Billmon: Empire of Ignorance

Reading this article, all I could think of was Dean Wormer's line from Animal House: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

Except I would make it: "fat, stupid and in power."

It's been almost 30 years since the Islamic revolution in Iran, 23 years since the Beruit bombings, 11 years since the Kobhar Towers bombing, three and a half years since the start of the Iraq War. And this is what the FBI's number one point man on national security knows about the difference between Sunni and Shi'a Islam:

A few weeks ago, I took the F.B.I.’s temperature again. At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureau’s new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. "Yes, sure, it’s right to know the difference," he said. "It’s important to know who your targets are."That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed.