We already have vast advantages over our Fourth Generation opponents in both lethality and protection, yet we’re losing. That suggests there is rather more to Fourth Generation war than lethality and protection. Indeed, we have so much of both of those qualities that they may work against us more than for us.<\/em> \u00bb)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCockburn mentionne \u00e0 plusieurs reprises cette particularit\u00e9. Notons deux remarques sur ce th\u00e8me: \u00ab [The Americans] could not adapt themselves to Iraq. Their massive firepower meant they won any set-piece battle, but it also meant that they accidentally killed so many Iraqi civilians that they were the recruiting sergeants of the resistance.<\/em> \u00bb Plus loin: \u00ab Because of poor intelligence and excessive firepower, American operations all became exercises in collective punishment.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCette puissance consid\u00e9rable a conduit les Am\u00e9ricains \u00e0 intervenir \u00e0 volont\u00e9, avec une efficacit\u00e9 \u00e9crasante mais avec des cons\u00e9quences \u00e0 terme extr\u00eamement n\u00e9gatives, d’autant que leur crainte obsessionnelle des pertes et leur refus de s’int\u00e9grer \u00e0 la situation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale les poussent \u00e0 partir aussi vite qu’ils interviennent : \u00ab The army acts as a sort of fire brigade, briefly effective in dousing the flames, but always moving on before they are fully extinguished.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tEnfin, Cockburn met en \u00e9vidence l’incapacit\u00e9 du syst\u00e8me \u00e0 s’adapter \u00e0 la situation, et cela va jusqu’\u00e0 l’incapacit\u00e9 de d\u00e9cider des sanctions et mesures de punition qui s’imposent dans ses propres rangs. Mais, on le comprend, il s’agit de la particularit\u00e9 d’un syst\u00e8me fait de l’\u00e9quilibre de forces diverses, de centres d’influence, de pressions, etc., o\u00f9 les mesures n\u00e9cessaires selon l’efficacit\u00e9 et le m\u00e9rite des gens en fonction sont impossibles puisque leur pr\u00e9sence ne d\u00e9pend pas de ces particularit\u00e9s mais des degr\u00e9s d’influence. \u00ab The greatest failure of the US in Iraq is not that mistakes were made but that its political system has proved incapable of redressing them. Neither Mr Rumsfeld nor his lieutenants have been sacked. Paul Wolfowitz, under-secretary of defence and architect of the war, has been promoted to the World Bank. <\/em>[…] In Iraq, American generals and their political masters of demonstrable incompetence are not fired.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tConclusion in\u00e9vitable: \u00ab The US is turning out to be much less of a military and political superpower than the rest of the world had supposed.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 16 mai 2004 \u00e0 0945<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Un excellent article de Patrick Cockburn, dans The Independent du 15 mai, donne une analyse tr\u00e8s convaincante des principales faiblesses am\u00e9ricaines en Irak, et l’explication d’une situation de plus en plus chaotique. Cockburn introduit un \u00e9l\u00e9ment tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressant, d\u00e9j\u00e0 signal\u00e9 (en passant) chez l’analyste William S. Lind : la puissance excessive des Am\u00e9ricains. (Lind \u00e9crivait… <\/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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66417","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=66417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}