\t18 ao\u00fbt 2004 Le 12 ao\u00fbt, Oliver North a sign\u00e9 une int\u00e9ressante chronique sur Military.com<\/a>, site largement consult\u00e9 dans les milieux militaro-industriels et du Congr\u00e8s, \u00e0 Washington. L’int\u00e9r\u00eat du texte de North est qu’il annonce, voire renforce une offensive serr\u00e9e pour imposer des restrictions draconiennes sur l’achat et l’usage de mat\u00e9riels non-US par les forces arm\u00e9es US.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t(Oliver North est un des c\u00e9l\u00e8bres acteurs et manipulateurs du scandale de l’Irangate [vente illicite de missiles \u00e0 l’Iran par l’\u00e9quipe Reagan autour de McFerlane et de North au NSC, en 1984-85, pour obtenir des fonds et subventionner de fa\u00e7on illicite, contre l’interdiction du Congr\u00e8s, les Contras luttant contre les sandinistes au Nicaragua]. North, major du Marine Corps en 1985, quitta l’arm\u00e9e quelques ann\u00e9es plus tard et devint un des h\u00e9rauts de l’extr\u00eame droite r\u00e9publicaine au travers de ses activit\u00e9s d’\u00e9ditorialiste et d’auteur. Aujourd’hui, il repr\u00e9sente une tendance extr\u00eame de soutien \u00e0 la politique belliciste US. Son argumentation correspond parfaitement \u00e0 la forme et \u00e0 l’esprit de l’administration GW Bush telle que nous la voyons agir depuis trois ans.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tNorth n’est pas un sp\u00e9cialiste de l’armement. S’il s’y int\u00e9resse dans sa chronique, c’est qu’il y a un mouvement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de la droite r\u00e9publicaine et des lobbies correspondants sur cette question, qui d\u00e9passe la seule activit\u00e9 de promotion de la question. North s’attaque \u00e0 l’usage d’armes non-am\u00e9ricaines \u00e0 partir d’exemples pr\u00e9cis. On d\u00e9couvre \u00e9galement que son commentaire prend pr\u00e9texte du choix du Pentagone d’un avion br\u00e9silien Embraer pour une plate-forme de reconnaissance \u00e9lectronique. (\u00ab Brazilian-French Embraer aircraft<\/em> \u00bb, pr\u00e9cise North de fa\u00e7on assez perfide ; certes, des int\u00e9r\u00eats fran\u00e7ais viennent de prendre une participation dans Embraer mais les avions vendus par Embraer sont \u00e9videmment de conception et de fabrication br\u00e9siliennes. Il s’agit bien entendu d’une tentative de discr\u00e9dit puisque, aujourd’hui \u00e0 Washington, il suffit de citer la France pour disposer d’un argument de critique absolue totalement irrationnel, que personne n’ose discuter.) <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00ab Just a few days ago, I returned from my fourth sojourn in Iraq for Fox News. During each trip to the war zone, I have seen U.S. Marines and soldiers employing 240G machine guns made by Fabrique Nationale a Belgian company. The Two Forty Golf, as the troops refer to the weapon, is an excellent medium machine gun. It has now all but replaced the venerable American-made M-60 that was the U.S. weapon of choice from Vietnam to the first Gulf War. On their hips, nearly all American military personnel carry a 9mm pistol – made by Beretta, an Italian company. Like the 240-G, the Beretta sidearm is lighter and has a higher rate of fire than the weapon it replaced – the M-1911A1 .45 caliber pistol that saved my life in 1969.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb Both the 240G machine gun and the Beretta 9mm pistol have their supporters and detractors and old hands can frequently be heard regaling the new breed of soldiers and Marines about the merits of the older, now discarded, U.S.-made weapons. But the problems inherent in buying foreign-made arms are far more complex and important than what one hears in an infantry chow line.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb Ever since the Global War on Terror began in 2001, one of the key weapons in the U.S. arsenal has been the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) the remarkably accurate high-altitude, guided bomb that allows a precision attack on a specific target with minimum chance of collateral damage. Thousands of JDAMs have been used in Afghanistan and Iraq over the course of the last three years. Some of the Special Operations troops who participated in Operation Enduring Freedom maintain that the Taliban might still control Kabul if it weren’t for the JDAMs delivered in support of their ground campaign. And during the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I witnessed countless examples of the weapon’s pinpoint accuracy and effectiveness. Unfortunately, a crucial component of the JDAM was manufactured by a Swiss company, Micro Crystal. Because the Swiss opposed the war in Iraq, the government in Berne ordered the company to stop shipment of any more JDAM elements. It took several months for the Department of Defense to find alternative sources for the critical parts.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb One might hope that the international experience with the JDAM would have been instructive to the Pentagon’s procurement wizards; but apparently not. Last week the Department of Defense awarded a $6 billion contract to a consortium lead by Lockheed Martin to build a new Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) reconnaissance aircraft for the Army and Navy. The Pentagon could have chosen a competing bid that would have mounted our highly sensitive intelligence sensors on a U.S.-made Gulfstream jet but went ahead and approved a Brazilian-French Embraer aircraft instead.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb The Pentagon’s buy-international enthusiasm for the ACS project will result in billions of U.S. dollars being spent to create thousands of jobs in other countries. Frank Larkin of the Association of Aerospace Workers says he is concerned anytime taxpayer dollars are used to create good-paying jobs in countries like Brazil or Chile that are desperately needed here in the U.S. But even worse than the job and dollar transfer is the likelihood that very sensitive U.S. intelligence technology will be conveyed into foreign hands as well. When I asked a senior intelligence official about the prospect that such a technology transfer would take place during the construction of the ACS aircraft, he told me it was inevitable.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tIl s’agit d’une critique et d’une attaque unilat\u00e9ralistes qui ont une forte coloration politique. Les termes employ\u00e9s sont significatifs, notamment lorsque North traite les choix du Pentagone d’internationalistes, o\u00f9 l’on retrouve l’opposition entre unilat\u00e9raliste et multilat\u00e9raliste. (Comme, par exemple, dans cette attaque contre un \u00e9ventuel choix d’un h\u00e9licopt\u00e8re Agusta pour la flotte pr\u00e9sidentielle : \u00ab The current, aging fleet of Marine One helos have been built and serviced by Connecticut-based Sikorsky since the 1950s, but the internationalists across the Potomac are said to be leaning toward acquiring the Italian-built Augusta-Westland 101 as a replacement. Former U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop is concerned that such a decision means, many high-value, engineering and technology-related positions will be going to Italy. But that may not matter. The Italian chopper has the backing of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.<\/em> \u00bb)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tCette sorte de texte nous annonce d’autres attaques du m\u00eame style, c’est-\u00e0-dire qu’elle signale la mise en place d’une campagne de lobbying et de pression de la part de la droite r\u00e9publicaine contre des achats d’armes non-US, les transferts de technologies, etc. La r\u00e9f\u00e9rence que fait North, dans son dernier paragraphe, au repr\u00e9sentant Duncan Hunter<\/a> n’est pas innocente.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n