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1699La référence est claire : En 1941, Henry Miller, retour de plusieurs années passées à Paris, fit un voyage de plusieurs mois dans son pays, découvrant une Amérique qu’il devinait mais qu’il connaissait mal. Il écrivit aussitôt un livre sur cette expérience et manifesta le désir de le publier. Entre-temps la guerre avait éclaté et son éditeur lui conseilla d’attendre la fin de la guerre pour la publication, à cause des conditions de patriotisme exacerbé qui contrarieraient sa diffusion. Cela fut fait. En 1945 parut Le cauchemar climatisé (The Air-Conditioned Nightmare). Le livre montrait bien qu’on peut être un vrai, un pur, un fondamental Américain, — Henry Miller l’est effectivement, — tout en étant un vrai, un pur, un fondamental anti-américaniste, — bien plus que ne peut l’être un auteur français parmi ceux qui sont régulièrement dénoncés à Paris, dans les milieux universitaires et bien-pensants, pour ce crime inexpiable.
Contrairement à ce que persistent à souvent penser nombre d’esprits qui s’opposent à l’attaque américaine en Irak, nous croyons fermement que cette attaque et l’occupation du pays ne sont nullement une resucée du colonialisme. Cette interprétation est celle du temps passé, du XXe siècle et de la critique marxiste, ou proto-, ou néo-marxiste, ou plus généralement de la perception humanitariste et dégagée de toute responsabilité de l'histoire. La chose (l’Irak) nous apparaît tout à fait différente.
Quoi qu’il fût et quoi qu’on en dise si abondamment aujourd’hui, en général sirotant son whisky, le colonialisme avec ses horreurs nombreuses et variées reste également une œuvre humaine parce que la responsabilité des choses y était affichée et identifiée, et parce que les colonisés, s’ils étaient traités de coupable façon, n’étaient pas niés en tant qu’êtres. Dans les colonialismes européens, il y avait des coupables et des victimes et le décompte n’est pas fini de qui était qui, et parfois les coupables se retrouvèrent victimes et vice-versa. Il s’agit de quelque chose de très compliqué qu’on n’expédie pas en un manifeste et un “op-ed” dans Le Monde, un demi-siècle plus tard ; quelque chose qui a à voir avec l’histoire, ses manigances et ses tragédies, et sa grandeur aussi. L’Irak traité par l’américanisme n’a rien de commun avec cela.
Ce qu’il y a d’horrible, de littéralement horrible en Irak, c’est l’inhumanité complètement et presque vertueusement affirmée et, par conséquent, l’irresponsabilité. L’américanisme n’y est nullement colonisateur (quelle dérision), ni même occupant. Littéralement, il n’est pas là, pas du même monde en un sens. La force du titre du bouquin de Miller tient évidemment dans le qualificatif: cauchemar certes, mais dont on se lave les mains, cauchemar inhumain par excellence puisque passé au nettoyage de la climatisation qui chasse la nature des choses. De même, en Irak, il y a une humanité, qui est l’humanité des Irakiens, qui est niée par indifférence et par système, par processus bureaucratique impitoyable que rien n’arrête. Le résultat est une avalanche de barbarie accomplie dans la plus complète indifférence pour les conditions morales et éthiques de la chose, pour les effets (sinon statistiques), pour les souffrances, pour les blessures, une inhumanité qui a décidé qu’il était plus efficient de ne pas décompter les morts civils. Le virtualisme, qui est cette fabrication d’un moralisme convenant à la puissance régnante grâce à l’action des communications qui parvient à convaincre de la “vérité du mensonge” ceux-là mêmes qui en sont les instigateurs, — le virtualisme fait le reste; il ne donne pas une bonne conscience en dissimulant les événements, il décrète que la conscience est bonne, hors de toute expérience, hors de tout enseignement de la réalité, hors de tout décompte des morts civils. La “réalité“ devient cette poigne de fer, faite du métal des “bombes intelligentes” et des chars Abrams, appliquée indistinctement aux femmes, aux enfants, aux combattants, aux villes et aux villages d’Irak.
L’action américaine en Irak n’est pas une “honte de la civilisation”, comme certains qualifièrent la colonisation. C’est la marche de la barbarie proclamée civilisation, sous les applaudissements généraux et les soupirs d’aise d’un esprit général occidental dont l’abdication de sa vertu critique représente un cas qui ne peut être comparé à aucun autre. C’est la civilisation même, telle que nous l’avons transmutée.
Le résultat peut être mesuré, ou, disons, illustré exemplairement, par les deux textes ci-dessous. Ils sont moins sensationnels que suggestifs : ils suggèrent l’esprit de cette barbarie plus qu’ils ne la décrivent. C’est bien plus important.
• Le premier (dans The Guardian du 25 avril) décrit la Green Zone, qui est cet espèce d’“enfer bétonné” au coeur de Bagdad, évidemment climatisé, qui est une sorte de morceau d’américanisation ou de globalisation (même chose) greffé de force au cœur de l’Irak, et qui se fout de l’Irak comme si l’Irak n’existait pas.
