New Book: Bush didn't know there were 2 sects of Islam Before Invasion!

[Dems Will Win]

"I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"

At a January meeting on Iraq, it was obvious Bush did not know the difference between Shia and Sunni, responding at one point in the briefing: "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

The author Peter Galbraith will be going on a book tour. This will be big news as he makes his rounds.

From a discussion group:

What does Bush know of the differences among the Kurds, Turkmen or the Assyrian-Chaldean Christians, or between
Shiite and Sunni Muslims?

The New York Times Magazine (NYM) recently revealed that in September 2002, the U.S. president knew absolutely nothing about the ethnic, religious and political mosaic that would need to be borne in mind when
organizing any type of Iraqi Yalta Conference. Last January during a meeting packaged under the grandiose name of the Project for the Future of Iraq (NYM) Baby Bush demonstrated he had just learned of the large opposing sectors existing in Iraq, probably the most fragmented country in the Arab world.

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.cuba/browse_thread/thread/63c97e032e9c42ca/813e08150fda2a9a?lnk=st&q=&rnum=7&hl=en#813e08150fda2a9a

From Raw Story:

Ambassador claims shortly before invasion, Bush didn't know there were two sects of Islam



Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Ambassador_claims_shortly_before_invasion_Bush_0804.html

This quote could really wake some people up and make them less anti-intellectual if it gets out.

Beyond that, the future is going to be far worse in Iraq, those 2 sects Bush didn't know about are in a civil war with 100 dead a day, while the al-Sadr cult is organizing a million Shia to march in Baghdad to chant Death to America and Death to Israel. Iran is now far stronger than it was, arming and training the Shia militia, who pay for the weapons with the 30% of annual oil production they siphon off. We are going to lose the war without a doubt now and the US and UK will be chased out by an armed Shia army, in conjunction with Iran. This Iran's smart plan to tie the US down in Iraq and need to actually increase troops there--so an Iranian land invasion cannot be put together.

please remember to recommend to get this quote out to more people

[Totally Committed]

1. To be more acurate...

He Didn't know "Islam" was the relgion of Muslims at all.

The man gives a whole new meaning to IGNORANT.

TC

[connecticut yankee]

2. Where the hell

did this moron come from?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. Connecticut.

:)

[Dems Will Win]

6. Isn't Yale Where Lieberman is from too?

What are they teaching them there?

[Warpy]

3. Nothing will make Joe Sixpack less anti intellectual

He's been fighting college boys in new suits all his life, those newly minted management types from b-schools all over the country who think they know how to do his job better than he does and talk down to him when they tell him so. It's just not going to happen. He knows the type and he doesn't like them and he's right about that.

Look to Govenor Brian Schweitzer for how to get ellected by Joe. Be a progressive and don't talk down to him. Don't try to tell him how much smarter than he is you are. Just tell him like it is in plain English.

Schweitzer is an unabashed progressive who got elected in one of the most heavily Repug states in the country. Conrad Burns is what they usually elect.

There is a very rational basis for the anti intellectualism in this country. Instead of deploring it, maybe it's time to take a page out of Schweitzer's book and work with it.

[teryang]

7. The "so-called" rational basis

Please relieve me of the burden of thought, decisions, and democracy.

Look ma! He says nucular jest like me!

"Nazism contained an incomparable and unsurpassable combination of all those psychological elements the masses needed...(Hitler) could not immediately give bread to the starving and wages to the unemployed but he absolved the weary, the desparate and the downtrodden from the heaviest burdens of their souls. He allowed them...to gather hope and feel superior. He released them from the loads of reason, responsibility, and morality. He led them back to the regressive paradise of irresponsibility and implicit faith. He let them relax into a precivilized, presocial, infantile stage. He allowed them to hate and believe, to strike and obey, to march and feel as the masters of the world."


Quoted in The Psychopathic God, Adolf Hitler, Robert G.L. Waite, 1978, p. 402.

[Warpy]

10. You're making the same mistake the DLC has made

and please look at the result. The Democrats are out of power in all 3 branches.

You want to rethink that?

[teryang]

11. There's a non-sequitor

I am examing your use of the word rational, critically. You sir are the one who doesn't understand the meaning of the word.

The Nazis were elected as well. Did that make them right?

