Ci-apr\u00e8s, nous publions quelques extraits qui nous paraissent int\u00e9ressants, qui concernent l’attitude am\u00e9ricaniste (\u00e9tendue aux dirigeants et militaires occidentalistes) dans la guerre d’Afghanistan. Nous traitons cette attitude essentiellement du point de vue psychologique. Ces extraits nous serviront \u00e9galement de r\u00e9f\u00e9rence pour un texte que nous publions \u00e9galement ce 27 octobre 2009<\/a> dans notre rubrique Notes d’analyse<\/em>, sous le titre de \u00abNotes sur le d\u00e9sint\u00e9r\u00eat pour la victoire<\/em>\u00bb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t D’abord un extrait d’une tr\u00e8s longue interview de Andrew Bacevich, professeur, historien et ancien colonel de l’U.S. Army. Bacevich est l’un des critiques les plus avis\u00e9s de la politique belliciste du syst\u00e8me, et des guerres qui sont men\u00e9es en son nom d’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, les circonstances op\u00e9rationnelles de la Grande Guerre contre la Terreur (GWOT). L’interview, publi\u00e9e le 13 octobre 2009<\/a>, sur le site PBS.org<\/em>, a pour sujet la guerre en Afghanistan. Le premier extrait concerne un passage de r\u00e9flexion de Bacevich sur la signification, sur l’identification m\u00eame de cette guerre, et, d’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, sur l’\u00e9volution \u00e9tonnante de l’arm\u00e9e US en faveur de la guerre contre-insurrectionnelle, ou guerre anti-gu\u00e9rilla que l’arm\u00e9e US n’a jamais su faire. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tQuestion<\/em><\/strong>: \u00abAre you surprised by the ascendance of counterinsurgency as a current term defining the debate?<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tBacevich<\/em><\/strong>: \u00abI am baffled by the fad of counterinsurgency, and I’m especially baffled by the extent to which the American officer corps has embraced this fad. Now, I say that from the point of view of somebody who comes from a generation when counterinsurgency was anathema to the United States military.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbIn the era after Vietnam, the officer corps believed with something close to unanimity that long, protracted campaigns were very much at odds not only with the well-being of the military as an institution, but frankly at odds with the interests of the country.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbPost-Vietnam, the officer corps was committed to the proposition that wars should be infrequent, that they should be fought only for the most vital interests, and that they should be fought in a way that would produce a quick and decisive outcome.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbWhat we have today in my judgment is just the inverse of that. War has become a permanent condition. I mean, we’ve been at war now for eight years, and for all practical purposes, nobody can say with any accuracy when war will likely come to an end. In my judgment I know people that would disagree with this we are now engaged in wars where we do not have vital interests at stake.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAnd … we’ve now abandoned the notion that we can win wars quickly or cheaply. Our approach to war is one in which we now accept the notion that war is an open-ended proposition and that if someday out there some outcome is reached, it’s likely to be an ambiguous outcome that really doesn’t resemble in any sense the traditional definition of military victory. …<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Le deuxi\u00e8me extrait, toujours de la m\u00eame interview, concerne l’attitude des dirigeants US, dans l’administration Obama. A c\u00f4t\u00e9 d’une politique partout d\u00e9fensive, de mouvements \u00e9vidents de repli ou d’accommodements d\u00e9fensifs (Russie, Japon, Chine), subsiste une rh\u00e9torique triomphaliste, utopiste, messianique<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tQuestion<\/em><\/strong>: \u00abOn some level, are we caught in a cycle of American hubris that never quite resolves itself?<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tBacevich<\/em><\/strong>: \u00ab… It seems quite clear that, in one sense, the Obama administration is quite consciously trying to demonstrate that they learned the lessons of the Bush era. They will not be guilty of arrogance and hubris and anti-Americanism. They will not promise to eliminate tyranny from the face of the earth or to eliminate evil, as President Bush did. …<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbOn the other hand, the president, Secretary<\/em> [of State Hillary<\/em>] Clinton, Ambassador Susan Rice at the United Nations, others, continue to make statements that clearly indicate their belief that the United States is called upon and has the capability to bring history to its intended destination.