Bush didn't know that Sunni and Shiite Muslims existed before the war...

I heard this in a promo for the new Showtime series, Sleeper Cell(which debuts tonight).

To him they were just, "Arabs". Yes, this is the most powerful person in the world. Chilling...

Think about that.

THAT says more to me about the man than any single other fact.

He had the time, the money, the connections. But he never traveled.

Didn't we once have a press that examined our candidates and pointed out these things for the otherwise tuned out public? On this fact I was sure tuned out.

and nobody seemed too concerned about it. I kind of figured he was stoned much of the time and didn't get out a lot!

It was during the campaign. Musharraf had been all over the news in the recent months, after having seized control of the government in a military coup. Bush didn't have a clue.

it would contain a complete and unabridged history of this asshats career like his idiotic fumbling when asked who the leader of Pakistan was. It would be a priceless warning to future generations.

He's a completely incurious man.

"I worked there as a 14-year-old kid," Bush said. "I went from Texas to Scotland to work on a sheep farm. I’m riding a bike ... A big tour bus stops. They got off and a woman with a Texas accent said: ‘Look at the little Scottish boy.’

"I kept my mouth shut and deceived her all the way."

A key friend of Bush in Scotland is Bill Gammell, the chief executive of Cairn Energy, the Edinburgh-based oil company.

Former Scottish rugby international Gammell, 51, was not only Tony Blair’s classmate at Fettes in Edinburgh, and school debating partner, but also shared his childhood with the president.

(...)

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1265&id=192942005

So he was an oil man at an early age.

golden egg as a shining example of unfettered democracy. BS.

I wish I could remember more of that story, but I do remember it getting a little bit of air at some point in time. I hope somebody comes along that can fill us in.

I'm looking forward to Sleeper Cell. I watched the preview that was on after the zombie program. It looks very interesting and like it will try to address terrorism as realistically as possible. I sure hope so.

(it was something incredible along those lines - he was briefed by a Saudi Prince who was shocked at his ignorance)

Re the Sunni / Shiite - apparently he discovered this in January 2003, when he had a Sunni, a Shiite and a Kurdish leader with him to watch the Superbowl.

thanks.

near the start of this documentary:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1785055.php

It was written about by the NY Times in 2003, but the article is pay-per-view:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB071EFF34590C718CDDAA0894DB404482

This NYT letter quotes from the article:

"The article notes that you could find nothing to confirm Rob Reiner's recollection that President Bush learned of the differences between Sunni, Shiite and Kurd Iraqis from an Iraqi exile during Super Bowl weekend. But a version of the anecdote was published in your own magazine on March 2, 2003.

In "Dreaming of Democracy," George Packer wrote: "Bush is a man who has never shown much curiosity about the world. When he met with in January. . .the exiles spent a good portion of the time explaining to the president that there are two kinds of Arabs in Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites.""

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/magazine/27letters.html?ex=1133845200&en=249008c2c4afaeb0&ei=5070&pagewanted=all

I can't find anything about my Saudi Prince Hamas/PLO thing though. All I remember is that the Independent (I think the Sunday edition) had a front page story about what the Prince had said after his session with Bush and that there was something incredibly basic that he had to teach Bush.

Shiite is what a Texan says when he hits his thumb with a hammer.

So Junior EVEN got THAT wrong. The dumbass.

There are Arabs in those countries, but in general per se the people are not Arabs.

What are they then? I knew about Iranians and Afghans already.

Iraq, Iran and Afganistan used to all be Persia.

But you know, we CAN'T expect the moronic Repukes to understand this.

Here's the breakdown on the ethnicities of the countries in question:

Iran
Persian 51%, Azerbaijani 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1%

Right about Iran. They are mainly Persians, though, as you can see, it's a bare majority.

Afghanistan
Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, minor ethnic groups (Chahar Aimaks, Turkmen, Baloch, and others)

Right, in a a way, about the Afghans, in that the Pashtuns are an ethno-linguistic group related to the Persians.

Iraq
Arab 75%–80%, Kurdish 15%–20%, Turkoman, Assyrian, or other 5%

Wrong about Iraq, which is mainly ethnically Arab. Both the Shiite and Sunni religious groups are ethnically Arab. Although it's true that (except for the Greek period following Alexander's invasion) Iraq was ruled by Persians, the Arabs swept through during their era of rapid expansion following the death of Mohammad. They stayed on until the present day.

Iraq was under Persian domination for centuries before and after Alexander, but the Arabs invaded in the 7th Century AD, and clearly they have come to doimate the country ethnically. Besides, Saddam was the one who wanted to establish a Pan-Arab super state, much like past historical figures of the region, so the people of Iraq clearly identify themselves as Arab.

Afghanistan was also probably under Persian control too, but that of course does not make the people there necessarily Persian, although like Iraq, that strain is likely present there as well.

It's fascinating to me that "Assyrian" is still an identifiable ethnicity there, since that dates back to the known beginnings of human civilization. The first civilizations, Babylon, Sumer and Assyria, began in what is now Iraq.

Yup, we got ourselves a real C average president here.

a country. He didn't know that it was a contintent made up of many countries. This Silverspoon Sociopath is real ignorant and arrogant.

Its motto is "keep it simple, stupid". Actually it should be "keep it simplistic, since I'm beyond stupid". Who would have ever thought that this type of "I'm a lumper not a splitter" over-simplification on the part of the Bumbler-in-Chief would lead us into a protracted no-win war?

the First Crusade, fer chrissakes.

Our president is hopelessly stupid.