A la recherche du Grand Mensonge, de FDR à Oliver Stone

Le film d’Oliver Stone, World Trade Center, fait grand bruit. Stone le “dissident” rentré dans le giron du système? Simple témoignage sur un acte d’horreur inqualifiable? L’ambiguïté inhérente à l’américanisme est partout présente, y compris dans les réflexions de ceux qui prétendent en faire le procès, — en général, le procès seulement de ses parties malsaines, impliquant que l’essentiel est sain.

Parmi les articles critiques du film de Stone, il y a eu celui de Ruth Rosen, publié sur TomDispatch le 16 août. Le reproche qui est développé dans cet article est que nulle part Stone ne dément le Big Lie de l’administration GW, qui est de lier 9/11 à l’Irak pour justifier l’attaque qui est lancée un an et demi plus tard par l’administration GW.

Nous jugeons que le commentaire critique de l’article critique de Rosen que publie le site War in Context est particulièrement approprié et intéressant. Au lieu de s’en tenir aux termes du cinéaste, donc de critiquer le film dans les termes qui conviennent à Stone et d'accepter ainsi les bornes implicites de sa vision, le commentaire l’élargit au contraire à l’ensemble de la problématique, non de l’attaque 9/11, mais de la soi-disant riposte à 9/11 qui reflète en réalité en les justifiant in fine l’essence d’une politique et une perception du monde qui sont celles de l’américanisme.

Voici ce commentaire :

« It's unfortunate that the Bush administration's deceptions are so often countered with flawed reasoning. To emphasize that none of the 9/11 hijackers was an Iraqi is to imply that if they had been then somehow the war in Iraq would have made more sense.

» Suppose every one of them had been an Iraqi and they had been acting under orders from Saddam Hussein, would the war then be justified? In that scenario, should the 27 million people of Iraq have been held responsible?

» The problem in the American response to 9/11 was not that it ended up focusing its desire for revenge on the wrong target; it is that it failed to accept that an appetite for revenge must never guide foreign policy.

» The trauma of 9/11 unleashed an awesome force that the Bush administration has shamelessly exploited and renewed at every opportunity: mass fear. The biggest lie that it continues to use to its advantage is that the antidote to fear is safety. Democrats echo that view as though it was the gospel truth. Indeed, the American response to terrorism has been to guarantee that isolated acts of terrorism can effectively terrorize a whole population. This fusion of the deed and the reaction was quickly embedded in popular discourse as soon as the words terrorism and terror started being used as synonyms.

» America did not face its darkest moment on 9/11 yet in the 1930's a shadow was cast across the whole nation. The new president did not respond to that emergency by promising to protect the people but rather by rousing national courage as the only means to combat fear. Roosevelt was responding to an economic catastrophe, yet his words would have been well worth remembering on 9/11 and are well worth repeating now:

» “This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

» The difference between then and now was that at that time, a large segment of society was struggling to survive. After 9/11, according to Bush, the nation's needs would best be met if Americans kept on shopping, but a nation addicted to its comforts is, not surprisingly, a nation lacking in courage. »

Mis en ligne le 19 août 2006 à 15H21