial Law. When I realized this, I made an oath.

Over my dead body.

I'm all for revolutions, but I much prefer ballots to bullets.

Fortunately, when the big shows opened all over the country on November 7, fear wasn't present on any of the runways.

Most of us voted to abandon the politics of fear, and now we must reassess our situation. First we need to take stock anew of the struggle against terrorism. We are fighting a war against a transitive verb with the military and it is a fruitless venture. We must deal with terrorism, but we must also remember that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

Remember that Britain did not defeat the IRA militarily. The Troubles ended when the politicians struck their bargains, not because of British tanks in the streets of Belfast. A group calling themselves the Real Ira refused to honor the peace process and disarm. In 1998, they exploded a bomb in a marketplace in Omagh and killed 29 people. From both sides the outcry was swift and loud. The public pressure was so great that the group, the last of the armed insurgents fighting the British, disbanded and disarmed in 2002 and Northern Ireland now knows peace. The Omagh bombing destroyed any remnants of sympathy for the remaining terror cells. Now they are gone, but they are not missed. But they are not gone because the military crushed them. They are gone because of political and public pressure.

We need to make an opportunity if need be to take responsibility for some of the meddling the western world has engaged in that has been counter to the needs of the region. We need to abandon the black/white manner of looking at the world and instead build new international relationships based on respect. We should never refuse to talk to anyone, ever.

And for gods sake, admit that the real root cause of all the problems in the middle east is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From Eurasia to the Steppes, all roads lead to Jerusalem. We can't even put a piece on the board and start to play until we accept this qualifier.

Would Newt just go away? Please?

I swear to ever-lovin' God...Either the Publican party is completely and utterly morally bankrupt, or Newt Gingrich is the political equivalent of the un-dead. Probably the former, unfortunately, which gives rise to Newt as the latter, so we are double-fucked.

Why can't this schlub just slink off back to Georgia and sit on the edge of a no-tell-motel bed and get a BJ from an assistant and leave the rest of the country alone?

Now the ethically challenged adulterer - who served his first wife with divorce papers in her hospital bed then didn't pay his child support - is recommending that we trash our free speech rights in an effort to save them. Yep. You read that right.

It seems The Newt is up in arms that I have the right to call him a pretentious, bloviating gas-bag, which is actually not only an understatement, it is the nicest thing I can think of to say about the jackass.

I have a problem with the "Thought Criminal" classification of crime. And as a member of a minority religious group, I have a problem with the castigation of all Muslims.

By now everyone has heard about the "flying Imam's" who were ejected from a plane for praying and for "sitting in the same seats as the 9/11 hijackers."

WHAT?

First of all, the bearded guy in traditional dress isn't likely to be a terrorist. That would more likely be the clean-shaven dude reaking of cologne and wearing the western dress and baseball cap, trying for all he's worth to pass himself off as a Greek. Second of all - when the hell has anyone ever booked a flight and been asked anything besides "aisle or window"? I have been flying five or six times a year, minimum, all my life. I have never been asked what seat I wanted, so that little bit smells like bullshit to the owner of this oft-stamped passport.

None the less, here is what The Newt had to say:

Our friends at the 'ACLU left,' of course, were staggered at this concept," Gingrich told an audience of Republicans at a Christmas banquet. "How could we talk about anything less than 100 percent free speech? How could we consider in any way thinking about this issue?"

Gingrich cited last month's ejection of six Muslim scholars from a plane in Minneapolis for suspicious behavior, which included reports they prayed before the flight and had sat in the same seats as the Sept. 11 hijackers.

"Those six people should have been arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists," Gingrich said. "And the crew of the U.S. airplane should have been invited to the White House and congratulated for being correct in the protection of citizens."

***Snip***

In an interview, Gingrich said it is possible to distinguish between terrorists and others when looking to fight threatening expression.

"If you give me any signal in the age of terrorism that you're a terrorist, I'd say the burden of proof was on you," Gingrich said.

Yep. You read that right, too. It's really easy to make the next step - If you have brown skin, or if you are not a Christian, these jokers are afraid of you and you must voluntarily surrender your civil liberties so they can feel "safe" in this uncertain world. Only white Christians should have full rights, apparently, and there is apparently a contingent of white Christians who can't wait to surrender the bothersome things and all the inherent responsibilites that accompany them.

