{"id":68635,"date":"2007-03-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2007\/03\/18\/lheroique-john-wayne-terminator-dans-son-f-18-des-marines\/"},"modified":"2007-03-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-18T00:00:00","slug":"lheroique-john-wayne-terminator-dans-son-f-18-des-marines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2007\/03\/18\/lheroique-john-wayne-terminator-dans-son-f-18-des-marines\/","title":{"rendered":"L’h\u00e9ro\u00efque John Wayne-Terminator<\/em>, dans son F-18 des Marines"},"content":{"rendered":"

L’h\u00e9ro\u00efque John Wayne-Terminator<\/em>, dans son F-18 des Marines<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

\tCe texte de Chuck Spinney m\u00e9rite toute notre attention. Nous y sommes revenus, puisque nous l’avons d\u00e9couvert tardivement (il a \u00e9t\u00e9 mis en ligne le 25 f\u00e9vrier<\/a> sur l’excellent site Defense and the National Interest<\/em>). Chuck Spinney est une des figures de proue (avec John Boyd) du clan des r\u00e9formistes, groupe tr\u00e8s restreint d’experts et anciens officiers des forces arm\u00e9es US en r\u00e9volte contre l’\u00e9crasant conformisme pentagonesque, ses gaspillages, ses erreurs, ses impasses.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSpinney a re\u00e7u une copie d’un message \u00e9lectronique envoy\u00e9 par un pilote d’un F-18 du Marine Corps op\u00e9rant en Irak. Le pilote d\u00e9crit dans les termes habituels, m\u00e9lange d’argot de pilote de combat et d’amateur de jeux vid\u00e9os, la joie qu’il \u00e9prouve \u00e0 effectuer ses missions de combat, \u00e0 mesurer visuellement mais \u00e0 bonne distance et \u00e0 la vitesse qu’on imagine les d\u00e9g\u00e2ts qu’il cause, y compris sur des personnes. La d\u00e9shumanisation est compl\u00e8te, aussi bien de l’acte que de celui qui le provoque. Reste l’excitation facile du jeu, cette \u00e9trange attitude qu’on d\u00e9crit aujourd’hui sous une expression comme pour le fun<\/em>, qui caract\u00e9rise l’univers virtualiste o\u00f9 nous ont plong\u00e9s l’informatisation et l’automatisation de notre monde, particuli\u00e8rement dans la partie devenue \u00e9norme de notre divertissement (\u00abOccupation qui d\u00e9tourne l’homme de penser aux probl\u00e8mes qui devraient le pr\u00e9occuper<\/em>\u00bb, selon le Robert). Ainsi trouve-t-on du divertissement dans cette \u00e9trange et effrayante jubilation de tuer \u00e0 distance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOn se trouve dans un univers monstrueux, un univers \u00e0 la fois compl\u00e8tement faux et compl\u00e8tement trompeur ; un univers sans la moindre ressemblance avec celui des r\u00e9flexions angoiss\u00e9es d’un Jules Roy de La vall\u00e9e heureuse<\/em> lorsque, pilote d’un bombardier Lancaster<\/em> de la RAF en mission sur la Ruhr, il songe avec horreur aux d\u00e9g\u00e2ts mortels que ses bombes invisibles d\u00e9gringolant aveugl\u00e9ment dans la nuit noire vont causer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCette partie du commentaire de Spinney est reprise intentionnellement pour illustrer notre propos. Elle suit quelques remarques sur les caract\u00e9ristiques de ce qu’on devrait d\u00e9signer comme un processus d’irresponsabilisation caract\u00e9risant l’automatisme de la guerre moderne, de l’informatisation, de la mod\u00e9lisation du monde ; la fa\u00e7on dont cette activit\u00e9 et son environnement poussent l’homme \u00e0 l’irresponsabilit\u00e9 la plus compl\u00e8te, au refus de la responsabilit\u00e9 des actes qu’il provoque autant qu’au refus de conna\u00eetre la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 de ses actes. Ce processus supprime, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la multitude et \u00e0 la puissance des interfaces, le lien de cause \u00e0 effet, c’est-\u00e0-dire le lien entre le d\u00e9clenchement de l’acte et les cons\u00e9quences de cet acte.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab Yet, as is now becoming clear, this doctrinal nonsense also has profound psychological effects on American soldiers and policy-makers, as well as average citizens. It has created a self-referencing myth of antiseptic war that can be likened to a bloodless video game, and its dehumanizing effects now permeate popular American culture. Doubters need only recall the gushing newspaper coverage of Shock and Awe which was spoon-fed to the American people prior to bombing of Iraq together with the ridiculous predictions of the Iraq war being a cakewalk where Iraqis would welcome us with flowers after we bombed them to feel the disorienting power of its pervasive psychological effect.