Suddenly it’s okay to show “disturbing images” on American TV

“Some of the images we are about to show you are disturbing. They include the dead bodies of women and children,” said the CNN presenter, introducing a report on the situation in Syria.  And then she added: “We wouldn’t normally show you images of this kind, but we felt that this was an important story.”

Hmm.

Does that mean that the “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq, in which thousands of Iraqi men, women and children were murdered in their beds by US and “allied” forces was not, in their opinion, an important story? Because I don’t recall seeing footage of dead and mutilated bodies on that occasion. Or, in fact, throughout their “coverage” of that occupation. Instead, they showed us sanitized images of smartly-dressed US soldiers handing out bottles of water to children.

Nor do I recall seeing the bodies of women and children when the US invaded Afghanistan. Anyone watching only CNN’s coverage of that invasion could be forgiven for thinking that no one was killed or injured. Again, all we saw were images of US and British soldiers going out on patrol and chatting to natives. Where were all the dead people?

Ditto CNN’s “coverage” of the drone attacks currently being carried out by the CIA against “targets” in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Again, none of the mainstream news networks are showing images of the dead and the dying.

And where were the CNN camera teams when hundreds of Gazans were being slaughtered by Israeli forces in 2009 and again in 2012? Again, no “disturbing” images from CNN et al.

But now, suddenly, we’re seeing gruesome images of bodies on every channel!
Because this story, according to CNN anyway, is more important than those other stories, in which up to a million people were killed.

It has nothing at all to do with the fact that those other people were killed by American soldiers and American allies, whereas the bodies they are showing us now are people who were killed by Syrians.

US government saves Afghanistan from the threat of democracy

So, as expected, Karzai has been “reinstalled” as president of Afghanistan, despite the fact that there has been no election, and despite the fact that he was caught trying to rig the election that was supposed to have taken place.

The main opposition candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, decided not to run again, citing, as his reason, the fact that the officials who rigged the first election had not been sacked, and would also be in charge of the second election.
This explanation strains credibility, as the second round would have come under close scrutiny from UN monitors, and there was a better than reasonable chance that Abdullah would have won (he had almost half the votes after Karzai’s known fraudulent votes had been discounted). A far more likely explanation is that Mr Abdullah was “persuaded” by the US government via the CIA to step aside, with bribes, threats, or – more likely – a combination of both (probably something along the lines of: “If you resign from the election we’ll give you a squillion dollars and a powerful position in the next government. If you don’t resign, something bad might happen to you and your family”). Whatever it was, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

And so now the US’s puppet government in Afghanistan has been saved from the pernicious threat of democracy, and all those lucrative oil contracts are, for the time being at least, secure. American and British soldiers are now fighting in Afghanistan to protect a one-party state.

Oh, and “Honest Joe” Obama has proved beyond any doubt that he is as corrupt as any previous US president.