Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(September 2003)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
To be or not to be? - That is the question.
The following items describe many cases that
could be foregone conclusions and do not need a crystal
ball to predict.
-
 President
George W. Bush will be a one term President, mainly
due to his and his administrations inept handling
of the war against the terrorist situation, and the
ever-expanding American debt associated with the American/Iraq
war.
In my opinion this President has done more damage
to the reputation and goodwill of this country and
its people, since he came to power two years and nine
months ago, than any other President of the United
States during the last one hundred years. Not being
fully conversant with American Presidential history
I try not to be over critical and too harsh on the
actions and words of our current President, for perhaps
"He know not what he doeth", but like Mr.
Nixon the derision thrust upon him appears to be mainly
of his own self-destructive making. I’m sure
that there are many Presidential supporters out there
who will disagree with me on these statements.
-
The departure of this President from office at the
end of his first term will of course affect senior
members of his administration.
 Secretary
of State Colin Powell, who really got a raw deal in
this Administration and was put on the spot so many
times, will resign his position on or before the end
of this Presidents term in office.
At least three of the leading members of the Bush
Administration, namely Secretary of Defence Donald
Rumsfeld, Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, and Attorney
General John Ashcroft will become casualties of war
and be dismissed from their current positions and
will need to seek new jobs. They should be quite at
home amongst the other nine million or so other Americans
who are currently unemployed.
But as Mr. Bush has said many times, “The economy
is strengthening and recovery is just around the corner
and there are plenty of jobs available in the Private
Sector”, but what he doesn’t say is that
they are mostly minimum wage jobs with no future.
-
Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, (amongst other
members of the White House staff), has been accused
many times of giving elevated and misleading information
as to reasons why the United States should go to war
with Iraq, and also of giving confident assurances
to the people of the United States that their low
ball estimates of the number of American troops required
to do the job was adequate. Secretary Rumsfeld will
conveniently resign or be fired.
 Nothing
personal Secretary Rumsfeld - just an opinion.
Can we say that the motto of Secretary Rumsfeld, and
many other members of the Bush Administration, has
been during these troubling times, "Accentuate
the Positive, eliminate the Negative, latch on to
the Affirmative and don’t mess with Mister in-between".
I hope that I have quoted these words from a popular
song of yesteryear correctly.
-
Anti-American sentiment will continue to grow and
within the next twelve months or so, and the United
States will suffer a terrorist attack, either at home
or abroad, greater than, or equal to, the terrorist
disaster that occurred on September 11th 2001. I sincerely
hope that I am indeed totally wrong on this one.
-
Acts of sabotage will increase in Iraq, and Coalition
soldiers will still be killed to such an extent that
when the total number of soldiers killed in action
since the war ended, exceeds the total number killed
in action during the war, with no signs of the numbers
decreasing and no signs of the installation of a Democratic
government in Iraq, I believe that the American people
will see the futility of this misadventure and start
to demand the withdrawal of American Forces.
-
The three Iraqi political and religious factions,
the Kurds in the north, the Sunnis in the centre,
and the Shiites in the south will continue to fight
and destroy each other in their quest for internal
power.
 I
haven’t got around to mentioning the continuing
violence between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, where
if Israel deposes and exiles Arafat, they would appear
to be getting closer to the objective, which to my mind,
they have had since the creation of a Jewish State in
1948, the take over of the whole of Palestine. Current
events paint a very dismal future for Middle East peace---so
what else is new---America and the world have lost a great
deal in this warring venture into that area and so far
have gained very little in return.
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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