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbThe attached email adds substance to this disorienting abstraction by illustrating its ugly underbody at the most microscopic level the level of the individual aviator waging precision war at a distance. It is from a Marine F-18 pilot in Iraq. In it, he describes the joy of killing mother *****, which is, in his words, like a hobby. His sweeping categorization proves that he doesn’t have a clue who he is killing and maiming he implies they are enemy combatants but they might be women, or old men or children.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbHere is a warrior who brags about killing for killing’s sake, but the people he kills that are just spots on the ground that disappear in clouds of explosions. He describes the joy of war at a distance and sees nothing of its horrors you won’t find any descriptions of blood, broken limbs, trauma, or destruction in this email. You won’t even find reference to his own feelings of menace or fear, not to mention their noble counterweights courage and esprit, just braggadocio on the subject of killing. Of course, his targets are all insurgents no sense of any human capacity for doubt on that point.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbBear in mind, this is but one email that reveals a lot about the confused moral state of one aviator. Here is a person who probably thinks of himself as a noble warrior and a patriot, yet by his own words, he describes himself as a soulless machine with no appreciation of nobility or honor or even what it takes to face a dangerous adversary up close and personal. By his own words, he makes himself into a caricature more like Pac Man than John Rambo, let alone an honorable soldier like Alvin York, a courageous Marine like Chesty Puller, or a sensitive soldier-writer who understood horror and banality of war like Eric Marie Remarque.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLe message du Marine, celui que Chuck Spinney joint \u00e0 son article, est path\u00e9tique de banalit\u00e9 grossi\u00e8re. On croirait lire une bande dessin\u00e9e, entendre et voir John Wayne revu en Terminator<\/em> postmoderne et ainsi de suite avec une pinc\u00e9e du Tom Cruise de Top Gun<\/em> pass\u00e9 au tamis des progr\u00e8s informatiques accomplis depuis un quart de si\u00e8cle. La g\u00e9n\u00e9ration des guerriers pour jeux vid\u00e9os est effectivement construite, pour la langue et la culture, \u00e0 partir de ces deux sources : la bande dessin\u00e9e patriotique, \u00e0 l’am\u00e9ricaine, et le Hollywood de John Wayne. Pas de surprise. Nul besoin de traduction pour cette dialectique-l\u00e0 (avec censure des mots et grossi\u00e8ret\u00e9s qui pourraient faire identifier l’auteur ou choquer les bien-pensants des presbyt\u00e8res du Middle-West) : \u00abI’ll have to go home, the opportunities to kill these f****** is rapidly coming to an end. Like a hobby I’ll never get to practice again. It’s not a great war, but it’s the only one we’ve got. God, I do love killing these bastards.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tPas de surprise non plus dans cette d\u00e9shumanisation de l’homme par la machine, en marche depuis longtemps et irr\u00e9sistiblement emport\u00e9e depuis la Grande Guerre<\/a>. Le z\u00e9ro mort, ou bien l’attaque a\u00e9rienne o\u00f9 il est interdit de descendre en-dessous de 5.000 m\u00e8tres (consigne de Clinton pour la guerre du Kosovo) sont les enfants postmodernes de ce cheminement, et la guerre contre la terreur, version afghane ou version irakienne, en est le b\u00e2tard pire que l’anc\u00eatre. Le pilote tue de fa\u00e7on si anonyme et si irresponsable, avec une jubilation si marqu\u00e9e de l’inconscience la plus compl\u00e8te, avec un si fort sentiment d’inculpabilit\u00e9<\/a>, qu’on n’ose le qualifier , de tueur ou d’autre chose. C’est un soldat sans qualificatif et sans culpabilit\u00e9, comme s’il \u00e9tait en-dehors de la zone de combat, et d’ailleurs en-dehors de l’humanit\u00e9. C’est pourtant lui qui la mitraille, l’humanit\u00e9.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCela \u00e9crit et entendu, il y a un aspect du texte de Chuck Spinney qui soul\u00e8ve un malaise, lequel est par ailleurs \u00e9clair\u00e9 par la convergence de deux \u00e9v\u00e9nements : la victoire d\u00e9finitive de la guerre m\u00e9canique et anonyme avec la Grande Guerre et l’entr\u00e9e sur la sc\u00e8ne du monde des USA \u00e0 l’occasion de la Grande Guerre. Le malaise est tout entier captur\u00e9 par cette remarque que Spinney ajoute \u00e0 son commentaire :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00abI am confident that the man who wrote this ghastly thing is an aberration and not at all representative of the men and women in our military.