{"id":70766,"date":"2009-05-18T09:19:09","date_gmt":"2009-05-18T09:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2009\/05\/18\/lurgence-dafpak\/"},"modified":"2009-05-18T09:19:09","modified_gmt":"2009-05-18T09:19:09","slug":"lurgence-dafpak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2009\/05\/18\/lurgence-dafpak\/","title":{"rendered":"L’urgence d’AfPak<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Pfaff estime que les rapports entre l’Afghanistan et le Pakistan renvoient, pour l’\u00e9tat-major et les strat\u00e8ges US, et pour le pr\u00e9sident par cons\u00e9quent dans cette occurrence, aux rapports entre le Vietnam et le Cambodge pour les USA dans les ann\u00e9es 1970-1975. La r\u00e9orientation du bin\u00f4me AfPak<\/em> vers le Pakistan depuis l’automne dernier, et, encore plus, avec l’administration Obama qui en a fait sa philosophie en mati\u00e8re de guerre contre la terreur, renvoie pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment \u00e0 1970, quand les forces US envahirent le Cambodge parce qu’ils n’arrivaient \u00e0 rien au Vietnam, apr\u00e8s cinq ann\u00e9es de f\u00e9roces combats.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tPfaff \u00e9crit sur son site WilliamPfaff.com<\/em>, le 15 mai 2009<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00abA younger generation than mine, including senior military officers (not to speak of Barack Obama), may not know exactly why the United States and the South Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia in 1970, and what the result was. The invasion was a failure, and the result a humanitarian catastrophe.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbWashington, frustrated in its war against the Communist Viet Cong in South Vietnam, which eventually included bombing on a scale greater than the bombing of Germany in the second world war, decided it could solve its problem by an invasion to cut the Communist supply routes inside neutral Cambodia (which it nonetheless was also bombing: dropping 540 thousand tons of explosive on Cambodia over four years).<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tFrustration, impuissance d’une part, sens de l’urgence devant la d\u00e9t\u00e9rioration de la situation, extr\u00eamement inqui\u00e9tante alors que cette administration cherche par tous les moyens \u00e0 en finir avec cette guerre, mais victorieusement certes. L’appel au g\u00e9n\u00e9ral McChrystal a, selon Pfaff, une signification dans ce flux psychologique contrast\u00e9, entre frustration, impuissance et urgence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00abU.S. Command in AfPak now has been transferred, in obvious urgency, to former Joint Special Operations commander, Lt.Gen. Stanley McChrystal.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbWill a special forces officer think that guerrillas with refuge in an inaccessible and unconquered region, amidst a tri-national ethnic population of some 40 million fellow-Pathans, can be beaten by guided bombs or Special Forces raids? Or that an unenthusiastic Pakistani army will do the job? Or 70 thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan, when the Taliban can always refuse battle and pull back into the mountains?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbMoreover, what is supposed to be accomplished by this war against the Taliban, which threatens to leave Afghanistan in ruins, and to tear Pakistan apart? Do the Taliban threaten the United States? Most of them could not find the United States on a map. What have they ever done to the United States? What if the United States would just go away and leave the Pakistanis, Afghans and Pathans to settle this among themelves?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbPresident Barack Obama says that the war will not be won by military means but by a surge of civilian development experts, reconstruction leaders and democracy teachers, such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently told Congress that the U.S. is training. Will this surge get there in time? My own feeling is that President Obama is in over his head; and that American military command, not knowing what else to do, is reverting to Vietnam, which most of its members were too young to experience.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLa vision de William Pfaff est int\u00e9ressante parce qu’il s’agit de la vision d’un historien classique (ce mot, dans son sens noble, on le comprend). L’analogie est elle-m\u00eame classique, faite par un homme d’exp\u00e9rience qui, en plus, a v\u00e9cu ce qu’il d\u00e9crit; dans ses remarques, Pfaff appuie in fine<\/em> sur l’aspect psychologique, entre ceux qui ont l’exp\u00e9rience d’une chose (la catastrophe Vietnam-Cambodge) et ceux qui ne l’ont pas. Il rappelle opportun\u00e9ment que les arguments sont, \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard de la perception psychologique, tr\u00e8s similaire (Nixon qui nous expliquait en 1970 les raisons de l’invasion du Cambodge: \u00abThe invasion was occasion for Richard Nixon to declare that the invasion proved the U.S. was not a second-rate power nor a pitiful helpless giant standing by while the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy…threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.<\/em>\u00bb) Il rappelle, encore plus opportun\u00e9ment, que tout cela \u00e9tait d’abord une question de frustration, le sentiment d’impuissance o\u00f9 se trouvait le g\u00e9ant, les USA ou le Pentagone, devant une situation militaire sans issue L\u00e0, effectivement, l’analogie est compl\u00e8tement justifi\u00e9e.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCette appr\u00e9ciation sugg\u00e8re une approche un peu diff\u00e9rente des r\u00e9centes d\u00e9cisions de BHO et de son administration, notamment concernant le syst\u00e8me Guantanamo<\/a> et la nomination<\/a> de McChrystal, ce personnage si contest\u00e9. D’un c\u00f4t\u00e9, ces d\u00e9cisions peuvent \u00eatre appr\u00e9ci\u00e9es comme une continuation du syst\u00e8me GW Bush, dont Obama est effectivement prisonnier dans plusieurs domaines par l’\u00e9vidence des situations; d’un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, elles peuvent \u00eatre consid\u00e9r\u00e9es comme le r\u00e9sultat du climat de panique<\/a> qui concerne actuellement la situation au Pakistan, de la zone d’AfPak<\/em> en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, qui fait rechercher toutes les mesures pour rassembler le soutien des militaires, y compris les plus durs, les plus bushistes, et tenter de trouver une issue militaire par tous les moyens.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tQuoi qu’il en soit, le constat de William Pfaff sur l’encha\u00eenement Afghanistan-Pakistan apparaissant comme une duplication de l’encha\u00eenement Vietnam-Cambodge est tr\u00e8s pertinent. La psychologie suit la m\u00eame pente, r\u00e9pondant aux m\u00eames impulsions et aux m\u00eames erreurs. BHO y appara\u00eet dans un r\u00f4le bien attristant pour ses ambitions, comme le Richard Nixon d’un GW Bush qui serait son Lyndon B. Johnson.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tMis en ligne le 18 mai 2009 \u00e0 09H12<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Pfaff estime que les rapports entre l’Afghanistan et le Pakistan renvoient, pour l’\u00e9tat-major et les strat\u00e8ges US, et pour le pr\u00e9sident par cons\u00e9quent dans cette occurrence, aux rapports entre le Vietnam et le Cambodge pour les USA dans les ann\u00e9es 1970-1975. La r\u00e9orientation du bin\u00f4me AfPak vers le Pakistan depuis l’automne dernier, et, encore… <\/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":[8133,8002,6321,3243,8321,1406,6208,1131],"class_list":["post-70766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-afpak","tag-bho","tag-cambodge","tag-guantanamo","tag-mcchrystal","tag-nixon","tag-obama","tag-pfaff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70766","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=70766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}