SO, the most powerful and pugnacious nation on earth is now again at war.

History has taught us what to expect when the USA starts flag waving self-righteously. Almost one million Japanese, four million Koreans, three million Vietnamese, and thousands of Iraqis and Yugoslavians can all testify to what happens when Washington scrambles its bombers.

But who is the enemy? The enemy are successive American governments which have, for more than five decades, promoted terrorism on an immense scale across the globe.

The Taliban and Osama bin Laden are direct products of US and British foreign policy, and do not represent progressive Islam.

US administrations have introduced the world to nuclear holocaust, to carpet bombing, to hideous use of phosphorous and napalm bombs. Governments that perpetuate an economic blockade that is directly responsible for the gratuitous deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

Administrations that blindly support one of the most repressive, brutal and racist regimes on earth, with massive flows of money and arms to use against the Palestinian peoples.

Administrations that financed Latin American dictatorships of the 1980s, and then later tried to apologise for some of the unspeakable crimes they committed in the name of "democracy".

The CIA supported Noriega, Marcos, Sukarno, the Shah, Idi Amin, Mobuto, the Contras, Pinochet, Somoza, Batista, Stroessner et al -- the list is extensive and represents the obliteration of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.

The chickens have come home to roost. Osama bin Laden/Taliban and the US establishment deserve each other.

M Naughton

Bolton