Well, I'm all for stopping terrorism, so I think we should start at home. Should we form posse's and fan out ? If you are a white male between the ages of 20-35 and you were raised by religious wacko parents, you have to prove to me that you are not a Christo-fascist terrorist in the mold of Eric Rudolph or Timothy McVeigh.

Otherwise we shouldl just pre-emptively throw your white male Christian ass in the SuperMax, because you might be a terrorist.

Troop Movement

Next week, The Nation will publish a report on a movement of Active Duty, Guard and Reserve personnel who have organized a movement calling for withdrawal of forces from Iraq.

A mere seven weeks ago, An Appeal for Redress appeared on the internet, and since then nearly a thousand military members, includign a sizable number of officers, have signed their names to the petition.

During the Viet Nam war, you may recall that approximately 1300 active duty personnel signed a letter to the New York Times, but this...This is unprecedented in an all-volunteer military. During Viet Nam, the percentage of draftees in uniform was substantial. But these people speaking out today are all volunteers, and that fact gives their act of speaking out a degree of gravity that should be attention-grabbing even for the 30% drinking the Kool-Aid.

Every single signature on the Appeal for Redress is that of a volunteer. Many of those volunteers joined up after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Now they find themselves getting shot at and attacked by IED's in a country that had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11.

Many are feeling not merely misled, but that they were flat-out lied to. They don't like it any more than anyone else does. Hell, they probably like it even less, because the lies could cost them their lives.

But don't take my word for it. Read these words from a 20-year-old USAF E-4:

I supported the war when I joined because I thought it was justified. Only after my own research and the truth coming out did I learn how wrong I was, how - for lack of a better word - how brainwashed I was.

Now I know the war is illegal, unjustified and that our troops have no reason for being there.

When I saw an article about the Appeal in the Air Force Times I went online right away and signed it and have encouraged others to do the same.

There is an unspoken, tacit agreement between a volunteer military force and it's government. Those who serve agree to do so without question, and in return, it is understood that their government will only enter into conflict when there is no other option remaining. The government agrees to respect and honor the troops who serve and not take them for granted, abuse their trust or their patriotism and not start wars of choice. The government agrees to abide by international laws and treaties. (We have to honor those, we are not only not alone on the planet, we are trying to have a civilization here, after all.)

In other words, the government agrees not to make war criminals of the United States military forces! Or at least that was the deal before the aWol Bush administration. Now, not so much is guaranteed.

What that man has done to the military and our ability to defend ourselves and respond to disasters is reason enough for the House of Representatives to draft articles of Impeachment for this president, Vice President and several members of the cabinet.

This kind of ignorance has no business on the House Intelligence Committee

I expect better than this. Good lord, man! How can you be a member of the House, have held a seat on Intelligence all this time, have just been appointed chairman of that powerful and important committee, and you're still a little fuzzy on the religious doctrine that drives al Qae'da? How can this be? How can this possibly be??? I simply must know how this is possible. Until this question is answered, my mind shall remain boggled.

Of course the uproar in Washington wasn't about the fact that the incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman couldn't answer the questions asked...noooo, not in Washington. In Washington, the derision was directed at the reporter who asked the questions.

like a number of his colleagues and top counterterrorism officials that I’ve interviewed over the past several months, Reyes can’t answer some fundamental questions about the powerful forces arrayed against us in the Middle East.
It begs the question, of course: How can the Intelligence Committee do effective oversight of U.S. spy agencies when its leaders don’t know basics about the battlefield?
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.

***Snip***

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.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up a l Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.

Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil.

It’s been five years since these Muslim extremists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center.

Is it too much to ask that our intelligence overseers know who they are?

Boy Howdy! I could not possibly agree more! I not only expect the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to know these things, I expect most of my fellow citizens to know at least that much, or shut the hell up.

Congressman Reyes, you absolutely must become a regular visitor of one Juan Cole. In fact, get him on the phone, bring him to your offices and do not come out until he has educated you on these matters. Good lord man! You now represent all Americans, Mr. Reyes, and some of us are more than willing to hold every last one of you accountable.