Published 14 December 200912 May 2010 · Main Posts banging away at The Drum Jeff Sparrow I’ve got a piece up on the new ABC blog The Drum. It begins like this: Tony Blair’s latest admission on Iraq raises, yet again, the need for a genuine inquiry here in Australia about that misbegotten war. Even before Britain’s Chilcot inquiry has concluded, it has spurred a fresh round of revelations. Britain, we now know, had decided upon war long before all the shenanigans with UN weapons’ inspectors. Now Blair has acknowledged that, for him, the war was always about regime change, despite everything he said at the time. What about the Australian government? Did Howard and Downer know that the date for the invasion had already been fixed way back in 2002, and that the arguments about WMDs were never more than a pretext? If so, they lied to the Australian people and to the parliament. If not – if they were kept in the dark about the plans of their supposed allies – well, what does that say about Australia’s military alliances, the cornerstone of bipartisan defence policy? Either way, don’t we deserve to know? You can read the rest here. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.