So what was the last election about? What did all of our effort really accomplish? Aside that is, from increasing Joes Lieberman’s power and profile in the Seanate?
Henry Waxman will have subpoena power, and John Conyers will more than likely end some of the more egregious abuses of Buscho, and end a few Republican careers. Even Dianne Feinsten may slow the demolition of the EPA.
But here’s an example of the fundamental corruption of stupidity at the top in Washington D.C.: "Our" pick for House Intelligence Committee charman lacks the basic understanding of Al Qaeda, of, say, an average poster on dailykos.
Ladies and gentlemen, the smart, hard working Sylvestre Reyes:
http://public.cq.com/...
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.
Ah yes. BinLaden is a Shiite, like the rest of AlQuaeda.
Supported by, Iran no doubt. Black turban, white turban, Farsi, Arabic, whatever. Bombs away. (More)
And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?
"Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah..."
He laughed again, shifting in his seat.
"Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?"
"Pocito," I said—a little.
"Pocito?! " He laughed again.
"Go ahead," I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.
Reyes: "Well, I, uh...."
There’s really nothing I can add to that, except that 5 o’clock is obviously quitting time, so there reporter is being unfair.
It was that way in Vietnam, too, Reyes says, which "haunts us."
"If you substitute Arabization for Vietnamization, if you substitute . . . our guys going in and taking over a place then leaving it and the bad guys come back in. . . ."
He trails off, despairing.
"I could draw many more analogies."
Yet Reyes says he favors sending more troops there.
"If it’s going to target the militias and eliminate them, I think that’s a worthwhile investment," he said.
It’s hard to find anybody in Iraq who thinks the U.S. can do that.
On "a temporary basis, I’m willing to ramp them up by twenty or thirty thousand . . . for, I don’t know, two months, four months, six months — but certainly that would be an exception," Reyes said.
Good to know that he's maiking vital policy decsisions on such a well informed basis.
A brief personal story: on Sept 11, 2001, I left Logan Airport at approximately 7:15 AM, bound for California on a Boeing 737. So, on some level, you could say Al Quaeda tried to kill me. If they knew about Sun Country’s low, low fares, they might have.
Since then I’ve taken foreign policy a bit more seriously. Sylvestre Reyes, and pure fools like him at the head of our government, have not.