Happy Birthday, toi le Complexe

Happy Birthday, toi le Complexe

Rarement, peut-être jamais dans notre époque des temps dits “modernes”, un discours aura autant attiré l’attention et l’intérêt sur lui pour son anniversaire (le cinquantième), comme il le fit d'ailleurs durant l'intervalle. Il s’agit du discours d’adieu de sa présidence du général-président Eisenhower, le 17 janvier 1961. (Texte complet du discours sur ce site, à la date du 10 août 2005.)

Depuis plusieurs jours, voire quelques semaines, abondent des articles sur le discours, et sur le “complexe militaro-industriel” (CMI, ou “le Complexe”), – expression qui fut ainsi lancée et immortalisée par Eisenhower, comme thème central de son discours. Signe évident que cette affaire, ce phénomène, cette entité extraordinaire qu’est le Complexe est aujourd’hui dans tous les esprits, et perçu comme un fait absolument fondamental de la situation. Le Complexe est au centre, sans aucun doute, des modalités et des mécanismes de la crise centrale de notre civilisation et du Système.

Un article de ce 17 janvier 2011, de Rupert Cornwell dans The Independent, donne une bonne documentation classique sur le phénomène, sur arriérer-plan du discours de Ike.

«Exactly 50 years ago, on January 17 1961, Eisenhower delivered one of the most celebrated farewell speeches in American history, whose fame has only increased over the decades, eclipsed not even by JFK's inspirational inaugural that followed three days later. Kennedy might have projected the dynamism of youth. But the old soldier won the prize for prescience.

»In his speech, Eisenhower warned about the growth of a ‘military-industrial complex,’ and the risks it could pose. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power,” Ike said, “exists and will persist.” His anxieties back then were prompted by the ten-fold expansion of the US military after two world wars, and by the development of a “permanent arms industry of vast proportions”. Today, the proportions of both the military and the industry that serves it are vaster than ever.

»Adjusted for inflation, US national security spending has more than doubled since Eisenhower left office. Year after year, the defence budget seems to rise – irrespective of whether the country is actually fighting major wars, regardless of the fact that the Soviet Union, the country's former global adversary, has ceased to be, and no matter which party controls the White House and Congress.

»One common thread however exists: the military-industrial complex, or perhaps (as Eisenhower himself described it in a draft of his speech that was later amended) the military-industrial-congressional complex. Others have referred to the beast as the “Iron Triangle”.

»In one corner of the triangle stands the arms industry. The second is constituted by the government, or more precisely the Pentagon, the end-consumer of the industry's output. In a totalitarian state, such as the Soviet Union, that combination would be sufficient. The US however is a democracy, and a third corner is required – an elected legislature to vote funds to pay for the arms. This is Congress, made up of members who rely on the defence industry for many jobs in their states and districts, and for money to help finance their every more expensive re-election campaigns.

»But maybe even triangle is an inadequate description. Today, more than ever, a fourth element underpins the military-industrial complex. It is the extraordinary prestige, verging on veneration, Americans accord their armed forces. Whatever the country's soldiers need, the general public broadly believes, they should have.>D>

»In fact, the MIC is not the largest show in town. According to the specialist website of the same name that tracks US defence spending, the total value of contracts issued by the Pentagon since October 2006 exceeds $1.1 trillion, while total military spending in that period tops $2.5 trillion. But even these gigantic sums pale beside a health-care sector now accounting for a sixth of the entire national economy.

»The difference of course is that the MIC basks in the reflected glory of the military, shown by poll after poll to be the most trusted institution in the land. In terms of trust and admiration, the health insurance and drug companies rank right down there with Wall Street and the banks.

»Nonetheless Eisenhower's warning has never ceased to resonate since his death in 1969. Indeed, it is one reason that in the stock market of posthumous presidential reputations, few have risen like his.»

dedefensa.org