Reports from our war correspondents:

The Culture War. Momentous week. Started with the news that Defence Minister Brendan Nelson had instructed the vice-chancellor of Macquarie University to turn his “personal attention” to the problem of “a strong left-wing bias” in the teaching of a history subject. Continued with the PM’s speech at Quadrant’s 50th birthday dinner, where he warned that the “soft left” held sway in the universities “by virtue of its long march through the institutions”, and recalled how the “fangs of the left” had once sought to denigrate historian Geoffrey Blainey. Followed by a speech by recalcitrant Liberal Petro Georgiou, arguing for a place for liberals in the Liberal Party – “In NSW, some seem determined that the broad church would be better off there were no liberals in the pews.” Concluded today with Education Minister Julie Bishop’s speech to the History Teachers Association about the ideologues in our schools who have “hijacked school curriculum” and are responsible for themes emerging that are “straight from Chairman Mao”.

The Other War. Bad week. According to a US military spokesman, Baghdad experienced more attacks from car bombs and improvised explosive devices last week than at any other time this year. In the last five days, 14 US soldiers have died in Baghdad, numbers that haven’t been seen in the city since the 2003 invasion.