<\/em>\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSpinney donne la r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 notre malaise en m\u00eame temps qu’il contredit sa remarque lorsqu’il rel\u00e8ve, comme caract\u00e9ristique du tueur aseptis\u00e9 qu’on n’ose m\u00eame pas qualifier de tueur : \u00abOf course, his targets are all insurgents no sense of any human capacity for doubt on that point.<\/em>\u00bb Nous aimerions aller plus loin en nous demandant si Spinney serait pr\u00eat \u00e0 y aller avec nous : absence de la capacit\u00e9 de douter, non pas sur le fait de savoir si toutes ses victimes sont des insurgents<\/em>, mais sur le fait de savoir si tout insurgent<\/em> m\u00e9rite d’\u00eatre une victime d’un John Wayne-Terminator au front bas, c’est-\u00e0-dire ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 comme coupable par avance et sans autre forme de proc\u00e8s (d’ailleurs, on sait qu’il n’a pas droit \u00e0 un proc\u00e8s puisque non-citoyen am\u00e9ricain).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDans ce texte, manifestement, le guerrier, et l’homme tout court d’ailleurs, a perdu le sens du tragique qui nourrit le doute et l’angoisse. Il l’a remplac\u00e9 par la morale am\u00e9ricaniste standard, en pacotille et fer-blanc, par l’inculpabilit\u00e9 qui en est la prog\u00e9niture psychologique naturelle, et par la vanit\u00e9 de la ma\u00eetrise du monde par la technologie virtualiste qui est le moteur \u00e0 explosion de l’ensemble. John Wayne-Terminator n’a jamais rien su des angoisses sans fin de Achille au pied l\u00e9ger, demi-dieu et plus grand guerrier des temps mythiques. Malheureusement, on sait bien que l’une des caract\u00e9ristiques de la civilisation am\u00e9ricaniste, c’est le refus absolu de cette trag\u00e9die qui introduit par d\u00e9finition le facteur insaisissable de la transcendance. La d\u00e9monstration est compl\u00e8te.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tVoici le texte de Spinney. (L’on y appr\u00e9ciera sur la fin la vision r\u00e9solument optimiste de la situation en Irak, d\u00e9marhe plus psychologique qu’intellectuelle qui compl\u00e8te le portrait psychologique propos\u00e9 par Spinney.)<\/p>\n

It Was A successful mission (Too Bad We Lost the War)<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

\tBy Chuck Spinney, February 25, 2007, Special to Defense and the National Interest.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWe all know that the American Way of War is to use our technology to pour firepower on the enemy from a safe distance. Implicit in this is the central myth of precision bombardment that dates back to at least to the Norden Bombsight in World War II. The theory of precision firepower is a seamless part of the larger war-fighting theories of close control and surgical strike in the chaos of combat, as well as the necessary corollary belief that unintended damage euphemistically called collateral damage is morally acceptable, because it is self-evidently an unavoidable and irreducible cost of waging a precision business.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOf course this is all hogwash, as the conduct of the Iraq War has proven once again. Real war is always uncertain and messy and bloody and wasteful and accompanied by profound psychological and moral effects. But these preposterous theories are central to the American Way of War, because they justify the maintenance of the high cost, hi-tech military essential to the welfare of the parasitic political economy of the military-industrial-congressional complex that is now seamlessly embedded in our political culture.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tYet, as is now becoming clear, this doctrinal nonsense also has profound psychological effects on American soldiers and policy-makers, as well as average citizens. It has created a self-referencing myth of antiseptic war that can be likened to a bloodless video game, and its dehumanizing effects now permeate popular American culture. Doubters need only recall the gushing newspaper coverage of \u00a0\u00bbShock and Awe\u00a0\u00bb which was spoon-fed to the American people prior to bombing of Iraq together with the ridiculous predictions of the Iraq war being a cakewalk where Iraqis would welcome us with flowers after we bombed them to feel the disorienting power of its pervasive psychological effect.