Le “paradoxe afghan”

Le “paradoxe afghan”

Hier, le ministre de la défense allemand Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg parlait en public à Londres de la guerre en Afghanistan. Mary Dejevsky en fait un rapport dans The Independent du 29 juin 2010. Le ministre a exposé toutes les raisons pour lesquelles il ne faudrait pas être en Afghanistan, pour lesquelles par conséquent cette guerre est impopulaire (en Allemagne comme partout)… Conclusion ?

«In his remarks on Afghanistan, Dr zu Guttenberg, who is a key member of Angela Merkel's government and one of Germany's most popular politicians, spoke of the difficulties of “selling” the Afghan mission to a sceptical German public, a problem he noted was common to governments throughout the alliance. But in calling for strict criteria to govern Nato missions, he drew lessons from the Afghanistan experience and effectively called into question the wisdom of the whole project.

»He set out four criteria, which – he said – should have to be met before Nato embarked on any military operation. First, action should be taken only if there is "great and imminent danger to another Nato member".

»Second, there had to be “a clearly defined political goal”. Third, an alliance military campaign should be mounted “only if there is no alternative”, and finally, Nato should act “only if the capability for success was provided from the beginning”. Arguably, none of these criteria were met when the Afghan operation was designated a Nato mission.

»Elsewhere in his address, Dr zu Guttenberg spoke of the need for “commitment to match capability” and for the national security of alliance members and the collective security of the alliance always to be paramount in decision-making.

»Dr zu Guttenberg's call for the goals of the Afghan operation to be revised downwards is likely to receive a favourable reception among many members of the alliance, including Canada and Poland, which are withdrawing their forces from Afghanistan. But it could put Germany on a collision course with the British army, which has argued that the sort of counter-insurgency war being fought in Afghanistan is the shape of the future. It is using this argument to justify maintaining the strength, and funding, in the run-up to the Strategic Defence Review this autumn.»

Un jour plus tôt, le 28 juin 2010, Arianna Huffington exposait “the Afghanistan paradox” (nous lui empruntons son titre). Le texte vient à point puisqu’il expose et détaille après tout la question qu’on pourrait se poser à propos du ministre allemand qui expose toutes les raisons pour lesquelles on ne devrait pas se trouver en Afghanistan, alors qu’on s’y trouve et qu’il semble qu’on doive y rester. Arianna Huffington développe ses étonnements à propos de l’argumentation des pro-guerres qui nous expliquent que la guerre ne marche pas, que nous allons la perdre, que c’est la raison pour laquelle il faut y aller, il faut rester, il faut tenir… Vieux dicton du réalisme postmoderniste: il ne faut jamais refuser une défaite qu’on a l’occasion de subir.

«It's a curious thing about Afghanistan: every time a politician makes a case for why we need to stay, he or she ends up making the case for why we should leave. “It's harder, it's slower than I think anyone anticipated – but at the same time, we are seeing increasing violence,” said Panetta. “We're dealing with a country that has problems with governance, problems with corruption, problems with narcotics trafficking, problems with a Taliban insurgency.” Other than that, it's going great.

»Sen. Saxby Chambliss, appearing on CNN's State of the Union, was asked, when does the U.S. look at the situation in Afghanistan and decide we've done what we can and that it's time to leave? “You have the most corrupt government that we have ever dealt with from a conflict standpoint,” said Chambliss. “And until you provide some stability and some confidence in the Afghan people about the way forward from a governing standpoint, then I think that statement probably has some truth to it, that we could win militarily and still have a very ugly victory.” And he thinks he's making a case for staying!

»And later on he did it again: “In the areas where we have really concentrated militarily, we've done well,” said Chambliss. “But you have to give up something when you do that, and certain other areas, the Taliban probably has gained in strength because they've moved troops there.” So even when we're succeeding, we're failing.

»It's truly bizarre how many in Washington are describing the situation in Afghanistan accurately, but then fail to draw the most obvious conclusion based on what they've just said.

»It's unfortunate that it was Gen. McChrystal's petty comments about Obama and his inner circle that grabbed all the headlines from Michael Hastings' Rolling Stone piece, because the real, and much more important, aspect of the story was the dark picture it painted of what's going on in Afghanistan. Several soldiers and aides to McChrystal had no trouble connecting the dots that seem to be eluding those within the Beltway.

»Staff Sergeant Kennith Hicks put it very succinctly: “We're f***ing losing this thing,” he said…»

…Que nous traduirions, en interprétation libre et sans ces *** peu esthétiques : “Nous sommes en train de perdre ce putain de truc…»

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