Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian journalist (now based in the U.K.), and an expert on military subjects, who has had a globally syndicated column for many years. I don’t always agree with him, but he is competent, writes honestly, and doesn’t prevaricate. He’s generally a voice of common sense. Unfortunately, for the last decade, his column hasn’t appeared in very many Canadian newspapers. The majority of big Canadian papers have been under the control of the malignant press baron, Conrad Black, and his successor, in recent years. Dyer is persona non grata. This book contains a selection of the columns that most of us, here in his native land, have missed.
Dyer’s strong point is that, unlike most journalists, he knows how the military works, how decisions get made in it, and what war really involves. He also knows something about the culture and history of the world in general. This puts him way ahead of most journalists. He is weaker when trying to second-guess the motives of politicians and the oligarchs who wield real power, a weakness which he very honestly admits. He calls attention to the columns where he didn’t hit the mark.
Dyer offers no grand theoretical framework for his analysis of geopolitical events. Unfortunately, he clings to the “left-right” formula of a “political spectrum”, an idea that renders most political discussions useless. Most journalists share that failing. However, there are still many solid insights to be found in his work. I think the misfires originate in a fallacy shared by most observers of American politics. They are accustomed to thinking that the policies of the White House are designed to advance “American” interests. American society is now so inward-looking and cut off from the world, that it seems logical to assume that the White House gang is merely acting out traditional American xenophobia and arrogance. I don’t believe that this is so. The gang that is now in control is no more “American” than the Ostrogothic Kings were “Romans”. Alaric the Goth may have strutted around the Forum in a toga, but he was not a Roman.
I believe that, with this administration, the United States has come under the control of people who are not Americans. They may have been born in the United States, but their loyalty is not to their country or to the American people. What they are loyal to is a global aristocracy, a class of transnational billionaires, middle-eastern Sheiks, European titled gentry, ex-KGB gangsters, and wealthy families that transcend all national borders. They live in a world of boarding schools and numbered bank accounts in Switzerland, villas in Provence and castles in England, pied-a-terre penthouses in Manhattan, shopping sprees at Harrods, Dubai, and the Ginza. Ideologically, they see themselves as the New British Empire. There is some American red-white-and-blue bunting scotch-taped onto their vision, but the theoreticians and schemers behind the Bush White House never talk for very long before the glories of the British Empire work their way into the conversation.
The British Empire, at its height, was not designed to make life pleasant for colliery workers in Lancashire. It was designed to make life pleasant for “English” Rajahs with giant palaces in Borneo and Mysore, and its template was the Moghul Empire, not Magna Carta. So it is today, with the United States. Previous generations of rulers of America, however self-serving and rapacious, probably thought of themselves as promoting American interests. But the current bunch has embraced a new ideology. To them, the American people are nothing but native peasants.
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