Bill Sykes' - In Retrospect
VII.
(June 2007)
Bill Sykes
looks back in retrospect at material which has been published
in previous editions of "View from America",
in an attempt to determine whether the subject matter
written then is still applicable in today’s world.
Article 7A
Trying to understand Prime Minister
Tony Blair’s actions and his policies.
The following articles have been extracted from various editions of the "View
from America" newsletter previously published upon the Huddersfield
One website shortly after the September 2001 terrorist actions upon American
soil and continued on a monthly basis during the period September 2001 through
September 2005.
1) The questionable unity of the Coalition against terrorism. (December
2001).
Prime Minister Tony Blair recently met many high ranking mid-east Ministers,
including the President of Syria, in an effort to bolster support for the war
against terrorism.
He apparently had a rough time.
He was condemned by the Muslims for the British support of Israel’s aggression
against the Palestinian Arabs, and was cited as a puppet of the American Government.
In all fairness to Mr. Blair I find that he is the only politician, of any consequence,
that I have heard to declare that a viable independent Arab state should be established.
Despite apparent, but somewhat transparent, overwhelming
support for counter terrorism action, the war in Afghanistan
has made quite a few nations uneasy, especially Pakistan
and Iran who supported opposing Afghan factions over
the past decade.
Unfortunately, you can never please everyone. There are
bound to be dissenters to whatever action is taken, and
it was self evident that action had to be taken against
the perpetrators of the terrible September 2001 terrorist
event. The method of tackling the problem was somewhat
debatable.
To view the complete December 2001 edition, please click HERE.
2) Prime Minister Tony Blair’s dossier.
(October 2002).
The Russian Foreign Secretary, Igor Ivanof, stated that
only experts can determine the extent of Iraq’s
weapons of war and not politicians. He also stated
that the 58 page dossier that Tony Blair presented as
evidence to the British Parliament of the Iraqi weapons
status, and Saddam Hussein’s intent to use such
weapons, was pure speculation and not proof. Criticism
has also been aimed by certain political bodies at the
content of President Bush’s speech to the United
Nations, which was supposed to outline proof of Iraq’s
weapons status.
It was suggested that the speech was strong on rhetoric
and weak on substance.
To view the complete October 2002 edition, please click HERE.
3) Sean writes from the UK. (November
2002).
In recent days it has been interesting to see that the
UK opinion polls still suggest that a majority of the
people of Great Britain
are against going to war with Iraq. Despite the publication
of the Tony Blair dossier that supposedly proved the
necessity of a preemptive attack on Iraq, to save us
from attack, the people still remain unconvinced. I am
afraid that I find it amazing that the UK Government
still persists to promote the Bush philosophy that war
is necessary and inevitable, but still refrain from admitting
that big company oil interests are at stake.
This maybe a cynical view, but the question still remains
that if Saddam Hussein has invited UN Arms Inspectors
back into Iraq why do Bush/Blair still insist that this
is a con game he is playing in order to buy time to hide
his weapons and should be attacked now.
At the same time, we are being told that the Bush/Blair
team has a damning dossier outlining all the details
of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological weapons
programs. If they know all these details of what
and where all the development is taking place, how could
the weapons inspectors fail to find them? Can
we suspect that someone is hiding the truth - so is it
Saddam Hussein or the Coalition of two? Could it be that
the only reason that anyone would stretch the truth would
be because they want a war and anyone that wishes to
be involved in such a war is sure to start one.
Madmen throughout history have compromised peace in the
name of grandiose plans!
Any President who is prepared to risk his soldiers in
the name of oil, will certainly risk everything in the
pursuit of victory.
The media briefings look more and more like video games
of bombs hitting targets—they don’t portray
the blood, guts and the smell of death that occurs during
a real war, but there again the politicians and warmongers
never get near enough to the front lines to experience
and be subjected to such terrible conditions. God help
any American or British soldiers who find themselves
embroiled in a Middle East land war. If they want peace
in the Middle East they don’t have to kick the
door down as they already have the key to a solution,
and that key is Palestine.
My response.
Sean has presented a very concise and balanced opinion
that a majority of the people of Great Britain are still
unconvinced, (even with the Bush/Blair dossiers that
supposedly prove the necessity of a preemptive strike
against Iraq), that a war against Iraq is in any ones
best interests at this juncture until all other means
have been exhausted and that they have been presented
with valid reasons to support these opinions.
