A few points:

1. I am as appalled as anyone by this horrific video of a young woman's death. So appalled in fact that I could not even click the "play" button on the video.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, I have seen more images, read more stories, and viewed more images of death and destruction than I could ever have imagined I would see as a citizen of the 21st century. I am now psychologically traumatised by war, even though I have not been an active participant. Having blogged full throttle against Bush and his enablers for six years, I have seen my mental health, my marriage, my financial situation and my career all suffer as a result.

So no, I could not click "play". I already know what death looks like.

2. I was astonished to find this video posted on the Huffington Post site because (to the best of my knowledge, and I visit daily) they have never posted anything as gruesome and bloody before, certainly not without highly visible warnings. I clicked a link and was suddenly confronted with this absolutely horrific image.

Sadly, I have posted equally horrific images of dead Iraqi women and children on my blog in a desperate effort to engage public sympathy, and I only did that after every other avenue of reason had failed. And yes, sad to say, the Iraqi people have confronted images even worse than this in a regular basis for more than six years. Imagine a baby girl with her brains coming out of her skull, for example.

So I couldn't help wondering why the Huffington Post's self-censorship on such bloody atrocities had suddenly relaxed. Why did this video make it through to the headlines when so many others had been studiously ignored, not just by HuffPo but by every major Western media outlet? Wasn't it just yesterday that US media couldn't even show coffins returning from Iraq?

3. And then I remembered how close HuffPo was to the Obama campaign. If you weren't watching closely, you might not have noticed that Huffo were championing his case from Day One (and good luck to them for that: President Hillary would have been another Us nightmare for the planet).

4. And then I remembered reading (on Information Clearing House) about how much money the US government has spent undermining the Iranian regime with secretive CIA operations. How many millions over how many years? Maybe somebody else can look it up.

5. And then I realised that the only reason the US public was being so wholly exposed to this terrible video was that somebody at a very high level had endorsed it. I'm even seeing it highly promoted on my TV news here in the US satellite state of Australia (yeah, we actually lead the attack on Baghdad, to my undying shame).

I'm tired Glenn, I'm damned tired.

One million Iraqis died as a direct result of the US invasion and you can be sure that every single one of them is just as dead as that lovely Iranian girl.

This is crap.

The video below is of the death on camera of Bassem Abu Rameh, a young Palestinian non-violent protester, near the apartheid wall that cuts into Bil'in. It wasn't broadcast on CNN. It is not a "symbol."

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22909.htm

Or click the link at my sig.

"It's the 2009 presidential election in Iran and opposition leader Mir-Houssein Mousavi declares victory hours before the polls close, insuring that any result to the contrary will be called into question. Western media goes into overdrive, fighting with each other to see who can offer the most hyperbolic denunciation of the vote and President Ahmadenijad's apparent victory (BBC wins by publishing bald-faced lies about the supposed popular uprising which it is later forced to retract). On June 13th, 30000 "tweets" begin to flood Twitter with live updates from Iran, most written in English and provided by a handful of newly-registered users with identical profile photos. The Jerusalem Post writes a story about the Iran Twitter phenomenon a few hours after it starts (and who says Mossad isn't staying up to date with new media?). Now, YouTube is providing a "Breaking News" link at the top of every page linking to the latest footage of the Iranian protests (all shot in high def, no less). Welcome to Destabilization 2.0, the latest version of a program that the western powers have been running for decades in order to overthrow foreign, democratically elected governments that don't yield to the whims of western governments and multinational corporations. "

Links etc here:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22910.htm

Whenever I hear people say that they cannot try Gitmo detainees in a civil court, I take that as tacit admission that they do not have any solid evidence against them.

I'd like to see Obama whisk all these detainees away just the way they were captured. CIA stealth teams should secretly drop them into their countries of choice overnight, armed with new passports and a few thousand dollars cash if necessary, so they can start a new life. Case closed.