{"id":65930,"date":"2004-04-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-04-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2004\/04\/11\/les-britanniques-face-a-lamerican-way-of-war\/"},"modified":"2004-04-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-04-11T00:00:00","slug":"les-britanniques-face-a-lamerican-way-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2004\/04\/11\/les-britanniques-face-a-lamerican-way-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Les Britanniques face \u00e0 l’American Way of War<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Les Britanniques face \u00e0 l’American Way of War<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

11 avril 2004 — Ce n’est pas la premi\u00e8re fois que des jugements s\u00e9v\u00e8res sur l'\u00a0\u00bbAmerican Way of War<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb sont exprim\u00e9s et publi\u00e9s mais celui que publie aujourd’hui le Daily Telegraph<\/a> m\u00e9rite d’\u00eatre retenu.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Le Daily Telegraph<\/em> n’est pas du camp anti-am\u00e9ricain ; il a \u00e9t\u00e9 et, jusqu’\u00e0 nouvel ordre, reste favorable \u00e0 la guerre contre l’Irak. Il ne peut \u00eatre soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 de parti pris, ce qui donne son cr\u00e9dit \u00e0 cet article qui retranscrit une interview faite avec un officier britannique actuellement stationn\u00e9 en Irak. Il constitue un r\u00e9quisitoire tr\u00e8s s\u00e9v\u00e8re contre le comportement am\u00e9ricain ; au-del\u00e0, c’est le constat d’une diff\u00e9rence fondamentale de conception des choses et de vision du monde, entre Am\u00e9ricains et Britanniques (dans ce cas, on peut sans aucun doute \u00e9largir : entre Am\u00e9ricains et Europ\u00e9ens, voire entre Am\u00e9ricains et le reste du monde).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

[Le journal pr\u00e9cise le sens du mot untermenschen<\/em> employ\u00e9 par l’officier britannique dans le texte ci-dessous : \u00ab\u00a0sous-hommes\u00a0\u00bb, mot employ\u00e9 par les nazis pour d\u00e9signer les juifs, les gitans et les slaves notamment, tous consid\u00e9r\u00e9s comme \u00ab\u00a0racialement inf\u00e9rieurs\u00a0\u00bb. On nous pr\u00e9cise \u00e9galement que ces constats des soldats britanniques ont \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9percut\u00e9s vers le commandement et vers le gouvernement.]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

« Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: \u00ab\u00a0My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans’ use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don’t see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it’s awful.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» \u00ab\u00a0The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn’t in Iraq. It’s easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

