Sunday, September 03, 2006

Echo Chamber

When NPR wants "insights" on US and UN diplomacy in the Middle East it seems like they always turn to someone within the establishment. I've yet to hear them conduct and extensive interview with an expert who seriously critiques many of the bedrock principles of US foreign policy in the Middle East: we have a right to control the region's oil (remember the Carter doctrine?), that we can support dictators and ignore elected governments, that we can selectively insist that certain UN resolutions are sacrosanct while violating others, etc.

Today featured one of those "insider" talking heads, Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution -- director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs--discussing US Middle Eastern policy and acting as an apologist for US policy there. I've posted before on the shortcomings of the Brookings Institutions (May 17, 2006 and July 20, 2006).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Right--I don't quite understand why NPR does so little to acknowledge the existence of (i.e., interview) the pre-eminent intellectual in doing just what you're calling for, Noam Chomsky. He's so respected outside the US, yet so ignored inside it.