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe attached email adds substance to this disorienting abstraction by illustrating its ugly underbody at the most microscopic level the level of the individual aviator waging precision war at a distance. It is from a Marine F-18 pilot in Iraq. In it, he describes the joy of killing mother *****, which is, in his words, like a hobby. His sweeping categorization proves that he doesn’t have a clue who he is killing and maiming he implies they are enemy combatants but they might be women, or old men or children.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tHere is a warrior who brags about killing for killing’s sake, but the people he kills that are just spots on the ground that disappear in clouds of explosions. He describes the joy of war at a distance and sees nothing of its horrors you won’t find any descriptions of blood, broken limbs, trauma, or destruction in this email. You won’t even find reference to his own feelings of menace or fear, not to mention their noble counterweights courage and esprit, just braggadocio on the subject of killing. Of course, his targets are all insurgents no sense of any human capacity for doubt on that point.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBear in mind, this is but one email that reveals a lot about the confused moral state of one aviator. Here is a person who probably thinks of himself as a noble warrior and a patriot, yet by his own words, he describes himself as a soulless machine with no appreciation of nobility or honor or even what it takes to face a dangerous adversary up close and personal. By his own words, he makes himself into a caricature more like Pac Man than John Rambo, let alone an honorable soldier like Alvin York, a courageous Marine like Chesty Puller, or a sensitive soldier-writer who understood horror and banality of war like Eric Marie Remarque.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tI am confident that the man who wrote this ghastly thing is an aberration and not at all representative of the men and women in our military. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIt begs the question: Since the Bushian Surge (BS) strategy of winning the trust of Iraqis by providing them with more security will be reinforced by a more generous dose of airpower, together with its whacky theories of precision and surgical destruction, how widespread is an outlook that reduces doctrinal BS to JKMF (just killing mother *****)?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe e-mail follows (heavily edited to remove any identifying information):<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSubject: sitrep<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSent: 2\/6\/2007 6:12:31 AM Eastern Standard Time<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tFrom:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tTo:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe fellas from *** started showing up the other day. It’s starting to sink in……. I’ll have to go home, the opportunities to kill these f****** is rapidly coming to an end. Like a hobby I’ll never get to practice again. It’s not a great war, but it’s the only one we’ve got. God, I do love killing these bastards.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWell, the government in Baghdad has been telling the Shii (sic) that the Americans are coming big, look the f*** out So, the bad guys have begun moving out of the city. Business is beginning to pick back up for us. I think the Iranians are going to pick things up to help give CNN some ammunition to show the buildup is a failed idea.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe other day, ***** ***** got 3 nice passes with the gun and rockets on some Muj in a little town called ***. I firmly believe they are implants from the \u00a0\u00bbbig city.\u00a0\u00bb Looked as though they were in the process of trying to attack the Iraqi Police headquarters. I wonder why the insurgents would be attacking the Iraqi Police CNN says the IP are ineffective. Funny, the \u00a0\u00bbineffective\u00a0\u00bb IP stood their ground and called in 3 strikes. Only 1 confirmed kill.