The minister of information has gathered all the players we need to see—the head of antiquities and museums, head of security, an assembly woman in charge of “peace,” a guy they’ve hired to generate propaganda and a few other journalists.  I get stuck with the propaganda guy for a while—if I give him a sound byte from the western world (“bombing aid workers” etc.) he immediately launches into exactly the opposite of that worldview—he does this time after time and finally I say, “no matter what I say, you will say the opposite.”

“No I won’t,” he says.