Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(Summer 2003)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Observations.
It is always difficult for me to pick out stories,
which would be of interest to a majority of the readers
of this newsletter without appearing to be biased one
way or another.
 Unfortunately
the war with Iraq has taken up much of my time and energy.
My only explanation for this, is that I am of the opinion
that the more information the people of this world are
subjected to, the more informed they will become, and
maybe some kind of reaction will be forthcoming from the
silent majority, who see political decisions being made
affecting their future but are loath to become involved
in trying to stop the terrible things that are happening
in our world, and are apt to say "There’s nothing
that I as an individual can do".
One thing comes to mind immediately, people living in
civilized and democratic societies have the right and
privilege to vote and although perhaps in many cases,
only a mere 30%/40% of the population elect to register
and exercise that right, they are the people who can make
changes to the elected leadership of their countries and
express their opinions on subjects which affect themselves,
their families, and the world we live in, regardless of
the backing that most politicians get from big money interests.
As you are aware, I research local and international
major front page media headlines, which unfortunately
in this day and age are mainly bad news items and there
are very few good news stories, but where in the world
is there good news, how about Israel, the Middle East,
the Far East, Chechnya, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Indonesia,
the Philippines, North Korea, most of Africa, etc.
 Of
course there must be good news somewhere out there in
this world but it doesn’t make the headlines. The
only item of good news that has made the front pages recently
is that the fighting war in Iraq is over - well not completely
over - and the good news for those still alive, (with
the exception of the many people who lost family members),
is that the Coalition forces only sustained what the government
calls minimum casualties.
That of course does not recognise the thousands of Iraqi
civilians who perished during the onslaught. It is terrible
for anyone to say that the deaths of 142 American, and
34 British soldiers is good news, but consider the alternatives.
We tend to disregard the fact that if chemical, biological,
and nuclear, weapons had been used by Iraq then the casualty
list could have been in the hundreds of thousands.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents
of these newsletters. Please send all correspondence to
bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
|
