Gilbert Achcar on Image and Reality in Mid-East

So much garbage passes for information in the mainstream corporate press here in the US that we Americans can be forgiven if we're often the last to know when our government's latest foreign policy initiative is found to have been constructed on a foundation of sand. The debacle in Iraq is only the most recent example, but there have been countless others. As I intimated in my first post on this blog (Maiden Voyage Sep. 06) one of my goals is to provide a place where alternative perspectives on US policy in the post 9/11 era can be explored and hopefully debated. Clearly such is not the case with regard to the Free Press (regardless of its pretensions) which has largely served as the Bush Administration's echo chamber.

Political scientist and activist Gilbert Achcar, who is of Lebanese decent and teaches at the University of Paris VIII, provides analysis of the Middle East that, try as I might, I've never seen reproduced in my local Chicago Sun-Times or Chicago Tribune (or for that matter anywhere in the mainstream). Much of what Achcar discusses here would be common knowledge if we had the benefit of an actual independent media seeking to help us make informed decisions. Of course, the key ingredient for such an outcome would be information as opposed to the accustomed propaganda that served us all so well during the lead up to aggression in Iraq.

I suggest you read Achcar's comments with the full knowledge that the Bush administration has every intention of launching a strike against Iran sometime after the November mid-term elections.