{"id":65381,"date":"2002-12-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-12-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2002\/12\/13\/dc-virtual\/"},"modified":"2002-12-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-12-13T00:00:00","slug":"dc-virtual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2002\/12\/13\/dc-virtual\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C., virtual<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

D.C., virtual<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

13 d\u00e9cembre 2002 — La sc\u00e8ne se passe \u00e0 Washington, D.C., d’où \u00e9crit Timothy Garton Ash, du Guardian<\/em>, et il publie son article le 12 d\u00e9cembre<\/a>. De Washington D.C., il nous dit : « Washington at war — In this city, there is no doubt: war is coming, and the Middle East will be remade.<\/em> » Cet article, dont l’honorabilit\u00e9 et la qualit\u00e9 sont au-dessus de tout soup\u00e7on, est un bon exemple, une excellente illustration du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne avons d\u00e9sormais coutume de nommer \u00ab\u00a0virtualisme\u00a0\u00bb. Il nous permet d’observer l’esp\u00e8ce d’emboîtement de poup\u00e9es russes sans rapport entre elles que constituent aujourd’hui la situation du monde. Cet exercice peut paraître complexe mais ce n’est qu’\u00e0 premi\u00e8re vue. Il nous paraîtra enrichissant au bout du compte.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

La sc\u00e8ne d’abord, — ou encore : que se passe-t-il aujourd’hui \u00e0 Washington, selon ce qu’en a vu Garton Ash ? Nous prenons un peu de temps et d’espace pour bien nous impr\u00e9gner de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 de la capitale. Nous le faisons en ayant \u00e0 l’esprit ce que nous donnent les autres sources d’analyse sur la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 du monde, la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 de la crise, et notamment l’incertitude grandissante où se trouvent aujourd’hui la diplomatie am\u00e9ricaine, la perspective de la guerre, etc. (Nous observons cette situation dans un F&C, en date du 12 d\u00e9cembre<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

« Coming to the hyperpower capital from peace-torn Europe, I find three things. Washington is at war. Washington is going to war. And Washington is starting to think about a peace to end both wars. People in Britain, and the world beyond, need to wake up to all three.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» There is some confusion here between two wars. Sometimes when Washingtonians say \u00a0\u00bbthe war\u00a0\u00bb they mean the war against terrorism, which they are still living intensely in everyday life. Sometimes they mean the coming war with Iraq. WT and WI, as a friend tags them.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» The most pressing conclusion is that Washington is going to war against Saddam Hussein. Saddam’s solemn claim that he has no more weapons of mass destruction is a blow to those who still hoped for a peaceful solution and a gift to those who think toppling him by force of arms is the only path to effective disarmament. My clear impression from talking to people inside and close to the Bush administration is that this war — WI — is now a matter of when and how rather than whether.<\/em> […]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» But Washington is <\/em>[…] not just preparing to prosecute a war (WI) which — however tenuous the alleged connections between Saddam and al-Qaida — it does see as part of the larger ongoing war against terrorism (WT). Amply conscious of being the imperial capital of the most powerful country in the history of the world, it’s also beginning to think big about the longer-term path to a peace that is supposed to end these wars. An administration that came into office ideologically opposed to US involvement in so-called \u00a0\u00bbnation-building\u00a0\u00bb in foreign parts is now plainly committed to the long haul of so-called \u00a0\u00bbnation-building\u00a0\u00bb in post-invasion (or, according to preference, post-liberation) Iraq.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» But that’s only for starters. This new, democratic and prosperous Iraq is to be a model and magnet for its neighbours, as west Germany and west Berlin were to their unfree neighbours in the cold war. Vanguard thinkers talk of encouraging a velvet revolution to democratise Iran. Then there’s the United States’ rich, friendly but oppressive ally, Saudi Arabia, from whose Wahabi Islamist wells — hate wells beside the oil wells — many of the terrorists who attacked the US on 9\/11 actually sprang. No one in the administration wants to say this publicly, but there is a clear logic that leads from the democratisation of Iraq to that of Saudi Arabia. If you want to get rid of the Islamist mosquitoes, you must drain the swap. And so people are talking here — not yet publicly, but in the corridors and anterooms of power — about a Wilsonian project for reshaping the whole Middle East, comparable in its ambition only to those for Europe in 1919 and 1949. World-weary Europeans, and people in the region itself, may doubt both the realism of this embryonic project and the United States’s capacity to sustain it. We would better spend our time thinking how to complement and improve it.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