• Le second (dans The Guardian du 27 avril) décrit Falloujah lors de la visite de Robert Zoellick, des mois après l’attaque, cette attaque qui fut une destruction d’une ville, “la paix dans l’âme” comme on dirait d’une âme climatisée.
By Rory Carroll, April 25, 2005, The Guardian
The green zone must die. On that point everyone agrees: the Americans who created it, the foreigners who shelter in it, the parliamentarians who sit in it and, not least, the insurgents who bomb it.
This fortress by the Tigris, home to the US and British embassies and Iraqi government offices, is an unloved, unlovely complex created two years ago as the nerve centre of the occupation. Purely on aesthetic grounds you have to sympathise with those who rain rockets and mortars on to its sandbagged reinforced-concrete roofs.
US diplomats say they look forward to Baghdad becoming secure enough to no longer warrant a special zone. ''This place most evidently sucks and one day we will get rid of it,'' said one. He sighed. ''But for now we have to keep it. There is no alternative.''
What bothered him was the symbolism of US forces still occupying Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace when Iraq was supposed to be a sovereign state. Coalition commanders now bristle at the term ''occupation''. The green zone, so named because of the trees and grass on this side of the river, is in reality a maze of 12ft concrete slabs, razor wire and bunkers.
The foreign contractors, troops and diplomats who call it home savour the relative safety and a couple of discreet pubs, but complain about cabin fever. Hungry for dispatches from the real world, they quiz visitors about ''out there'' and fantasise about entering it. The 10,000 Iraqis who also live in the zone need passes to enter and must negotiate several checkpoints, as if they are in quarantine.
In the red zone, known to inhabitants as the rest of Iraq, fortress-like creations have enfolded the hotels, offices and homes of westerners and government officials. They are as ugly as the green zone but do not arouse the same loathing.
Most foreign journalists live outside but we are compelled, grumpily, to visit to interview politicians and diplomats. Entering and leaving, we and our drivers and interpreters are potential targets for assassins and kidnappers.
On the way in there are five security checks, apparently more than for the White House. Some frisks are more thorough than others. ''Mmmm, that's the only sexual thrill I've had in quite a while. Thank you, thank you kindly,'' one colleague told an Iraqi guard.
The convention centre which hosts the national assembly is worn and gloomy but the reason we hate it so is the lack of any cafe, vending machine or drinking water. People bring in Pringles and Coke, but as stashes dwindle they scoff behind pillars to avoid sharing.
Fed up with security hassles and occupation symbolism, the assembly voted earlier this month to move into a building occupied by the defence ministry in the red zone. There is talk of moving the Americans to the airport, itself a fortress, and reopening bridges and roads to ease the capital's traffic jams.
Last week an assembly member named Fattah al-Sheikh said he was roughed up and humiliated by US troops on his way in. One allegedly grabbed him by the throat, another handcuffed him, and a third kicked his car.
''I was dragged to the ground,'' he told parliament, weeping. ''What happened to me represents an insult to the whole national assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people. This shows that the democracy we are enjoying is fake.''
Denouncing Americans comes naturally to an ally of the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but Sheikh's story outraged the entire assembly and it adjourned in protest. Brigadier General Karl Horst of the 3rd infantry division expressed regret and promised ''a thorough investigation''.
Some checkpoint GIs are models of courtesy and cheer, who dip into Arabic phrase books. Others stare blankly and bark orders. Once I overheard a sergeant instructing a private about a queue of shuffling Iraqis. ''If one of them goes nuts, shoot him.'' His comrade's eyes brightened. ''Yesssss!''
[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.”.]
Ruined, cordoned Falluja is emerging as the decade's monument to brutality – By Jonathan Steele and Dahr Jamail, April 27, 2005, The Guardian
Robert Zoellick is the archetypal US government insider, a man with a brilliant technical mind but zero experience of any coalface or war front. Sliding effortlessly between ivy league academia, the US treasury and corporate boardrooms (including an advisory post with the scandalous Enron), his latest position is the number-two slot at the state department.
Yet this ultimate ''man of the suites'' did something earlier this month that put the prime minister and the foreign secretary to shame. On their numerous visits to Iraq, neither has ever dared to go outside the heavily fortified green zones of Baghdad and Basra to see life as Iraqis have to live it. They come home after photo opportunities, briefings and pep talks with British troops and claim to know what is going on in the country they invaded, when in fact they have seen almost nothing.
Zoellick, by contrast, on his first trip to Iraq, asked to see Falluja. Remember Falluja? A city of some 300,000, which was alleged to be the stronghold of armed resistance to the occupation.
Two US attempts were made to destroy this symbol of defiance last year. The first, in April, fizzled out after Iraqi politicians, including many who supported the invasion of their country, condemned the use of air strikes to terrorise an entire city. The Americans called off the attack, but not before hundreds of families had fled and more than 600 people had been killed.
