Like, actually, Saddam untied Iraq, man....

The Manual Cant Award for Masturbatory Self-righteousness, had I not just invented it this moment, would be won consistently by the Indifferent for the increasingly implausible exercises in shrill hysteria that it appears to believe constitute headlines these days. Clearly believing that function should follow form, the Indy has, since its reincarnation as a tabloid (or fraudsheet, as I like to call them), steadily lost all the characteristics of a quality newspaper in favour of nuance-free war ranting and the continued employment of Robert Fisk.

All that headline means, after all, is that yesterday was Remembrance Sunday and there happens to be an extant combat situation in which British troops are participating and in which the enemy chose not to observe Remembrance Sunday. Apparently this proves the Indy right about the Iraq war. Go Indy! By "futile", can we infer that in your desperate anti-American zeal you've managed to convince yourself that Iraq would be a better, nicer, fluffier place with the bloodthirsty tyrant still at the wheel and that your strident moralising serves any other purpose than providing your editorial staff with the sub-erotic thrill of "righteous" dissent?