D.C. contre the Rest Of the World<\/em>, y compris l’Am\u00e9rique<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

Tout de m\u00eame, Garton Ash se demande si cela (D.C.), qui semble si compl\u00e8tement isol\u00e9 du reste, repr\u00e9sente bien l’Am\u00e9rique. Ce n’est pas une question sans int\u00e9r\u00eat. Le voil\u00e0 donc parti sur les chemins boueux et bouseux du reste de l’Am\u00e9rique (c’est-\u00e0-dire \u00ab\u00a0l’Am\u00e9rique moins D.C.\u00a0\u00bb). Les quelques notes qu’il nous en rapporte valent mieux, \u00e0 notre sens, que les quelques lignes qui lui sont consacr\u00e9es.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

« But what strikes me most is how far people in or around the Bush administration do really regard the coming war with Iraq as part of an ongoing war against terrorism — as also was Tuesday’s seizure of Scud missiles destined for Yemen. When I say \u00ab\u00a0Washington is at war\u00a0\u00bb, I’m not just using \u00ab\u00a0Washington\u00a0\u00bb as diplomatic shorthand for the US — as in \u00ab\u00a0London insists\u00a0\u00bb or \u00ab\u00a0Paris objects\u00a0\u00bb. I mean Washington, this currently freezing, handsome but driven one-topic city on the Potomac and more specifically, its Republican elites.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» In the American agricultural heartlands of Kansas and Missouri last weekend, I asked farmers, students, schoolchildren and Friday night casino-goers whether they felt they were at war. Their answers ranged from a hesitant \u00ab\u00a0not really\u00a0\u00bb to \u00ab\u00a0well, sort of\u00a0\u00bb. Here, in the nation’s capital, from people close to the Bush administration, the answer is a resounding \u00ab\u00a0yes\u00a0\u00bb, with a look that says \u00ab\u00a0what a strange thing to ask\u00a0\u00bb.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ce contraste entre D.C. et le reste du pays est un point constamment observ\u00e9 par les visiteurs en Am\u00e9rique. Nous citons comme indication, volontairement, un article qui paraît un peu \u00e9loign\u00e9 du sujet trait\u00e9 ici, qui est un article sur les relations entre les USA et l’Allemagne, publi\u00e9 le 20 novembre dans l’International Herald tribune.<\/a> Dans « U.S. and Germany still estranged<\/em> », John Vinocur termine en citant un de ses interlocuteurs allemands favoris : « Karsten Voigt, the Foreign Ministry’s coordinator for German-American relations, who ventured to Indianapolis and Philadelphia last week in a reconnaissance mission to the world beyond the Beltway, found that in Washington \u00ab\u00a0on all practical levels, things are going fine. In the countryside,\u00a0\u00bb as he called it, Voigt met \u00ab\u00a0people who felt as ambivalent\u00a0\u00bb as they might in Germany on the course to take in relation to Iraq.<\/em> » Inutile de pr\u00e9ciser, — nous sommes entre gens \u00e9quilibr\u00e9s et responsables — que Voigt juge que les choses « are going fine<\/em> » \u00e0 Washington parce que, \u00e0 Washington, comme nous l’explique Garton Ash de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, tout le monde est sûr que nous allons partir en guerre, que c’est d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait, et que, ma foi, c’est formidable.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

… Mais nous ne parlons pas de l’existence de plusieurs perceptions de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 (cela s’est d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu) mais de l’existence de plusieurs r\u00e9alit\u00e9s<\/strong>. En effet, le deuxi\u00e8me point important de ces \u00e9tranges d\u00e9veloppements est qu’apr\u00e8s avoir constat\u00e9 cette situation \u00e9trange où une ville enti\u00e8re (D.C.) et le centre de pouvoir qu’elle abrite vivent dans une bulle de virtualisme et affirment une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 dont le reste du monde (y compris l’Am\u00e9rique sans D.C.) n’a pas la moindre perception, Garton Ash conclut que l’important est d\u00e9sormais pour nous tous de devenir tous des citoyens de D.C.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Apr\u00e8s la description des r\u00eaveries \u00e0 la Perle et le reste, apr\u00e8s avoir implicitement montr\u00e9 l’aspect grotesque de ce d\u00e9lire de re-manufacture du monde alors que rien n’a boug\u00e9 depuis 14 mois, que les choses vont de mal en pis l\u00e0 où on a tent\u00e9 quelque chose d’effectivement re-manufacturier (Afghanistan), notre auteur n’y va pas par quatre chemins : puisque Washington d\u00e9lire l\u00e0-dessus, il est temps de prendre ce d\u00e9lire pour du comptant et de nous y mettre \u00e0 notre tour (« …World-weary Europeans, and people in the region itself, may doubt both the realism of this embryonic project and the United States’s capacity to sustain it. We would better spend our time thinking how to complement and improve it.<\/em> »). Il nous avertit dans ce sens, sans ambages, montrant ce curieux sens britannique du nihilisme qui fait comprendre exactement les choses et leurs travers, et recommande d’y sacrifier sans rien tenter pour les changer, les d\u00e9noncer, etc : « So whatever the analytical truth, and however remote this is from the reality of war as one saw it in Bosnia or Kosovo, Washington feels itself to be at war. That’s a municipal fact of world importance.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

