The blogger, Nadeem Paracha (who has an interesting Wikipedia entry), starts by noting that the Pakistanis speak Urdu, not Arabic …
1: Pakistanis speak Urdu, English and other regional languages and NOT Arabic;
2: Pakistani men do not go around wearing 17th and 18th century headgear in markets;
3: The only Urdu heard in the film is from a group of wild-eyed men protesting against an American diplomat, calling him ‘chor.’ Chor in Urdu means robber. And the protest rally was against US drone strikes. How did that make the diplomat a chor?
4: And how on earth was a green Mercedes packed with armed men parked only a few feet away from the US embassy in Islamabad? Haven’t the producers ever heard of an area called the Diplomatic Enclave in Islamabad? Even a squirrel these days has to run around for a permit to enter and climb trees in that particular area.
I can go on.
Via Sullivan.
Does your first sentence need an edit?
Did you pony up $20 for Sully?
Yes, it needed an edit.
2nd Q: No, I did not. I was conflicted. First, I’ve been reading him far less because something about his page on the Beast loads v-e-r-y slowly for me, including occasionally freezing. Second, I always read him with, at the back of my mind, the degree to which he comes from a traditional of journalism that is about winning some sort of argument, and the nagging feeling (occasionally confirmed) that he’s willing to color or warp facts just as much as Fox News. Third: Pay for an aggregating blogger I occasionally read? Fourth: A couple of low points in his career– the post 9-11 patriot shouting and some of the stuff he published at the New Republic (the article about Clinton’s health care reform, the bell curve stuff) were SO BAD.
What’s probably going to happen is he’ll move, the site will work better, I’ll read it a bit more, and then go ahead and buy in. But that’s been my excuses for procrastination to date.
& u?
I haven’t noticed an Internet shortage that would cause me to pay for it. But I must say his blog is useful as an aggregator of stuff I’m interested in for the most part.
Amy Zegart ripped ZDT btw in Foreign Affairs; won’t try to link via iPhone, but she’s an easy google.
Read just yesterday that aformer CIA guy said when they waterboarded KSM They didn’t ask him any questions they did’nt know the answers to and they would waterboard him when he lied. He said they waterboarded him just to show their power and control. They did’nt really expect to get a lot of intell. from him anyway.
Where’d you see that, JL? Not surprising, but new to me.
I found the Charlie Rose interview of Al Gore last night to be very interesting and very entertaining. Apparently there is life after politics. Has anyone read his new book, The Future?
Anderson, the CIA guy was talking at a forum in DC, and there’s an article about it on Slate by Saletan, who I really dislike. The former CIA guys end up saying that the cost of ending torture and black sites was now we have drone-killings. A depressing thought.
Outsider: I’ve not read the book. Read an interview on the NYT that didn’t inspire me to seek further…
The Prisoner program was ‘humanized’ according to those that ran it. See discussion of the principals: http://www.c-span.org/Events/CIA-Veterans-Debate-Accuracy-of-Film-39Zero-Dark-Thirty39/10737437658/
Yesterday the Brennan CIA confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intel revealed a congressional report dated Dec 12, 2012 correcting CIA misinformation re: detention and interrogation programs. He said the CIA had shut the programs down. Brennan just said he would review the report and help correct the record based on the congressional investigation. (All of which is classified)