House Intel Chief: Al-Qaeda is Shi'ite

Does this concern anyone? [H/T: The Belmont Club]:

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.

Wow! The guy that will run the house Intel committee fundamentally misunderstand the most prominent enemy of his country (and of the West). So, just in case you think this gap in understanding is a partisan matter, consider Trent Lott, incoming Republican Minority Whip:

Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

We're in lots of trouble if this is the quality of people the U.S. electorate want leading them in a war whilst they discard someone of Rick Santorum's calibre:

Our growing challenge, however, is that Iran is not alone in its rhetoric, intent or capacity to threaten the security of the U.S. It is important for Americans to know that the threat is more complex, and has grown more complex.The enemy that has to be named is greater than Islamic Fascism.

Many Americans are sleepwalking, just as they did before the world wars of the last century. They pretend it is not happening, that it all has to do with the errors
of a single American administration, even of a single American president. Some even pretend that it will all go away if only the Democrat Party-including my opponent who did not even know the name of the former Iranian president whose presence kicked up a firestorm a few weeks ago by coming to America-is elected in November.

How do they propose to save us from these people? By negotiating at the United Nations? By removing U.N. Ambassador John Bolton office? By relocating American forces from Iraq to Okinawa? By abandoning the Iraqi people to Iranian and Syrian slaughter and domination? By engaging in more direct talks with a nuclear North Korea?

House Intel Chief: Al-Qaeda is Shi'ite

Does this concern anyone? [H/T: The Belmont Club]:

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.

Wow! The guy that will run the house Intel committee fundamentally misunderstand the most prominent enemy of his country (and of the West). So, just in case you think this gap in understanding is a partisan matter, consider Trent Lott, incoming Republican Minority Whip:

Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

We're in lots of trouble if this is the quality of people the U.S. electorate want leading them in a war whilst they discard someone of Rick Santorum's calibre:

Our growing challenge, however, is that Iran is not alone in its rhetoric, intent or capacity to threaten the security of the U.S. It is important for Americans to know that the threat is more complex, and has grown more complex.The enemy that has to be named is greater than Islamic Fascism.

Many Americans are sleepwalking, just as they did before the world wars of the last century. They pretend it is not happening, that it all has to do with the errors
of a single American administration, even of a single American president. Some even pretend that it will all go away if only the Democrat Party-including my opponent who did not even know the name of the former Iranian president whose presence kicked up a firestorm a few weeks ago by coming to America-is elected in November.

How do they propose to save us from these people? By negotiating at the United Nations? By removing U.N. Ambassador John Bolton office? By relocating American forces from Iraq to Okinawa? By abandoning the Iraqi people to Iranian and Syrian slaughter and domination? By engaging in more direct talks with a nuclear North Korea?