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tHad a great 5\u00a0\u00bb rocket attack last week. 5 Muj emplacing an IED rockets can be like a box of chocolates sometimes You never know what you’re gonna get. Allah was with these jack a*****, as the rockets hit all around them. These f****** get up, brush themselves off and take off hobbling across a farm field. The ground commander never expects survivors, so it takes them a while to coordinate a follow on attack. In the mean time, the idiots stay together in a pack, carrying their parts through a small palm grove. Ground commander finally gets his act together and clears a follow on gun run to finish them off. Roll in and just as pilot is about to go \u00a0\u00bbhammer down,\u00a0\u00bb a herd of sheep and family members appear at the top of the pod video and the run is aborted. Went home thinking they had gotten away Some pipe bustin’ Fellas from the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) rolled up on the farmers and apprehended all of them, along with their bomb making materials. They said the Muj tried to say their HE burns were from a tractor rolling over of some s***. As an aside, you will never be shown the aborted attack, which saved at least 5 unarmed family members and their livelihood <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tI hope they show a before and after picture of Baghdad. I think you will be quite surprised at the effort. An order of magnitude more than anything they have ever seen before. Should be interesting to watch. I’d really like to stick around and see how the extra a** effects the ops in some of the more obscure areas.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAs we prepare to get out of here, I have to think back to what this place was like when I was leaving 2 years ago The convoys would be attacked by small arms fire every night All night long. Today, we rarely ever see a convoy attacked by small arms fire. When the Marines take any fire, they turn and attack, so the Muj have determined it’s not a money play and stopped (besides, killing a KBR worker won’t make it to CNN back in the states). I used to spend most of my on station time investigating Mortar and Rocket points on origin from counter battery radar hits. I think I’ve received about 6-8 of those missions in 6 months. Camps in Ramadi and Fallujah used to get indirect fire all day and night Now, it’s rare. Our base used to get rocketed every 12 days We’ve been rocketed once in 6 months. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDuring my first 3 tours here, I never saw a single Iraqi Army unit. This tour, they have taken over significant portions of the Area of Operations. Hell, I’ve nearly bombed them on at least 3 occasions because of their aggressive patrolling (they fail to tell anyone where they are going). They still have a ways to go: The retards I was providing overwatch for this morning, were trying everyone’s patience. But, they were engaged in the arena and patrolling a dangerous area on foot. How can we possibly abandon these people now? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAnother thing that struck me the other day is how much better the US Army has become. 7 years ago, they were a bloated lazy mess I believe most didn’t know how to use their personal weapons very well. Poor at convoy ops and patrolled in their HMMWVs. Now, they are lighter, more expeditionary, mobile, better armored. They patrol on foot and aggressively pursue contact with the insurgency. I think they still have a ways to go to be better at coordinating fires, but they are more Marine like than ever. As long as their version of a Forward Air Controller (FAC) continues to sit in a command post and \u00a0\u00bbcontrol\u00a0\u00bb air fires from a computer terminal, they will never get it right (SEAL and Marine FACs are embedded with the infantry company). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOD&YBF<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit,Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L’h\u00e9ro\u00efque John Wayne-Terminator, dans son F-18 des Marines Ce texte de Chuck Spinney m\u00e9rite toute notre attention. Nous y sommes revenus, puisque nous l’avons d\u00e9couvert tardivement (il a \u00e9t\u00e9 mis en ligne le 25 f\u00e9vrier sur l’excellent site Defense and the National Interest). Chuck Spinney est une des figures de proue (avec John Boyd) du… <\/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":[4],"tags":[3713,3634,857,3961,3572,3099,4057,4486,4400],"class_list":["post-68635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-de-lectures","tag-f-18","tag-inculpabilite","tag-irak","tag-john","tag-marine","tag-psychologie","tag-spinney","tag-terminator","tag-wayne"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68635","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=68635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}