It isn't pretty, regarding Silvestre Reyes
….Now the five-term Texas Democrat, 62, is facing similar unpleasant surprises about the enemy, this time as the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
That’s because, 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.
The author of the article at Congressional Quarterly, Jeff Stein, asks some tough questions
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.
I'm not too surprised. Democrats have virtually ignored the threat from Muslim terrorist groups, and Muslims in general. Too many of them believe that 9/11 was an inside job. Others think that terrorism is solely a law enforcement issue. They believe that the U.S. should only play defense here on our shores. They treat the threat from terrorists as a joke and a political gambit. Can't expect them to actually understand what the issues are.
In all fairness, Stein shows that many in government do not really understand the issues. Perhaps it is high time that they do.
Captain Ed, The Political Pit Bull, Outside The Beltway, and Ragnar at The Jawa Report have more.
PS: Can you believe that CNN actually reprinted part of the article? Rather shocking.
I still believe that the Democrats and the terrorists are on the same side; so they honestly don’t care about the details, the Democrats just want to defeat America and they’ll take it however they can get it.
They somehow think that they are being patriotic with that attitude.