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From Amazon
The suggestion that U.S. President George W. Bush and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden are, for all intents and purposes, serving each other's interests would be heresy in many American circles. But that is exactly what Canadian military historian Gwynne Dyer argues in his impassioned latest book Future: Tense. It's not a notion you would expect from a veteran of the Canadian, U.S., and British navies and a former instructor at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. In this cogently argued polemic, Dyer maintains that Bush cynically took advantage of the 9/11 attacks to put into motion a so-called "Pax Americana" modelled on the Pax Romana, whose unofficial motto was "Let them hate so long as they fear." The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, he maintains, had nothing to do with fighting terrorism, democracy, or oil and everything to do with repudiating the post-World War II international rules of war enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which stipulates that countries may not go to war without UN sanction or unless attacked. In the nuclear era, Dyer says these rules are critical for world security. The Iraq invasion was a massive watershed, Dyer warns, because it signalled the end of an era in which countries could feel secure from arbitrary attack. It could also mean that the world will soon return to the pre-World War I era of endless war and security based not on international law, but short-lived alliances between nations. Within a few short years, Dyer predicts, new military alliances will arise centred in China and Europe to counterbalance U.S. power. Most alarmingly, he warns, the UN is being neutered at a time when China and Europe are emerging as new superpowers, U.S. might is in decline, global warming threatens the environment, and competition is increasing for scarce resources. All this means that the planet could be headed down a slippery slope toward World War III, argues Dyer in this important, albeit frightening, book. --Alex Roslin
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