Typical anti-Iraq War poster, Circa 2003.

Typical anti-Iraq War poster, Circa 2003.

Being on general news, I dutifully interviewed the protesters.

But they never got much of a run at Rupert Murdoch's The Australian.

Murdoch was shamelessly pro-war.

As the saying went, only one of his 350+ plus newspapers worldwide editorialised against the war, and that was New Guinea's Highland Gazette.

Apparently they didn't get the smoke signals.

The government, too, used propaganda techniques borrowed from the Americans to marginalise opposition to the war, particularly the painting of anti-war advocates as anti-nationalistic, as damaging the war effort and undermining "our troops".

In later years, a war weary populace largely stopped the protests, although opposition remained high.

The government continued its unpopular wars under a mantle of official silence.

History, however, has fallen on the side of the protesters.