Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(June 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
Updated
Notes on the Middle East Situation:
-
The number of Allied casualties in Iraq has now
risen to over 1,800, and is increasing on a daily
basis, and the number of wounded is rapidly approaching
12,500, and that does not include United States and
Iraqi civilian fatalities.
The Pentagon apparently does not tally Iraqi civilian casualties, but a
study by a branch of John Hopkins University is said to have estimated
Iraqi civilian casualties who have died as a result of the war to be in
the region of 100,000, and that is not counting the number of Iraqi personnel
who died during the United States lead invasion of Iraq in the Spring of
2003, which is estimated to be in the region of over 5000 people.
No wonder that 10,000 young American soldiers come back home
with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. (PTSC).
-
Auditors monitoring the expenditures of American
provided reconstruction funding in Iraq are concerned
that it may not be possible to obtain accurate estimates
of how the money is being spent.
Congress allocated $18.4 billion for Iraqi reconstruction in 2003 but auditors
say that huge amounts cannot be accounted for due to, in their words, poor
record keeping. One audit found that nearly $100 million in cash could not
be accounted for and the matter has been referred to criminal investigators
-
 The
American President’s wife, First Lady
Mrs. Laura Bush came under extremely tight security
during a recent visit to Israel but was still
besieged by protestors when visiting some of the
holy sites. Apparently she is on a tour intended
to help defuse anti-American sentiment in the region
and promote a message that Israel and the Palestine
Arabs must seek a peaceful solution to the current
violence. The question remains how can America promote
peace in Israel when they continuously provide the
Israelis with monetary handouts and the latest weapons
of war in order to subjugate the Palestinian Arabs.
What happened to the so called peace plan which
was to create two states, one Palestinian and one
Jewish - how can this occur unless the Israelis
give back the Golan Height to Syria and the West
Bank to Jordan which they seized after the 1967 war. (*)
(*)During
the six-day war in 1967 Israel seized and occupied
the Golan Heights, (Syrian territory), Judea, Samaria,
Gaza, and the West Bank, (Jordanian territory which
contained half of its population).
Lest we forget: No mention is ever made in the American press that during the
1967 war the Israeli navy attacked the United States naval vessel USS Liberty,
killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171 others. Some of the casualties
occurred when Israeli gunboats fired upon lifeboats being lowered from the
ship.
Israel claimed mistaken identity, but others charged
that Israel aimed at preventing the United States from
stopping the Israelis from grabbing more territory in
the Sinai.
-
 President Bush met recently with President Karzai
of Afghanistan who is in Washington apparently to trade
the destruction over the next six years of the ever-increasing
crop of opium poppies for the provision of more American
economic aid. Could one say that if there were no purchasers
of drugs in the Western world and other regions, there
would be no demand for the very lucrative production
of the opium poppies by the Afghan farmers, which would
of course would put them out of business. That of course
applies to the many other countries who are producing
large quantities of drugs to supply the ever increasing
demand.
-
A false picture of war - It has been reported that
an independent review taken by prominent United States
news organizations taken during the last six months
of deaths of American military in the Middle East
war zones, found that no pictures of American military
personnel killed in action were ever shown, even
though during that time period over 500 American
and Western allies died. Many photographs of Iraqi
people who had been killed were shown. Does this
mean that the news organizations are being censored
or suppressed into giving an unrealistic and incomplete
portrait of the violence that is taking place?
-
 I
believe that I mentioned in a previous edition
of "View from America" that in January 2005 Vice
President Cheney indicated that he thought that Israel
might take unilateral action against Iran if they continued
with their nuclear aspirations. As a follow up to this
extraordinary prediction by Mr. Cheney, the Pentagon
has proposed to sell 100 GB-28 "bunker busting" bombs
to Israel. These bombs, which can be carried by Israeli
F-15 aircraft, are said to be produced by principal contractor
Raytheon and are said to have laser and satellite guidance
system capability.
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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