He finds it amazing that the UK Government still follows
the Bush philosophy without admitting that the prime
reason for an attack on Iraq is big money oil interests,
which are above and beyond the threat of the use by Iraq
of weapons of mass destruction. I would go one
step further and say that perhaps we should consider
the possibility that there are bigger stakes to be had
in the form of American Imperialistic domination of the
entire Middle East!
He makes a very good point with respect to the Bush/Blair
dossiers, when he questions that if the United States
knows so much about the location of all the weapons of
mass destruction, as they say they do, how on earth could
the weapons inspectors fail to find them and destroy
them.
With respect to the young men who will be sacrificed
for oil, paranoia, or Imperialism, (take your pick),
they are the ones that will see the blood, the spilled
guts, broken bodies, and experience the smell of death
on the battlefield, whilst the President, Vice President,
members of Congress and the Administration are bunkered
down in their bomb proof underground shelters safe from
the real affairs of war. I whole heartedly agree that
if anyone really means to obtain peace in the Middle
East they have the key, and that key is the immediate
settlement of the Palestinian situation.
To view the complete November 2002 edition, please click HERE.
4) For whom the bells toll. (May 2004).
Prime Minister Blair, I respect you for your tenacious adherence to your
principals but on the other hand I am appalled at the obvious subservience
of yourself and the British Government to the will of a President who many
characterize as a pompous similitude of the Great Dictator.
You know of course
Mr. Blair that your attitude with respect to the war in Iraq and the Palestinian
question is going to be your downfall and quite probably the end to your political
career.
Question: Was it worth it not only for you, but also
for the British people?
To view the complete May 2004 edition, please click
HERE.
5) State of the Party. (Summer 2004).
The Labour Party suffered an unprecedented defeat at
the polls. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was
out of the country when the voting took place, admitted
that the Labour Party overlooked the fact
that the war with Iraq was going to play a major part
in the result. The question now arises as to whether
the Labour party could be heading for a similar disaster
in the next general election. In the worst local
election defeat suffered by any British Government the
Labour Party finished a dismal third with Labours share
of the vote plunging to 26%.
Prime Minister Blair refuses to pull out of the European
Union.
Mr. Blair ruled out any u-turn in his European
policy, despite the gains made by the recently formed
anti-European United Kingdom Independence Party, (UKIP),
who received 16% of the vote in the election for members
of the European Parliament, which quadrupled its membership
to twelve. Mr. Blair also refused to apologize for backing
the war in Iraq which many members of his own party
blame for Labours humiliation in the local and EU elections.
To view the complete Summer 2004 edition, please click
HERE.
6) The plot thickens. (June 2005).
It has been recently reported by the British press, just
prior to the British general election, that seven months
before the invasion of Iraq the then head of British
Foreign Intelligence (MI6), Mr. Richard Dearlove who
had just returned from consultations in Washington
D.C. was said to have reported to Prime Minister Tony
Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein
by military action on the pretext of justification
of his involvement in terrorism and having weapons
of mass destruction.
According to notes presented at
a meeting with Prime Minister Blair on July 23rd, 2002,
the British Head of Intelligence report indicated that
it was believed that President Bush had decided to
go to war with Iraq in mid-2002 and that United States
policy makers where trying to expand and promote the
limited intelligence available in order to make the
Iraqi Leader appear to be a bigger threat than could
be supported by the then currently known facts.
The summarized notes taken by a British national security
aide at the meeting indicated that Saddam Hussein was
not at that time a threat to his neighbors and that his
WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea
or Iran.
To view the complete June 2005 edition, please click
HERE.
7) Pouring more money down the drain. (Midsummer
2005).
If its not sufficient that President Bush and his administration
have poured vast amounts of American taxpayers dollars
into keeping the wars in the Middle East aflame, then
who should appear upon the scene but Prime Minister
Tony Blair arriving at the White House to promote a
"forgiveness of debt" proposal, whereby
as many as eighteen nations, mainly African, and a
couple of South American countries, would be forgiven
the huge debts that they have accrued. The general
idea is that if their debts are forgiven, the corrupt
governing bodies of many of these nations will make
an effort to try to reduce the abject poverty, famine,
and disease, which is claiming millions of lives of
the unfortunate poverty ridden people living on the
vast continent of Africa, and in certain South American
countries.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for any rapid improvement
in the near future, as the governing bodies of these
nations operate to exploit their people and control them
by keeping them in a constant state of poverty, whilst
they themselves live the good life spending their ill-gotten
financial gains.