(…)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» The officer explained that, under British military rules of war, British troops would never be given clearance to carry out attacks similar to those being conducted by the US military, in which helicopter gunships have been used to fire on targets in urban areas.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» British rules of engagement only allow troops to open fire when attacked, using the minimum force necessary and only at identified targets. The American approach was markedly different: \u00ab\u00a0When US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad, they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» \u00ab\u00a0They may well kill the terrorists in the barrage but they will also kill and maim innocent civilians. That has been their response on a number of occasions. It is trite, but American troops do shoot first and ask questions later. They are very concerned about taking casualties and have even trained their guns on British troops, which has led to some confrontations between soldiers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» \u00ab\u00a0The British response in Iraq has been much softer. During and after the war the British set about trying to win the confidence of the local population. There have been problems, it hasn’t been easy but on the whole it was succeeding.<\/em>\u00ab\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» The officer believed that America had now lost the military initiative in Iraq, and it could only be regained with carefully planned, precision attacks against the terrorists\u00a0\u00bb.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» \u00ab\u00a0The US will have to abandon the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut approach – it has failed,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0They need to stop viewing every Iraqi, every Arab as the enemy and attempt to win the hearts and minds of the people.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Les constats britanniques sont effrayants mais ne peuvent en aucun cas constituer une surprise. Ce qui surprendrait plut\u00f4t est notre d\u00e9couverte toujours renouvel\u00e9e d’un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne qui existe depuis qu’existe l’Am\u00e9ricain venu de l’\u00e9migration fondatrice des États-Unis (en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, les Puritains d’origine anglo-saxonne, des Protestants n\u00e9erlandais \u00e9galement). La strat\u00e9gie am\u00e9ricaine, qui refl\u00e8te une conception de la vie et une conception du monde, a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 celle de l’attrition massive, l’an\u00e9antissement des forces adverses plut\u00f4t que la victoire par la manoeuvre. On retrouve cette strat\u00e9gie de la Guerre d’Ind\u00e9pendance et la guerre contre les Indiens, aux grands conflits modernes, que ce soit la strat\u00e9gie du d\u00e9barquement en Normandie ou celle des bombardements massifs jusqu’\u00e0 la bombe atomique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Une telle strat\u00e9gie est n\u00e9cessairement appuy\u00e9e sur une conception de sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 par rapport \u00e0 l’adversaire (Indiens, Sudistes, divers Latino-Am\u00e9ricains, Philippins, Cubains, Allemands, Japonais, Cor\u00e9ens, Vietnamiens, \u00e9ventuellement Russes, derni\u00e8rement Irakiens et Arabes en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, — la liste n’a aucune vocation \u00e0 \u00eatre exclusive). D’un point de vue militaire et dans les circonstances de la guerre, ce statut inf\u00e9rieur peut \u00e9ventuellement justifier l’an\u00e9antissement, dans tous les cas implique l’\u00e9tat d’esprit qui accepte cette id\u00e9e.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ce ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne, que le professeur Weigley avait surnomm\u00e9 l’American Way of War<\/em> (titre de son livre sur cette question, paru en 1973), est un point fondamental pour les relations entre alli\u00e9s. Il justifie, avec d’autres points de la m\u00eame sorte (notamment la vision binaire et agressive du monde, en Bien versus<\/em> Mal), le constat que les Am\u00e9ricains et les Europ\u00e9ens sont bien plus s\u00e9par\u00e9s par des conceptions et des visions du monde antagonistes, que toutes les autres s\u00e9parations propos\u00e9es (entre races, entre religions, etc), qui tendent en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral \u00e0 mettre États-uniens et Europ\u00e9ens ensemble, pour justifier l’alliance transatlantique. La seule restriction qu’on doit apporter \u00e0 ce jugement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, — certes, elle est de taille jusqu’\u00e0 \u00eatre fondamentale, — est que ce comportement am\u00e9ricain, au d\u00e9part religieux fondamentaliste, est aujourd’hui fondamentalement relay\u00e9 par un syst\u00e8me militaro-bureaucratique appuy\u00e9 sur une volont\u00e9 guerri\u00e8re et la r\u00e9f\u00e9rence syst\u00e9matique \u00e0 la machine et \u00e0 la technologie. Il apparaît que le syst\u00e8me militaro-bureaucratique a conserv\u00e9 le crit\u00e8re raciste originel omnipr\u00e9sent, qui ne disparaît que lorsque les individus acceptent l’int\u00e9gration dans le syst\u00e8me.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Les Britanniques face \u00e0 l’American Way of War 11 avril 2004 — Ce n’est pas la premi\u00e8re fois que des jugements s\u00e9v\u00e8res sur l’\u00a0\u00bbAmerican Way of War\u00a0\u00bb sont exprim\u00e9s et publi\u00e9s mais celui que publie aujourd’hui le Daily Telegraph m\u00e9rite d’\u00eatre retenu. Le Daily Telegraph n’est pas du camp anti-am\u00e9ricain ; il a \u00e9t\u00e9 et,… <\/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":[3612,4261,2645,857,4014,4128,4260,4262],"class_list":["post-65930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-american","tag-dattrition","tag-guerre","tag-irak","tag-of","tag-war","tag-way","tag-weigley"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65930","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=65930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}