It's not just Reyes -- and it's not just members of Congress. The FBI has trouble grasping elementary but vital concepts that anybody who reads the daily paper with any regularity. Check out this NBC News report. Excerpt:
Dale Watson, now retired, was the FBI's top counterterrorism official before and after 9/11.
In a deposition taken on Dec. 8, 2004, Youssef’s lawyer Stephen Kohn asked Watson: “Do you know who Osama bin Laden's spiritual leader was?"
Watson: Can't recall.
Lawyer: And do you know the differences in the religion between Shiite and Sunni Muslims?
Watson: Not technically, no.
John Lewis was until recently the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counterterrorism. During his deposition on May 17, 2005, he was asked if he knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis.
Lewis: You know, generally. Not very well.
Lawyer: Was there any relationship between the first World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 attacks?
Lewis: I'm aware of no immediate relationship other than all emanates out of the Middle East, al-Qaida linkage, I believe. Not something I've studied recently that I'm conversant with.
It's probably better we don't know what our leaders don't know, else we'd never sleep at night.
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Reading the actual NBC article, I find some scarier things between the lines: The FBI is still letting their public image be the end all be all. Did you catch the part where the spokesman said they'd increased their Arabic speaking agent pool by 300%? Impressive. Now they have six. Wow. Youssef gets effectively canned for calling his boss, more or less, a ding-dong. Well, maybe there was reason. To say there was no major need for top brass to know the answers to Jihad Jeopardy, since there are junior agents who have this stuff cold....cheezlooeze, but 1) You've mismanaged them to the point that they challenge top brass in front of congress and 2) doesn't that sorta negate the need for top brass??!!!
And I make twenty-two four teaching four year olds...
k.>
"Apparently there are people in Iraq called Sunnis and Shites. That's interesting, but I don't see how that's relevant." -- "Pres. Bush" on SNL last weekend.
Sometimes the truth is much scarier than parody.>
It's times like this that I like to drag out the horse metaphor:
You can lead a human to knowledge, but you can't make him think.
:)>
Reyes was a helicopter gunner in Vietnam, which is more than we can say for a good chunk of the Bush policymakers(excepting the now-reviled former Navy pilot Rumsfeld). Military experience isn't a must, but it's a good qualification for that job. Good luck and Godspeed, Chairman Reyes.
And truth be told, I no longer care about this Shia/Sunni nonsense; they're all crazy. May be it's better not to spend our time and energy trying to figure out these loons. Increasingly the thoughts of most Americans is that we learned all we need to know about the "religion of peace" on 9/11. It's no longer an empty slogan, but a fact.>
I think this is proof positive that when push comes to shove, the foreign policy establishment hears "religion" and automatically files it away as a proxy for something else--presumably class, ethnicity, economic interests, etc.
It's much, much easier to deal with that way. Except when it all-too-frequently blows up in your face, of course.>
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