Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(January 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
Readers
Letters:
John
(a frequent contributor to this newsletter), writes
from Canada.
 You provided a good essay giving examples
of possible solutions to many of the problems of this
world in general, but your ideas are a utopian dream
that will never come to pass.
(I believe those
were my exact words.)
Do you remember that some of your suggestions applied
to a large part of the world, when almost a quarter of
the world was shown on a map coloured in red depicting
countries under British administration? The American’s,
in their current efforts at colonialism, could take a leaf out of the book
of the British colonial administration policies which preserved the heads
of state and allowed them to govern whilst not interfering in their religious
beliefs or practices.
 The British did however introduce, through their Colonial
Advisor or District Officer, the principles and laws of British justice.
In this manner peace and trade was established and reigned for over 200 years
amongst a great diversity of races and religions.
Internal security was maintained
by raising and arming local levies who served the British Administration
well until the 1940’s when the Americans guided by President Roosevelt
decided to destroy the British Colonial Empire at a time when Britain was
helpless to prevent this from happening.
Their own attempts at colonialism have been an abject
failure. For instance they tried their usual methods
of force to subjugate the Philippines but failed. The
Japanese finally did this for them and after a number
of battles with the Japanese the Americans took over
for a while before ridding themselves of any liabilities
there.
 Panama was a mixture of bribes and force, from which
America soon opted out. Vietnam, the less said the better,
and now Afghanistan and Iraq. With their usual display
of overwhelming force, which once again illustrates that
force alone cannot achieve the desired final objective,
and the American efforts to be conquerors and not administrators,
only serves to alienate the people and causes them to
resist.
Will the Americans ever learn that their idea of Democracy
is not the same as democracy envisaged by other countries,
and when the Americans try to force their method of democracy
upon these countries they resist with all the force that
they can muster?
 I
understand that the American invasion and occupation
forces have killed more Iraqi civilians than Saddam Hussein
did in all the years that he ran the country - so where
has the Iraqi peoples life been improved?
My reply:
I’m always interested
in the views of readers, and your particular inputs are
always of special interest to me as they make a great
deal of sense in this nonsensical world.
I appreciate very much your comments with respect to
the subjects that I have covered and you are quite right
when you say that the British controlled the Colonies
by example and not by overwhelming force, whereas the
Americans use large amounts of the very latest remotely
controlled strike technology hardware to win a war, but
then have very few common sense answers as to how to
control the aftermath of that war. The results of extremely
bad post war planning are a violent and uncontrolled
chaotic situation bordering upon  anarchy, and tend to
remind the American people on a daily basis that the
war in Iraq is not over by a long chalk and has continued
long since President Bush declared, "mission
accomplished" and stated that the war with Iraq was over.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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