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18 août 2003 — Un texte du groupe PINR (Power and Interest News Report) développe l’analyse d’un terrorisme toujours clairement orienté vers des objectifs symbolisant et concrétisant la globalisation. L’attaque continue à être anti-américaine, mais contre ce que la politique américaine développe sous le nom de globalisation. L’attaque récente contre l’hôtel Marriott de Djakarta se place dans cette orientation stratégique, selon l’analyste Matthew Riemer.
Ce constat est d’autant plus intéressant qu’il est fait pour ce cas, au moment où, en Irak, la guérilla anti-américaine semble prendre un tournant vers une action plus large et, surtout, contre des objectifs économiques dont certains peuvent être appréciés comme ayant partie liée avec la logique de la globalisation. Ce pourrait être le cas de l’action contre les oléoducs transportant du brut, si l’on considère que l’action américaine visant à relancer la production de brut se fait dans un contexte effectivement de globalisation. (Cela doit être compris dans le cadre d’une définition précise de la globalisation, — mouvement d’expansion et d’intégration des forces économiques mondiales par le biais de la dérégulation systématique [déstructuration économique] et de la réduction des puissances publiques locales, au profit des conceptions américaines et des intérêts capitalistiques américains, avec le corollaire essentiel la déstructuration des formes sociales et culturelles des pays extérieurs touchés par cette attaque de la globalisation.)
Il y a d’ailleurs de plus en plus d’indications montrant que l’Irak est en train de devenir un point central, — “globalisé”, si l’on veut, — de l’action terroriste, avec divers groupes terroristes convergeant vers ce pays pour attaquer les forces US et les efforts US. C’est ce qu’on a déjà vu comme une étrange action américaine dont l’effet est de se désigner et s’exposer aux coups du terrorisme. Les Américains ne semblent pas avoir réalisé qu’en voulant faire de l’Irak un laboratoire de la démocratie globalisée US (plus globalisée que démocratique), ils mettaient en place un formidable objectif désigné aux coups des terroristes.
D’autres éléments, parallèlement, signalent un accroissement de la critique active contre certaines formes de la globalisation, notamment l’attaque contre le rôle de la puissance publique et la dérégulation. On en signale deux ici, en renvoyant à des articles intéressants :
• L’attaque en faveur d’une réaffirmation de la puissance publique, notamment avec l’action de la France avec la société Alstom.
• La critique contre la situation de l’industrie d’électricité américaine, à la suite de la Grande panne du 14 août, qui est une attaque contre la dérégulation sauvage effectuée aux États-Unis.
A première vue, il est incongru de placer ces appréciations au côté des actions terroristes. Du point de vue plus large de la réalité des grandes forces en action dans le monde, si l’on met de côté les appréciations morales et sentimentales qui forment l’essentiel du commentaire intellectuel occidental aujourd’hui, il devient incontestable que ces poussées si différentes et qui s’affirment même antagonistes entre elles répondent en réalité à une logique commune. Cela conduit à observer que la globalisation américaniste, extérieure et intérieure sous la forme d’une déstructuration systématique, constitue le seul grand problème fondamental de notre temps historique.
By Matthew Riemer, August 17, 2003, PINR
Militant organizations in Southeast and Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa are continuing to choose targets of Western economic significance — on August 5th, the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia was bombed. This trend is keeping in line with the explicit and multifaceted agenda espoused by Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden has noted that much of the
strength of the United States and its Western allies relies on their economic hegemony and the cultural influence which that affords. Because of this, bin Laden has speculated that it is more damaging to the United States when its markets are attacked rather than its military directly.
On October 7th, bin Laden threatened, ''I swear by Allah that the youth of Islam are preparing for what will fill your hearts with fear and horror and will target your economic lifeline...'' He followed in December with: ''It is important to concentrate on the destruction of the American economy.''
Attacks targeting economic centers have repercussions far more pervasive and damaging than many military-targeted attacks can have. The September 11th attacks seriously impacted the U.S. economy and caused the kind of chain reaction that can make economies vulnerable: one of the results of the intense fear and shock felt by the vast majority of Americans was to bring
the airline industry almost to a halt, which then affected industries reliant on its employees actively traveling throughout the country and world. Just a small snag in the sequence of production and dispersal can cause immense economic impact.
Economic attacks are also more consistent with an intent to target the conduits of Western culture and values. Globalization or, perhaps, Westernization and its results are as much the enemy of bin Laden and his followers as are the more obvious results of U.S. military endeavors in Afghanistan, or, for example, the $3 billion in aid Washington gives every
year to Israel.
The first major attack that reflected this agenda was the bombing of a Bali nightclub in October of 2002. About 200 people were killed in the blast, the majority of which were Westerners and Australians (137 of 202). The intensity of this attack instantly broadcast throughout the world hardly made Bali — or anywhere in the Indonesian archipelago — an enticing destination for tourists and their money. Bali's economy took a severe blow in terms of revenue for months after the bombing, with one-third of workers unemployed at the beginning of the summer.
Another attack targeting ostensibly tourist areas took place in Mombasa, Kenya on November 28, 2002 when a suicide bomber drove a truck into the Paradise Hotel where visiting Israelis typically stayed. There was also a simultaneous and failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli charter jet with a shoulder-fired rocket launcher.
The most recent economic target has now become the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which has prompted foreign business owners and investors in the various regions afflicted by anti-Western terrorism to reassess the security and risk of their enterprises in such places as Indonesia and the Philippines.
At this point, there is no reason to believe that these targets of economic opportunity will not continue to be selected. This shouldn't distract from the fact that military and political targets are still considered an important part of the agenda of many Islamists throughout the world.
Recently, on August 7th, the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad was bombed, killing 19.
The U.S. reaction to this unfolding global situation will be significant, as economic crises can be of the severest kind. It was an economy that was unable to adapt to the world around it that propelled the Soviet Union into obsolescence. Even after Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party — though by then it was too late — there were many in the
Kremlin who advocated an aggressive campaign of continued militarization to compete with the United States. But, even if this route had been chosen, as was evident in other areas, the Soviet economy was incapable of keeping up with the production and innovation of the United States because its economy lacked the diversity and competitive forces that had helped shape the U.S. marketplace. Thusly, a superpower was no more.
However, the effect terrorism has on the U.S. and global economy functions in a different way than economic crisis did within the decaying Soviet Union of a decade ago. These acts of economic sabotage serve to quell the tide not of territorial military expansion but economic — and then cultural expansion — in the form of market acquisitions. The opening up of vast new
markets such as in Iraq can have a tremendously positive impact on the U.S. and global economy, as American and other Western companies are able to secure contracts ranging from a few million to several billion dollars. Instability and political uncertainty in fresh markets threaten these contracts and their potential long-term positive effects on the economy.
Security in Iraq, as well as other nascent markets, not only affects the political evolution and condition of the Iraqi people but also the financial prospects of American shareholders.
This undercurrent of the ''war on terrorism'' is one often denied by Washington and its followers, as resistance is frequently described as radical or immoral or reactionary. Though to question the mental capabilities and logic of those who attack you is a tried and true method to delegitimize their cause. The last thing Washington wants to admit to is that their nebulous enemy has a specific agenda that is being carried out.
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
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