Looks like incoming House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes is the latest in a long line of Congressional national security experts who don't actually know anything about national security. He thinks the viciously anti-Shiite al-Qaeda are...Shiites, something that even casual observers of the Iraq War know to be false, given that al-Qaeda is gaining ground in Iraq as protectors of the Sunnis. He thinks Hezbollah is, well, he doesn't quite know, which probably also means he doesn't know their sponsors in Iran are Shiite, and thus invested in Shiite dominance in Iraq. Oy.
This isn't like the geography tests high school seniors routinely fail, triggering rounds of handwringing over our failing education system. These issues are important. And Silvestre Reyes is paid to understand them. National security isn't my focus, but I've read at least a couple books on the Middle East, terrorism, and Iraq. And believe me: You can't get through the intro of these books without being treated to an extended disquisition on the differences between Sunnis and Shiites, who falls where, and how their ancient enmity set the stage for all that has come since. What Reyes' ignorance means isn't that he's got a poor memory for categories: It's that he's not made even basic efforts to educate himself on the relevant concepts.
So what the hell are we paying these people for? And given that Jeff Stein made headlines a few months back with a New York Times op-ed embarrassing an array of Congressmen by detailing their ignorance of these very facts, how detached must Reyes be not to have boned up on those very facts?
