Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(November 2003)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Changes in United States diplomacy.
First things first - what diplomacy? When
has America ever had any degree of real world diplomacy?
The current Bush administration, which has staked much
of its foreign policy attacking the Islamic world, is
reported to be doing such a poor job that it has been
described by more mature nations in this field as being
pathetic. It would appear that the only salvation for
the United States in the field of international diplomacy
is to urgently reinvent the scope of the American Diplomatic
Corp and make fundamental changes that would bring about
a broad transformation in policy, which would be more
acceptable in the world of the 21st Century.
 President Bush in his desire to place a more positive
spin on the Iraqi fiasco, and try to divert attention
away from, and alleviate mounting criticism of the Administration's
post war lack of progress in the Middle East, has decided
to have a sort of Cabinet re-shuffle.
In order to assert
what President Bush calls a more direct White House control
over the Pentagon reconstruction program, he announced
that he has put National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice in charge of the new authority, which is a move
to deflect and alleviate the mounting criticism of the
Bush Administration's lack of post war progress in Iraq.
 Mr. Bush, in order to apparently try and placate Secretary
of Defence Donald H. Rumsfeld, said that the new "Iraq
Stabilization Group",
would be a Washington support group for the administration's
civilian governor L. Paul Bremer, who currently reports
directly to Mr Rumsfeld. President Bush said that Rice's
new team is going to make sure that efforts to stabilize
the current volatile situation in Iraq will be aimed
at the coordination of continued progress. I don't know
where he gets the "continued progress" from, as
the daily body count of American soldiers keeps on mounting,
and the ever increasing request for funding to rebuild
Iraq, (which is draining American economy), is beginning
to have a somewhat disastrous effect on his popularity
with the American public. President Bush also announced
that Rice would be his personal representative on Middle
East peace progress. Would this appear that he is killing
two birds with one stone, and shall we assume that Secretary
Colin Powell and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are on the
way out.
 Mr Rumsfeld when questioned by the press as to his
future was said to have replied very testily, "That's
the first I've heard of the proposal",
which apparently was a reference to a one page memorandum
deliberately couched in bland terminology and sent out
by Condoleezza Rice with copies to himself, Secretary
Colin Powell, and the Director of the CIA George J. Tenet.
Growing tensions between the Pentagon and the White
House appear to have surfaced in recent weeks due to
the failure to establish a speedy reconstruction plan
and what's more important, make it work. Mr Rumsfeld
appeared angry at the perception, and inference, that
his power had been diminished and he certainly doesn't
like to admit that the situation in Iraq is not going
as smoothly as he would like the world to believe.
Now lets get back to Condoleezza Rice as the head of
the, "Iraqi Stabilization
Group".
 It was bad enough when Madeline Albright was selected
by former President Clinton to negotiate peace in the
Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The Arab Dignitaries, whilst welcoming a woman politely to her face, will
turn their backs in disdain at any attempts to negotiate
a peace process with a female. If the President has any
knowledge what-so-ever of foreign policy, surely he is
aware of the macho attitude adopted by many Muslim countries
towards females.
So what does Mr. Bush expect to achieve,
as certainly his action will not accomplish any degree
of success. President Bush in his desire to placate the
growing concern amongst the American people about the
way his administration is handling the Iraqi post war
situation has decided to appoint a Senior Military Officer,
who I would suggest will become known as “The Iraqi good news man”,
and I suppose that his first act is to announce the installation of Burger
King fast food franchises as the first step in the process of installing
democracy.
 Mr. President please stop this political sugar-coating
of a very dangerous situation and tell the American
people that both the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq
are currently fraught with danger and are spiralling
out of control.
When are you and your administration going to realise
that all the American public want to hear is the truth? 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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