[BlueEyedSon]

4. Is anyone really surprised by this?

[0007]

9. I'm surprised that junior didn't learn anything from the pillow talk

and years of sleeping with the Saudis

[keta11]

8. Who is surprised that Bush is dumber than sh*t???

Have you listened to his sophomoric answers to questions about serious geopolitical issues. He has so dumbed down the Presidency its unbelievable.

The people I pity are the Americans who cheered him on from managing the Texas Rangers to the White House and the "nucular" football.

[mainer]

12. This was reported some months ago -- no one cared then

The former CIA agent who wrote the book on which "Syriana" is based mentioned this astonishing fact during his book tour. No one raised an eyebrow. It's as if Americans think: "Yeah, we know Bush is an idiot. What's new?"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

13. Likewise, I'd almost be willing to bet that more than 90% of Americans

Have no idea that there are two sects of Islam. It's not like they teach us anything about it in the public school system.

So, if no one else knows, why would they care?

[guardian]

21. I think you are right.

Most people don't know, including several people responding to this post. There are actually several Islamic sects, not two:

* Sunni
* Shi'ites
* Sufis
* Wahhabi
* Zaidis
* Druze and Kurds
* and more whose names I can't remember

Within Sunni and Shi'a there are probably a dozen sub-sects each. I spent time over there back in the 70s. When they are not busy hating the Jews, or Russians or someone else, they spend their time hating each other.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. that's right....he also 'worked' with Chalabi prior to the invasion, and

was one of those CIA agents who KNEW and warned of Chalabi's treacher, specifically his being in league with Iran!

that got his career basically ruined, beginning with his inquisition by the FBI

I linked an article about that when the Rolling Stone article about Chalabi/Iran was posted here a week or so back

[Gabi Hayes]

15. here

http://zfacts.com/p/152.html



In his book "See No Evil: the True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," published in 2001, Baer wrote that the plot to kill Hussein was phony, concocted by Chalabi in hopes of enticing Iranian support for his Iraqi opposition efforts. To prove to the Iranians he had Washington's support to go after Hussein, Chalabi forged a letter on U.S. National Security Council stationery that asked him to contact the Iranian government for help, Baer wrote. The letter said Washington had dispatched to northern Iraq an "NSC team" headed by Robert Pope, a fictitious name.

In a meeting with Iranian intelligence officers, Chalabi left the letter on his desk while he took a phone call in another room, knowing the Iranians would read it, Baer wrote.

What happened next has not been previously reported. The Iranian intelligence officers sent an encrypted message to Tehran about Chalabi's supposed plot, officials said yesterday. The United States intercepted the transmission. U.S. intelligence had broken Iran's secret communications codes during that period as well.

The contents of the 1995 intercept became the basis of a report that circulated fairly widely in Washington intelligence and law enforcement circles, an official recalled. The result was not only deep distrust within the CIA for Chalabi but also an FBI investigation of Baer. The concern of investigators, as Baer recounted in his book, was that he was in violation of presidential orders and U.S. law that prohibited assassinations. Baer passed a polygraph test, but it would be almost a year before he and his team were cleared. Nevertheless, Baer's career was damaged and never recovered.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1744104#top

[krkaufman]

23. Yep, this info has been out there for quite a while.

That said, another author refreshing the story can't hurt.

[ramapo]

16. No duh

Bush's ignorance is one of his endearing qualities to his most loyal supporters.

[Lisa]

17. he probably got all prissy at the word "sects"

"Oh, folks shouldn't use dirty words like that! Karl says it'll turn off my base!"

[breakaleg]

18. he certainly isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer...

[BrotherBuzz]

19. And a chain is as strong as its weakest link...

He was tutored by two butter knives; Condi Rice and Karen Hughes.

[readmoreoften]

20. It's like having Britney Spears for president. /nt

[progressoid]

22. Sure, two sexes. Boy Muslims and Girl Muslims.

Sadly, he probably reflects the knowledge of many Amuricans.

[kestrel91316]

24. I betcha he couldn't explain the difference between Catholics and

Protestants either...............

He also probably has no clue about Orthodox vs Conservative vs Reform Judaism.

The man is an ignoramus.

[cassiepriam]

25. Could he find Iraq on a map?? nt