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbI mean, in his Grant Park speech the night he was elected, President Obama talked about America bending the arc of history. In a speech not long ago, Hillary Clinton quoted<\/em> [revolutionary Thomas<\/em>] Paine. I think the quote goes, We have it within our ability to start the world all over again. I don’t think she realized that was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite quotes. But she went on to say, Yes, we need to exercise that power now.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSo on the one hand, they seemed to be less hubristic. On the other hand, I think hubris continues to be an abiding theme in our policies and helps, I think, to buoy these convictions that yes, we’ll just send U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and if we give them the right doctrine, they’ll succeed in fixing the place. Ain’t going to happen.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Le troisi\u00e8me extrait vient d’un autre texte. Dans une tr\u00e8s r\u00e9cente mise en ligne (le 22 octobre 2009<\/a>) pour TomDispatch.com<\/em> (le site de Tom Engelhardt), l’historien Nick Turse rappelait un autre texte que lui-m\u00eame avait \u00e9crit, pour le m\u00eame site, le 15 janvier 2009<\/a>, o\u00f9 il faisait rapport de la 26\u00e8me conf\u00e9rence scientifique de l’arm\u00e9e (Army Science Conference<\/em>). Cette conf\u00e9rence, qui d\u00e9finit l’\u00e9volution technologique de l’U.S. Army, est, au niveau du langage, d’un ton et d’un esprit extr\u00eamement surr\u00e9alistes. (Exemple cit\u00e9 par Turse d’une intervention d’un conf\u00e9rencier que ceux qui comprennent nous le traduisent, ou bien que ceux qui le traduisent le comprennent pour nous au choix: \u00abOsteomyelitis Treatment with Nanometer-sized Hydroxyapatite Particles as a Delivery Vehicle for a Ciprofloxacin-bisphosphonate Conjugate; New Fluoroquinolone-bisphosphonate Derivatives Show Similar Binding Affinity to Hydroxyapatite and Improved Antibacterial Activity Against Drug-resistant Pathogens.<\/em>\u00bb) Mais cessons de rire s\u00e9rieusement et passons aux choses s\u00e9rieuses; il s’agit d’un passage (du texte du 15 janvier) o\u00f9 Turse s’entretient avec de hauts grad\u00e9s sur les conditions de la guerre en Afghanistan, au niveau des \u00e9quipements des soldats:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abBut as one panel discussion drew to a close, one of the top-ranking enlisted men in the Army, a highly decorated veteran of the Global War on Terror, made a startling admission. He was discussing the typical pack-laden, weapons-toting, up-armored U.S. soldier goin’ up and down the mountains of Afghanistan right now. As he pointed out, that grunt could not haul one more piece of gear. Nor is there a soldier, he continued in a burst of candor, that, currently configured, can keep up with al-Qaeda because we’re chasing guys that are armed with AK-47s and tennis shoes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbI asked him later whether it made sense to spend close to $20,000, the average price today to kit up (as the British might say) a soldier who can’t keep up with the insurgents he is meant to track down. Has anyone considered, I asked, going back to the $1,900 it cost to outfit a less encumbered grunt of the Vietnam War era who could, assuredly, have kept better pace with today’s guerillas.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAs I learned at this conference, however, questions like these go nowhere in a big hurry. Instead, he backpedaled quickly, declaring that, in Afghanistan, we’re gettin’ it done. A colleague of the same rank, and fellow GWOT veteran, quickly jumped in, pointing out that today’s bulky body armor has saved a lot of lives. As for today’s insurgents, he said, Yeah, I can’t run the mountain with them, but I’ll still get them eventually.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 27 octobre 2009 \u00e0 04H57<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ci-apr\u00e8s, nous publions quelques extraits qui nous paraissent int\u00e9ressants, qui concernent l’attitude am\u00e9ricaniste (\u00e9tendue aux dirigeants et militaires occidentalistes) dans la guerre d’Afghanistan. Nous traitons cette attitude essentiellement du point de vue psychologique. Ces extraits nous serviront \u00e9galement de r\u00e9f\u00e9rence pour un texte que nous publions \u00e9galement ce 27 octobre 2009 dans notre rubrique Notes… <\/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":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3236,5438,5024,8850,4661,2691,3099,3744,8849],"class_list":["post-71209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-afghanistan","tag-bacevich","tag-contre-guerilla","tag-contre-insurrectionnel","tag-gwot","tag-nick","tag-psychologie","tag-terreur","tag-turrse"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71209","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=71209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}