Prime Minister Blair is trying to promote a very noble
cause, which supposedly will be financed by the Group
of Eight Industrial Nations. Many people on the African
continent, (such as the people eking out an existence
in Darfur in the Sudan), are living in dreadful squalor
and inhumane conditions which need to be rectified -
BUT - history
has shown that in the past, the huge sums of money given
to the Governments of impoverished nations by the more
affluent nations with a view to providing badly needed
food, medical care, and other necessities of life, has
gone to the wrong people and has simply disappeared without
trace into the coffers of the members of Government of
the countries to which financial aid has been provided,
hence the huge debts that these countries have incurred.
Of course the G-8 nations must have fully realized a
long time ago that the debts would never be repaid anyway,
and so what have they to lose, and on the other hand
they probably have much to gain, as I’m sure that
vast amounts of the debts which are proposed to be forgiven
will be written off by various tax incentives or other
financial maneuvering somewhere along the line. A proposal
by British Finance Minister Gordon Brown to issue bonds,
using rich nation’s development budgets as collateral,
and a proposal put forward by Germany and France to place
a tax on airline tickets, were opposed by the United
States for obvious reasons and are not expected to see
the light of day.
I would like to bet that the taxpayers of the so-called
more affluent, (rich), countries will eventually foot
the bill.
It has been said that the "forgiveness of debt" deal,
which is currently assessed to top $55B, will provide
rapid relief to countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mauritania,
and Zambia, as well as Honduras and Bolivia.
There again I would not hold my breath for a rapid recovery
in conditions for the people of any of these impoverish
nations.
I was going to say that instead of providing monetary
aid to the people of the distressed countries, perhaps
we should encourage them to form cooperatives, and when
these cooperatives have been established to our satisfaction,
we then provide them with fabricated housing, cattle,
farming equipment, fertilizers, irrigation equipment,
and many of the other tools required to make a community
self sufficient instead of giving them bucket loads of
cash. But after saying that, I look back and remember
the time of the ejection of white farmers, (in places
like Kenya, Zimbabwe, etc), from their well established
farms which supplied food and jobs for the local people,
and what happened then, did the local people farm the
land - hell no - they trashed the farm buildings, destroyed
the farm machinery, burned down the crops, stole or killed
most of the cattle and the farms ended up as vast wastelands.
Despite the proposal to go ahead with this goodwill
gesture forgiving the debt of various African countries,
I would suggest that before we pour more money down the
drain, we must first fully determine if the people that
we propose giving the money to are capable of using that
money to better the lives of their citizens and are not
going to squander it upon less desirable projects and
programs, such as buying more arms to fight more wars.
An idea promoted by a friend of mine, is to reintroduce
Colonial Government, and I must say that I fully agree
with his opinion that the local people, (who prospered
in the past under Colonial Rule), apparently do not have
the capability to control their own destiny. Since
the withdrawal of Colonial Rule, some years ago, many
of the African nations have reached a state of anarchy,
which has left them with famine, poverty, disease, and
lawlessness. The African nations wanted self-government,
and that is what they got, and look what a terrible mess
they made of it. In my opinion, the proposals by
the G8 Nations, although admirable, are unworkable and
will not solve a no win situation.
To view the complete Midsummer 2005 edition, please
click HERE.
8) Last word. (Midsummer 2005)
Are the American people losing patience and questioning
the long term strategy of the Middle East wars and especially
the lack of progress being made in Iraq and Afghanistan
and becoming very disenchanted with the whole process,
and will they soon be demanding that the President set
a date for the withdrawal of American forces from the
Middle East area.
I would say that the world will soon see the American political machine
setting up a scenario that would allow the United States to retreat with honor
from both war zones and declare it a victory and a job well done.
It is of course very true that the United States,
in their estimation, provided both of the Middle East
nations with a great service by getting rid of the nefarious
Taliban in Afghanistan and the removal of a despotic
dictator in Iraq, whilst at the same time attempting
to introduce democracy into both nations. Only time alone
will tell if the people of both these two warlike nations
will show any degree of gratitude for the Coalition efforts,
and whether the attempt at installing democracy in Muslim
countries will be a dismal failure and fade with time,
and pressure from the warlords in Afghanistan and the
Muslim Clerics in Iraq will again be brought to bear
and return the people of both these nations back to their
previous religious servitude.
Of course some segments of the United States arguments
will be true, but others will crumble with time and the
blame for the quagmire that America has created by its
obvious ineptitude will be transferred to the people
of both the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq and they
will be blamed for the failure to fully embrace and retain
American type democracy.
To view the complete Midsummer 2005 edition, please
click HERE.
We
welcome feedback about any of the contents of these articles.
Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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