USAF et Tsahal : Hersh nous dit ce qu’il n’a pas écrit

USAF et Tsahal : Hersh nous dit ce qu’il n’a pas écrit

Il faut lire l’interview de Seymour Hersh que le site de la station de radio-TV Democracy Now ! a mis en ligne le 14 août (une transcription d’une interview-radio). On y découvre des précisions que Hersh n’a pas mises dans son article du New Yorker qui fait tant de bruit.

Parmi les précisions que donne Hersh, nous choisissons d’abord celle-ci, qui recoupe diverses indications parues lors des premières attaques aériennes massives israéliennes contre le Liban. Plus il y avait de destructions, plus il y avait de réfugiés, plus les planificateurs de la force aérienne israélienne attendaient que l’opionion libanaise basculât complètement contre le Hezbollah.

Il s’agit d’une extraordinaire plongée dans la capacité d’analyse de la psychologie humaine des bureaucraties, dans ce que l’intelligence froide et la raison dépourvue de bon sens peuvent donner d’absolue stupidité, — avec, au bout du compte, la cruauté par inadvertance et le fondement d’une “barbarie en col blanc” sans précédent ni équivalent. Il faut ajouter que cette forme de raisonnement sur les vertus de la tuerie et la destruction aveugles par les airs dure depuis plus d’un demi-siècle et depuis un nombre respectable de millions de victimes (celle logique présida aux bombardements de terreur sur l’Allemlagne et le Japon pendant la guerre, aux bombardements du Viet-nâm, etc.).

Voici l’extrait de l’interview de Hersh :

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, his latest piece appears in this week's issue of the New Yorker magazine. You say the Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits, quoting a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, sure. I mean, believe me, Israel thought, you know — I guess the only other time in history where you can look back on such misguided optimism or one of the more recent times was, of course, us going into Iraq. Shades of Iraq, deja-vu or however you want to put it. Israel was convinced it would be easy. The Air Force was going to go and clean them out.

There was another element, and you mentioned that in your intro and also in your news report. One of the things that struck me right away, as soon as I saw how Israel was bombing, and my instinct told me there was something there, because in one of the Air Force plans that I knew about but didn't write about, one of the Air Force options for taking out Iran was, of course, shock and awe, a massive, massive bombing well beyond any of the nuclear facilities. Go hit the country hard for 36 hours, drive people into underground bunkers. Don't target civilians, necessarily, but hit their infrastructure, hit the roads, hit the power plants, hit the water facilities.

And so, when they come out of their bunkers after 36 hours, they look around. In the American neo-con view, they were going to say to each other, “Oh, my god, the mullahs did this to us, the religious mullahs who run the country. We're going to overthrow them and install a secular government.” That was the thinking for the last year. That is the thinking for the last year inside some elements of the Pentagon, the civilian side, and also in Cheney's shop.

So when you watch what Israel did in its opening salvo, the first targets, I remember vividly, was — and everybody should — they took out the civilian airstrip. They took away civilian — the ability to use aircraft to travel. They took out highways. They took out roads. They took out petrol stations. They basically isolated Southern Lebanon. But I think part of the reason they did so much damage to the infrastructure was they believed — and I think the Israelis have been very clear about it — that the Christian population and the Sunni population — don't forget Hezbollah is Shia — would rise up against Hezbollah, and it would be a great feather in the cap, etc., etc., etc.

Mis en ligne le 15 août 2006 à 11H30