@ibstubro Thanks. I get the point. I can’t speak for everyone of course, but I certainly don’t view these things as informative and I’m really not sure what the producers have in mind other than , giving viewers a sensation fix. Anyone who hasn’t heard of what happened in Paris has been comatose for the past week. What I want is information in times like this. I find out where the commentators are getting theirs and if it is available to me, I go to their sources. Right now, if I want to know what ISIL is up to, I read things like Dabiq, their online magazine. In between all the vitriolic propaganda and Bizantine groveling to Allah, the are quite candid about their operations.
If I want to know what our administration is thinking, I read things like the Foreign Affairs magazine online at the US Department of State site. It’s put out in a downloadable pdf. They are amazingly open about their policies, decision making process and strategies. Most democracies publish what their foreign ministries are up to. The Brits have an equivalent as do the Aussies, Canadians and Swedes, which I read now and then to see their reactions to certain events. It’s fun to read when they, oh so diplomatically, disagree with each other’s foreign policies. It’s also like looking into a crystal ball.
As far as analysts go, there are a few who reveal information found within their analyses that is strategically leaked to them by the intelligence community as they are trusted former employees. There’s this new guy, Michael Weiss. He looks like a 22 year-old kid, like a college radical from the mid-1960’s. This kid is sharp beyond belief and extremely well informed. He looks and presents himself like he came out of academia, but the kid knows shit that you wouldn’t learn there. And his language reeks of a former intelligence officer. There’s no Wikipedia on him. I haven’t checked LinkedIn yet. He is a editor of an online magazine that interprets and analyses articles in the Russian press and until recently, that was his forte. But his in-depth knowledge of the history, politics and current situation in the Middle East, including all the various terrorist and political groups and their modus operandi, is fucking astonishing. He was on CNN last week after the Paris attacks and, I’m sure he didn’t mean to, made a highly respected former intelligence officer and general sound like a doddering old man spouting cliches and out-dated information. I’d really like to know more about his guy.