After watching this video for the fifth time it stops being funny and starts becoming very worrying …
Of course, we shouldn’t be too worried, though — it’s not like beauty-pageant contestants run the most powerful country on the face of the planet (even if they can’t quite place themselves on a map). Surely American presidents congressmen know a bit more about the region where they are waging war. Right?
The chairman of the United States House intelligence committee (which is charged with oversight of the intelligence community) must surely understand all of this complicated geography, history and religious stuff. Well, luckily for us, Jeff Stein decided to interview Congressman Reyes just before he became chairman:
Al-Qaeda is what, I asked: Sunni or Shia?
“Al-Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shi’ite,” he ventured.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Al-Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shi’ite showed up at an al-Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball …
And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?
“Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah …”
He laughed again, shifting in his seat.
“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”
“Poquito,” I said — a little.
“Poquito?!” He laughed again.
“Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.
Reyes: “Well, I, uh …”
I apologised for putting him “on the spot a little”. But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on US soil and in the Middle East have been front-page news for a long time now …
“Yeah,” Reyes said, rightly observing, “but … it’s not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s a heck of a lot more complex.
“And I agree with you — we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”
Alrighty. Well I guess it’s time to start praying that the good folks at the Pentagon have a better sense of the world and don’t mistake Boksburg for Baghdad …
I couldn’t exactly make out what she exactly wanted to convey but – I thought – I got two points:
1. Americans can’t locate US in a map because Iraqis and South Africans need education.
2. America should help the people of Iraq and South Africa to get educated (i.e. by invasion), and that somehow would help Americans locate their country in a map.
From the “known knowns”, she’s qualified to run for president
I’m confused.
1) Why is the woman asking the question so much hotter than the Miss South Carolina
2) Why are we laughing at beauty pageant contestants? Isn’t it awful enough being them?
Sitting in a bar in Texas one night someone, having heard I was from South Africa, leaned over to me and asked “so what do you guys do with your Mexicans?”
I didn’t know whether I should be insulted that the person assumed that I was racist because I was a white South African, or to laugh about the guy’s total ignorance when it comes to the existence of the Atlantic Ocean.
It truly is shocking…you would have thought that the geographical reference (“South”) and the continental reference (“Africa”) would have been enough to place us far away from Iraq.
This is a classic! I rem watching a candid camera video about these guys who had a map of the world and changed the country names. They then went around on the streets of America asking people where Iraq is or where Korea was. And some the answers were ridiculous! Firstly none of them saw the map was incorrect and one guy said pointing to Australia and Tasmania i never knew NORTH Korea was so much bigger than South Korea (forget not knowing the right place when did North and South swap??). They maybe destroying the Earth and causing war everywhere but at least they funny too!
Shame on you, Mo! The handicapped shouldn’t bear the brunt of our ridicule. Having said that, as a handicapped group, US American congressman are fair game as they have the audacity to place themselves as experts above the mapless electorate, like Miss Such as Carolina. Incidentally, was she quoting George Bush?
I dont think Americans know anything outside of their precious little world. Im sure finding anything on a map will be hard for them. She is really a gem…so rare and precious.
I don’t find any of this remotely strange or funny.
Strange (like in weird) is the South African president talking about a “democratic revolution” as an ongoing event.
All I can make of it is:
First you have a revolution to ensure democracy.
Then you screw up that democracy with incompetence and voila, no problem, just have another revolution.
You then continue with this cycle untill no-one can believe it anymore.
You wait untill they shake their heads and shrug it off as one of those things in life that they can not understand but just have to accept.
Then you break out the champagne behind closed doors and celebrate the fact that you have bullshitted the rest of the world once again.
South African politics, now that is funny.
Yikes! I just found out that she was the third-runner up…
She was interviewed on a talk show after her performance and they gave her the chance to answer the question from her crib notes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DEBNMhziqc
Warning : The clip involves a lot of high fives between the presenter and the contestant.
. . . the way she answered the question answers the question . . .