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!

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.