Mainstream American Media are Missing Big Stories in Iran. Case in point: Aussie reporter sees presidential militia siding with Mousavi supporters.

(c) Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Shahram Sharif

Embarrassing. Pathetic. Anemic. Clueless.

That' s how I see the U.S. mainstream media's coverage of what is happening in Iran. While some of the network's cable-cast and digi-cast television news shows are better than their online coverage, or at least the presentation thereof, judging by their homepages, you would think we were still in the early post-election stage of the developments in Iran. But we're not. We're in potentially pre-revolutionary stages. While most American correspondents seem to be staying behind hotel and office doors at the order of the Iranian government, Iranians with camera phones are twittering messages and images to the outside world. HOWEVER, check out what ABC reporter, Robert Fisk saw when he disregarded the forced sequestration. Oh, by the way, this ABC is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

excerpted from :(LINK)

There were about 10,000 Mousavi men and women on the streets, with approximately 500 Iranian special forces, trying to keep them apart.

It was interesting that the special forces - who normally take the side of Ahmadinejad's Basij militia - were there with clubs and sticks in their camouflage trousers and their purity white shirts and on this occasion the Iranian military kept them away from Mousavi's men and women.

In fact at one point, Mousavi's supporters were shouting 'thank you, thank you' to the soldiers.

One woman went up to the special forces men, who normally are very brutal with Mr Mousavi's supporters, and said 'can you protect us from the Basij?' He said 'with God's help'.

It was quite extraordinary because it looked as if the military authorities in Tehran have either taken a decision not to go on supporting the very brutal militia - which is always associated with the presidency here - or individual soldiers have made up their own mind that they're tired of being associated with the kind of brutality that left seven dead yesterday - buried, by the way secretly by the police - and indeed the seven or eight students who were killed on the university campus 24 hours earlier.

Quite a lot of policeman are beginning to smile towards the demonstrators of Mr Mousavi, who are insisting there must be a new election because Mr Ahmadinejad wasn't really elected. Quite an extraordinary scene.