Six months later the Americans tried again. This time Washington's allies had been talked to in advance. Consistent US propaganda about the presence in Falluja of a top al-Qaida figure, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was used to create a climate of acquiescence in the US-appointed Iraqi government. Shia leaders were told that bringing Falluja under control was the only way to prevent a Sunni-inspired civil war.
Blair was invited to share responsibility by sending British troops to block escape routes from Falluja and prevent supplies entering once the siege began.
Warnings of the onslaught prompted the vast majority of Falluja's 300,000 people to flee. The city was then declared a free-fire zone on the grounds that the only people left behind must be ''terrorists''.
Three weeks after the attack was launched last November, the Americans claimed victory. They say they killed about 1,300 people; one week into the siege, a BBC reporter put the unofficial death toll at 2,000. But details of what happened and who the dead were remain obscure. Were many unarmed civilians, as Baghdad-based human rights groups report? Even if they were trying to defend their homes by fighting the Americans, does that make them ''terrorists''?
Journalists ''embedded'' with US forces filmed atrocities, including the killing of a wounded prisoner, but no reporter could get anything like a full picture. Since the siege ended, tight US restric tions - as well as the danger of hostage-taking that prevents reporters from travelling in most parts of Iraq - have put the devastated city virtually off limits.
In this context Zoellick's trip, which was covered by a small group of US journalists, was illuminating. The deputy secretary of state had to travel to this ''liberated'' city in a Black Hawk helicopter flying low over palm trees to avoid being shot down. He wore a flak jacket under his suit even though Falluja's streets were largely deserted. His convoy of eight armoured vehicles went ''so quickly past an open-air bakery reopened with a US-provided micro-loan that workers tossing dough could be glanced only in the blink of an eye,'' as the Washington Post reported. ''Blasted husks of buildings still line block after block,'' the journalist added.
Meeting hand-picked Iraqis in a US base, Zoellick was bombarded with complaints about the pace of US reconstruction aid and frequent intimidation of citizens by American soldiers. Although a state department factsheet claimed 95% of residents had water in their homes, Falluja's mayor said it was contaminated by sewage and unsafe.
Other glimpses of life in Falluja come from Dr Hafid al-Dulaimi, head of the city's compensation commission, who reports that 36,000 homes were destroyed in the US onslaught, along with 8,400 shops. Sixty nurseries and schools were ruined, along with 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries.
Daud Salman, an Iraqi journalist with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, on a visit to Falluja two weeks ago, found that only a quarter of the city's residents had gone back. Thousands remain in tents on the outskirts. The Iraqi Red Crescent finds it hard to go in to help the sick because of the US cordon around the city.
Burhan Fasa'a, a cameraman for the Lebanese Broadcasting Company, reported during the siege that dead family members were buried in their gardens because people could not leave their homes. Refugees told one of us that civilians carrying white flags were gunned down by American soldiers. Corpses were tied to US tanks and paraded around like trophies.
Justin Alexander, a volunteer for Christian Peacemaker Teams, recently found hundreds living in tents in the grounds of their homes, or in a single patched-up room. A strict system of identity cards blocks access to anyone whose papers give a birthplace outside Falluja, so long-term residents born elsewhere cannot go home. ''Fallujans feel the remnants of their city have been turned into a giant prison,'' he reports.
Many complain that soldiers of the Iraqi national guard, the fledgling new army, loot shops during the night-time curfew and detain people in order to take a bribe for their release. They are suspected of being members of the Badr Brigade, a Shia militia that wants revenge against Sunnis.
One thing is certain: the attack on Falluja has done nothing to still the insurgency against the US-British occupation nor produced the death of al-Zarqawi - any more than the invasion of Afghanistan achieved the capture or death of Osama bin Laden. Thousands of bereaved and homeless Falluja families have a new reason to hate the US and its allies.
At least Zoellick went to see. He gave no hint of the impression that the trip left him with, but is too smart not to have understood something of the reality. The lesson ought not to be lost on Blair and Straw. Every time the prime minister claims it is time to ''move on'' from the issue of the war's legality and rejoice at Iraq's transformation since Saddam Hussein was toppled, the answer must be: ''Remember Falluja.'' When the foreign secretary next visits Iraq, he should put on a flak jacket and tour the city that Britain had a share in destroying.
The government keeps hoping Iraq will go away as an election issue. It stubbornly refuses to do so. Voters are not only angry that the war was illegal, illegitimate and unnecessary. The treatment inflicted on Iraqis since the invasion by the US and Britain is equally important.
In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade's unforgettable monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a text-book case of how not to handle an insurgency, and a reminder that unpopular occupations will always degenerate into desperation and atrocity.
Jonathan Steele is the Guardian's senior foreign correspondent; Dahr Jamail is a freelance American journalist.
[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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