Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(May 2003)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Is Syria, or even Iran, next on America’s
target of opportunity list?
The American administration apparently are once
again setting their sights on what have been called potential
targets of opportunity, and are coming up with reasons
for possible intervention in the affairs of countries
adjoining the borders of Iraq by issuing warnings that
countries who do not refrain from allowing Iraqi leaders
to seek safe haven by crossing their borders, and also
have been known to harbour terrorist organisations, will
be subjected to swift reprisals from the free world.
Relevant information.
The city of Damascus, capital of Syria, dates
back to 6000 BC and prides itself on being the oldest
continuously inhabited city in history.
During that troubled history, Syria has been conquered
many times by many varied hostile armies, and as early
as 1800 BC the King of Assyria established his capital
there.
The kingdom was later captured successively by the Babylonians,
the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Chaldeans, the Persians,
Alexander the Great, the Crusaders, and the Mongols in
1260 AD, on and on ad infinitum.
Syria’s final degradation was the Israeli invasion
in 1967, in which Israel captured and occupied the Golan
Heights, a 400 square mile piece of land within 25 miles
of the Capital city of Damascus.
Syria is still officially at war with Israel and demands
the return of the captured land.
Currently Syria, for a country where 90% of the people
are of the Muslim faith, is a remarkably permissive society,
but of course the way of life is designed to cater to
the 60% of the population who are under the age of twenty
one.
From Agincourt and Rome to Baghdad and Basra.
I think that now the fighting war with Iraq is
winding down, it may be appropriate to include the following
quotes from Shakespearian plays - King Henry the V and
Julius Caesar.
The Battle of Agincourt October 25th, 1415.
"Once more into the breach dear friends once more,
or fill up the wall with our English dead".
Mark Anthony’s speech upon the death of Julius
Caesar:
"I come to bury Caesar not to praise him. The evil
that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred
in their bones".
The problem that I now have is to whom in today’s
world could the relevance of these quotes be assigned?
Please forgive me if I have misquoted the Shakespearian
prose as it has been a long time and my memory is not
as good as it was when I learned the passages quoted.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents
of these newsletters. Please send all correspondence to
bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
|
