It was an absolutely despicable comparision, and you know it. You even said you wouldn't have said it earlier. It's a variation of the classic strawman argument used by Debka supporters, and it usually goes as such: Debka critics say that Debka lies. Debka critics are not also criticizing the NY Times in that thread. Therefore, Debka critics think the NY Times is a better source of news than Debka. In this case, the poster took it one further by using al Qaeda, which was truly asinine - just because the Debka critics were not also immediately ripping into al Qaeda ON THE SAME THREAD, we are being more critical of Debka than al Qaeda. That, quite frankly, is a pantload.
What lies do you keep referring to?
I personally caught Debka lying about the weather in Afghanistan a couple of years ago, along with other aspects of a story on that conflict. That's the point - in situations where we can gather some independent facts, the "big news" stories from Debka usually end up being full of hot air.
How can one validate chatter on an AQ site?
In this case, we saw this posted briefly here on FR. And I was one of the four posters who ripped into the poster before the thread was yanked. I also sent notification to the FBI that such thread was posted, just in case it might help them trace the poster. But apparently to the poster of this threat, I'm more critical of Debka than al Qaeda.
Debka posts articles that in many cases cannot be validated. By the way, Debka was first to point out the transport of Gold & WMDs into Syria during the beginning of the Iraq invasion.
Debka does get some stories correct. However, you simply cannot tell when they are being factual or not - and since we've caught them in deliberate lies enough times, it calls into question their veracity on any article that cannot be independently verified. It's just like the NY Times - once you're caught deliberately lying, it's very hard to earn back credibility.