NYT Filter

Even if you don't usually read the editorial in the NYT, read this one. It's funny, but also incredibly frightening. Basically, the people in charge of the war in Iraq don't know the difference between the Sunni and Shiite factions.

This is indicative:

To his [Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence] credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”