Iraq & Afganistan wars

A staff writer for The New Yorker, Jane Mayer joins Fresh Air host Terry Gross to talk about what she discovered while researching her upcoming article "The Predator War." The story explores the ethics and controversies surrounding the CIA's covert drone program, in which remote-controlled airplanes target and kill terror suspects within Pakistan — a country that's a U.S. ally, not an adversary.

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid discusses the challenges facing President Obama in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His most recent book is Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

Charles Sennott has been reporting on the Taliban since 1995. He recently returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he revisited the people and places he got to know through his reporting.

Washington Post military correspondent Ann Scott Tyson was recently embedded with Marines in Afghanistan fighting in Helmand Province, a stronghold of the Taliban.

Writer and director Armando Iannucci's new film In the Loop involves an unnamed country in the Middle East, whisperings of military involvement, epically foul tirades and razor sharp political satire.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews In the Loop the new British political satire co-starring James Gandolfini.

Did the Bush administration discourage an investigation into a mass grave of Taliban prisoners? Dr. Jennifer Leaning, Nathaniel Raymond and Dr. Nizam Peerwani of Physicians for Human Rights discuss their investigation of the alleged massacre at Dasht-i-Leili.

Journalist Bradley Graham discusses the successes and failures of former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. Graham is the author of By His Own Rules, a lengthy new biography of Rumsfeld.

Screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow discuss their collaboration on The Hurt Locker, a combat movie about an Army bomb squad that roams Iraq in search of explosives to defuse.

Allison Silverman, the executive producer and head writer of The Colbert Report, discusses the show's recent broadcasts from the combat zone in Iraq.