Let us now praise famous men. And after yet another US presidential debate of awesome sterility – not to mention their shameless refusal to tackle the real, bloody issues that confront America – I'm referring principally to one of the first journalists to understand war and, so far as he could, to check his sources: Thucydides.

If only our masters would turn to his account of the Peloponnesian conflict they might see their own faces – and hideous mistakes – in the mirror of his prose.

I was inspired to reread the great man's fourth-century BC tract by Professor David Rovie of the Auckland University of Technology, who startled a weary Fisk in New Zealand a few weeks ago by pointing out that Thucydides' work contained all the lessons we need to learn about war, human rights, the treatment of prisoners, the cowardice of politicians, and the cold-hearted decisions of nation states.

Thucydides himself said that it was enough for him that his words "be judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future".

His work, Thucydides wrote, was "not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public but was done to last for ever." Well, he can say that again. How many of our historians or journalists or novelists work for those who will (despite the internet) still read them in 2,000 years? Will the historians of our latter-day wars be read in 4008? Certainly Thucydides would have had no time for newspaper reporters: "prose chroniclers", he sneers, are "less interested in telling the truth than in catching the attention of their public, whose authorities cannot be checked." Ouch.

At school, I found the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta, which began in 431BC, a tiresome affair. But Thucydides was also a soldier; by failing to save an Athenian colony from the Spartans, he was sent to 20 years of exile. His account of this conflict has a chilling relevance today.

Take Cleon, who had just passed the motion for a death sentence against the entire male population of Mytilene (all women and children were to be slaves) because of their revolt against Athens. Just listen to this truly 9/11 speech: "He who has suffered for no good reason is a more dangerous enemy... Place yourselves in imagination at the moment when you first suffered and remember how then you would have given anything to have (your enemy) in your power. Now pay them back for it... Punish them as they deserve, and make an example of them to your other allies, plainly showing that revolt will be punished by death."

After the international crimes against humanity of 2001, George Bush launched Cleon's antique "war on terror". Those who "hated our democracy", were to be punished with death.

Here is Alcibiades, urging the Athenians to advance on Sicily: "Remember that the city (Athens)... in conflict... will constantly be gaining new experience and growing more used to defend itself, not by speeches, but in action." Here is the projection of Athenian military power, and the Athenians eagerly set off for their ancient version of an Iraqi debacle.

As Thucydides writes, "There was a passion for the enterprise which affected everyone... The result of this excessive enthusiasm of the majority was that the few who actually were opposed to the expedition were afraid of being thought unpatriotic if they voted against it." Ah, so much for the three-line whips of Athenian democracy and of the House of Commons and the US congress.

For those who want to compare Bush's abandonment of the war in Afghanistan for a new adventure in Iraq, try Nicias again, who warned that, "in going to Sicily you are leaving many enemies behind you, and you apparently want to make new ones there and have them also on your hands... There are so many [Sicilians] and they live so far off that it would be very difficult to govern them. It is useless to go against people who, even if conquered, could not be controlled... My opinion is, too, that Sicily, as it is at present, is not a danger to us."

No, Sicily had no weapons of mass destruction, but the Athenians eagerly set off to military disaster. Had Bush heard of Thucydides? Did Blair have a dim memory from schooldays? Any thoughts, Senator Obama, you who voted no? Oh hell, just send a copy to Sarah Palin. On a clear day she could probably see Sparta from Athens.