With Americans increasingly convinced that the Bush Administration lied to sell the war in Iraq, Bush and his defenders are pushing an idea that’s been refuted quite a few times before, but obviously needs another go. This is the claim that “everyone believed that Saddam had WMD’s”. Hence, it’s argued, even if the Administration misread the evidence, this was an honest mistake, shared by others. The argument is bolstered by citations from the Clinton Administration, Democrats who supported the war and claims about the concurrence of the French and other intelligence services.

For this argument to hold up, it’s obviously necessary that people believed in Saddam’s weapons independently of what they were told by Bush and Blair. After all, the whole point of the criticism is that the Administration’s lies led people to support the war.
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The two minutes of silence at 11 o’clock was a good time for reflecting both on the bravery and sacrifice of those who have died on war and on the futility and evil of war.

Those who died and all those who endured the horror of war should never be forgotten, both for the fate they suffered and the bravery with which they faced it.

November 11 marks the armistice that brought a temporary end to the first Great War in Europe, a war fought over trivial rivalries between empires that were either destroyed or mortally wounded in the process. The Great War bequeathed us Nazism and Communism, and set the scene for most of the terrible wars that plagued the 20th century. The War was a terrible crime, which carried within it the seeds of even greater crimes. All those who helped to cause and promote it, including the rulers and governments of the time (with a tiny handful of brave exceptions), deserve eternal condemnation.

See also this fine piece at Making Light

The other big November 11 remembrance is the sacking of the Whitlam government 30 years ago. Larvatus Prodeo has a string of great posts about the dismissal, plus links.

The Blair government has been defeated on the floor of Parliament over a proposal to let police hold terrorist suspects for up to 90 days without charge, with 48 Labour members joining the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in an amendment reducing the period to 28 days. It would certainly be good if Australian “conservatives” were conservative about things like habeas corpus.

And having lived by the bomb, JI bombmaker Amrozi Azahari has apparently died by it, blowing himself up to avoid capture by the Indonesian police. The Indonesians have done a great job in capturing, trying and convicting the main members of the JI terrorist network. Their one failure, not nailing “spiritual leader” Bashir on a major charge, was due, as much as anything else to the refusal of the US authorities to allow Bashir’s main lieutenant, Hambali, whose evidence could have been vital, to testify.