Seen at Crooks & Liars:
In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, [Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter ] 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!"
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I'm curious if Bush sees Christianity in the same light (there are only Christians and non-Christians), or if he is just too obtuse to see an analogy between the Sunni/Shiite and Catholic/Protestant distinctions.
Considering his brother Jeb is a convert to Catholicism, I'm guessing someone may have clued him in. Then again ...
What's sad is the President wasn't prepped for this meeting by his staff, or worse he was. He either wasn't given any background information on the culture or the people or given minimal information (their not Caucasians, most of the men have beards, the major exports are sand, 2 toed camels, and oil). So he ended up looking like a fool.
Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if he and his supporters weren't aware that there were different sects/denominations of Christianity. I've had students arugue with me that Catholics weren't Christians. I informed them that they were/are a different denomination of Christianity like Baptists, Methodists, etc. (rattling off a half dozen or so) and they gave me a blank stare like they had never heard of any of them before replying, "but they aren't Christians."