La conclusion ne fait pas un pli : devant ce « municipal fact of world importance.<\/em> », il est temps de s’incliner. Puisque D.C. se sent en guerre, eh bien tout le monde est en guerre. (Puisqu’il pleut sur la Maison-Blanche, eh bien le monde doit bruisser du bruit des imperm\u00e9ables qu’on enfile ; et puisque GW a rot\u00e9, voil\u00e0 6 milliards d’Alka Seltzer<\/em> en train de p\u00e9tiller dans des verres.) Transcrivons en termes provocants : puisqu’un asile d’ali\u00e9n\u00e9 baptis\u00e9 D.C. dit que nous sommes en guerre, eh bien nous sommes en guerre. La situation est d\u00e9sormais si extr\u00eame qu’on ne parle m\u00eame plus de l’establishment<\/em> US, qu’il s’agit bien de D.C. contre le reste, et des centres de puissance tels que New York\/Wall Street ou Hollywood et le cin\u00e9ma<\/a> sont, eux aussi, situ\u00e9s de plus en plus \u00e9loign\u00e9s de la virtualit\u00e9 washingtonienne. (Seule la presse semble la plus proche de la vision virtualiste de D.C., certainement parce qu’elle en d\u00e9pend pour nombre de facteurs qui la constituent.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Observez bien ces signes : ils marquent assez justement la marche des choses. Dans notre \u00e9poque, ces questions de distances de perception, voire de ruptures de perception, jouent d\u00e9sormais un bien plus grand r\u00f4le que les questions classiques de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 des relations internationales (strat\u00e9gie, g\u00e9opolitique, etc). Cette part pr\u00e9pond\u00e9rante ne cessera de grandir, face \u00e0 une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 qui ne cesse de se retirer et de s’effacer peu \u00e0 peu. La phrase d\u00e9finitive de Garton Ash, qui a le m\u00e9rite de clore avec autorit\u00e9 un \u00e9ditorial, — « this war — WI — is now a matter of when and how rather than whether<\/em> », — nous l’avons entendue et lue vingt fois, trente fois, depuis qu’il est question de l’attaque contre l’Irak, et toujours \u00e0 propos de cette attaque. Elle ne recouvre plus rien d’une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 qui n’existe plus en tant qu’unicit\u00e9, une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 qui s’est fractionn\u00e9e en des \u00ab\u00a0r\u00e9alit\u00e9s\u00a0\u00bb concurrentes. La guerre peut \u00e9clater demain, un peu comme on fait tomber un pot de confiture. Le monde l’affrontera en \u00e9tant dans le cas incroyable d’\u00eatre d\u00e9suni sur la r\u00e9alit\u00e9, c’est-\u00e0-dire en percevant des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s diff\u00e9rentes (ce qui est bien autre chose que le fait de perceptions diff\u00e9rentes de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9). C’est une situation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale qui ne se compare \u00e0 rien de ce qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 v\u00e9cu historiquement.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

D.C., virtual 13 d\u00e9cembre 2002 — La sc\u00e8ne se passe \u00e0 Washington, D.C., d’où \u00e9crit Timothy Garton Ash, du Guardian, et il publie son article le 12 d\u00e9cembre. De Washington D.C., il nous dit : « Washington at war — In this city, there is no doubt: war is coming, and the Middle East will… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3740,2669,868,3739,3741,3738,610,3248],"class_list":["post-65381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-ash","tag-bulle","tag-bush","tag-garton","tag-psychologique","tag-timothy","tag-virtualisme","tag-washington"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}