Nothing gave him pause for thought: not even the fact that virtually all Western diplomats – and several British engineers – in Sudan have insisted that the factory destroyed in the raid had no military purpose .
While there has been massive opposition to these war crimes throughout the Arab world, active protests in Britain have been sadly muted. Nor should we be complacent that the world cop has finished flexing his muscles in this particular arena.
If either international or domestic politics require it, Clinton will have no qualms about launching further massacres. The left needs to be alert to the possibility that rapid responses will be needed.
Nor should we be complacent about the impact on the Arab and Muslim communities in Britain. As during the Gulf war, a wave of Islamophobia is likely to be whipped up with devastating consequences.
Already the ‘respectable’ Guardian has run stories about Islamic groups operating in Britain, which can have no other effect that to foment racial hatred. When this is put together with both the so called anti-terrorist legislation and the new Asylum Bill, the consequences are horrifying.
The Kurdish Community Centre in Harringey, North London suffered a serious fire bombing the night of the American raids which took three hours to extinguish.
While it seems likely that right-wing Turkish groups were behind the attack they may well have used the US war mongering as a cover.
At the same time Blair was quick to use the bombing in Omagh as a reason to rush through new legislation which will have drastic effects on civil liberties, without even the semblance of a debate.
Even the Tories did not feel it necessary to introduce such brutal measures – or to keep in step with the laws in the Republic which have for a long time been harsher than those on this side of the Irish Sea.
While Blair claimed that it was necessary to stay in step with Bertie Ahern’s parallel moves in the Dail for the sake of the Good Friday agreement, this draconian Act is intended to police dissent here in the same fashion that Clinton seeks to police the globe.
But those who respond by demanding the full implementation of the " peace agreement" miss the point – measures like these are the logical consequence of that Accord. The Orange State cannot be reformed.
As a number of MPs who opposed the Bill have commented, it seemed clear that the outline of the legislation already existed prior to the events in Omagh, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.
But this is not just the work of some reactionary civil servant, operating outside the control of their political masters.
The drive for stronger "anti-terrorist measures" is an international one, much discussed both in the United States and through the European Union.
Recent strengthening of existing provision has already taken place in Belgium, and others will be looking enviously at what Eire and Britain have managed – and straining to follow suit. We see the effects of such legislation today in France, where 138 Muslims are currently on trial under conspiracy laws.
Amnesty International, together with the Committee on the Adminstration of Justice, British Irish Rights Watch, Liberty and Human Rights Watch, have condemned the legislation. They believe the law will " violate the government’s human rights obligations under international law."
The Irish community in Britain, brutally served by the Prevention of Terrorism Act which was hurriedly introduced in the wake of the Birmingham bombings, is undoubtedly right to feel under threat from these measures. Further miscarriages of justice to rival the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six will inevitably follow, combined with a further tide of anti-Irish racism.
The Black and Muslim communities however are also targets under this iniquitous legislation, which allows people to be arrested in Britain for acts that would be unlawful abroad. But the pleas that this would have resulted in the arrest of Nelson Mandela for example fell on deaf ears in Westminster.
In the six counties the fact that the word of a senior police officer will used to convict someone of membership of a banned organisation hardly gives confidence to the nationalist community, well used to the sectarianism of the RUC. No one has any illusions that – Good Friday agreement or not – this prop of the Orange establishment remains untouched and unreformed.
Black and Irish people in Britain have bitter experiences of police racism. The Stephen Lawrence inquiry has demonstrated this to a wider audience than before, as have the shameful list of deaths of Irish and Black people in police custody.
This vicious law must not be allowed to go the same way as the PTA, ritually rubber stamped year after year. A massive tide of opposition must be built, not only in the communities which are the most obvious target, but up and down the labour movement.