War on terror, war on Iraq, regime change, massive military spending, massive budget deficit, Star Wars, flouting of international law, Middle East crisis. None of this is new. We went through the same in the Reagan/Bush years. Not surprising that we have seen it all before when it is the same recycled Reaganites from the Reagan/Bush era of twenty years ago back in power.

The war on terror that has been declared is not new. Reagan declared a war on terror. Behind the war on terror was the Great Satan, the Soviet Empire, so we have to find other culprits.

Reagan never picked on the Soviet Union directly, that would never do. It is far easier to have a more malleable villain.

Noam Chomsky wrote

Within the American doctrinal system no one so epitomizes "the evil scourge of terrorism" as Muammar Qaddaffi, the "mad dog" of the Arab world; and Libya under his leadership has become the very model of a terrorist state.

Chomsky wrote this in 1986. Change Muammar Qaddaffi for Saddam Hussein and we can see how little things have changed.

Or, again from 1986, when Chomsky commented

To demonstrate Libya's role as a state terrorist, the flimsiest evidence, or none at all, will will suffice.

As true today with Iraq, with the attempts to link Iraq with Al-Qaeda, as it was then with Libya.

The role with Libya, of terrorist acts and people killed was around a dozen killed at the hands of Libya, state terrorism yes, but nothing compared with the state of terror Reagan carried out across Central America, where El Salvador and Guatemala become bywords for terrorism.

Under the cowboy, the White House was ringed with tanks for fear of an attack from Libya, Grenada had to be invaded because of the threat it imposed to the US, Nicaragua destabilised because the Sandinistas were two day's march from invading the US. It was only in 1998 that Cuba was marked down as a threat to the US.

If it was not so serious it would be laughable.

These countries serve two functions. We can bomb them with impunity and strut around the world stage as conquering heroes. We can strike terror at home and cow the population into obedience. Tony Blair tells us that after Iraq, North Korea is next, if we fail to set an example we will be perceived as weak. The philosophy of a mafia Don enforcing obedience in his arena of influence.

An Orwellian war with no end.

Listening to George Bush giving his State of the Union address in January we learned that the US and its allies was being threatened by Iraq.

Threatened with what?

Nicaragua and Cuba were a threat to the US, they threatened an alternative. JFK ranted that Cuba could not be allowed to defy 150 years of US control of the hemisphere.

US under Reagan were found guilty in the World Court for acts of war against Nicaragua.

International law, then as now, is what the US decides it will be.

US and its junior partner have been the most powerful military alliance since the Second World War. With the demise of the Soviet Union there is no longer a deterrent. The use of force is no longer the last resort of diplomacy, it is the only tool to be used.

Bush may not have instigated 9-11, he may not even have stood idly by and let it happen (though there is compelling evidence that he did), but it was a God send.

There may be terrorist cells in UK, but an amazing coincidence that a rash, almost a plague, of them, are discovered just on the eve of war with Iraq.

There may be justifiable grounds to go after the countries that supply funds and succour to terrorists. That would be grounds to attack Saudi Arabia not Iraq. It would also be grounds for many countries to attack USA, but never of course raised in polite society.

One of the worst terrorist attacks in the 1980s, was in the Middle East, a car bombing where 80 people were killed and several hundred injured. It was not the Palestinians, not even the Israelis. It was the Lebanese, who were targeting a Shi'ite leader. Behind the plot was the CIA.

They carry out terrorist attacks, we carry out reprisals, or pre-emptive strikes. They and we are whoever we determine they are.

The Palestinians carry out suicide bomb attacks. Appalling yes, but nothing like the atrocities in Central America where tens of thousands of people were raped, mutilated, then left dead. Mutilated, decapitated bodies of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, health care workers, priests, were left in the streets as examples to others. And the examples worked, the population was too terrified to raise its head.

John Negroponte, now US Ambassador to UN, was under Reagan, US Ambassador in Honduras, from where most of the terror campaigns were directed.

Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defence, was Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East during the period of worst atrocities.

We are seeing realpolitik at work in the US hemisphere of influence. In Colombia US special forces are on the ground, as the military aid rises, so do the human rights abuses in direct correlation. In Venezuela the US government is behind destabilisation. Brazil has yet to experience the problem, but the US has another tool thanks to Clinton. Neo-liberalism with the help of IMF/WTO can turn the screws and bring a country to its knees without the need for a bloody coupe.

In Turkey, in the late 1990s, Clinton used more traditional methods, massive military hardware, money and political support and a terror campaign against the Kurds. At the time terrorism could not be tolerated on Nato's borders but it could be tolerated within.

We have an administration run by people used to terror, with blood on their hands. They are back to finish the job.

Noam Chomsky, Rogue States, Pluto Press, 1986, 2000

Noam Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, Old and New, Pluto Press, 2002

Noam Chomsky, Challenging US Power, Red Pepper lecture in London, December 2002

John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World, Verso, 2002