L’héroïque John Wayne-Terminator, dans son F-18 des Marines

L’héroïque John Wayne-Terminator, dans son F-18 des Marines

Ce texte de Chuck Spinney mérite toute notre attention. Nous y sommes revenus, puisque nous l’avons découvert tardivement (il a été mis en ligne le 25 février sur l’excellent site Defense and the National Interest). Chuck Spinney est une des figures de proue (avec John Boyd) du clan des réformistes, — groupe très restreint d’experts et anciens officiers des forces armées US en révolte contre l’écrasant conformisme pentagonesque, ses gaspillages, ses erreurs, ses impasses.

Spinney a reçu une copie d’un message électronique envoyé par un pilote d’un F-18 du Marine Corps opérant en Irak. Le pilote décrit dans les termes habituels, — mélange d’argot de pilote de combat et d’amateur de jeux vidéos, — la joie qu’il éprouve à effectuer ses missions de combat, à mesurer visuellement mais à bonne distance et à la vitesse qu’on imagine les dégâts qu’il cause, y compris sur des personnes. La déshumanisation est complète, aussi bien de l’acte que de celui qui le provoque. Reste l’excitation facile du “jeu”, cette étrange attitude qu’on décrit aujourd’hui sous une expression comme “pour le fun”, qui caractérise l’univers virtualiste où nous ont plongés l’informatisation et l’automatisation de notre monde, — particulièrement dans la partie devenue énorme de notre “divertissement” («Occupation qui détourne l’homme de penser aux problèmes qui devraient le préoccuper», selon le Robert). Ainsi trouve-t-on du divertissement dans cette étrange et effrayante jubilation de tuer à distance.

On se trouve dans un univers monstrueux, un univers à la fois complètement faux et complètement trompeur ; un univers sans la moindre ressemblance avec celui des réflexions angoissées d’un Jules Roy de La vallée heureuse lorsque, pilote d’un bombardier Lancaster de la RAF en mission sur la Ruhr, il songe avec horreur aux dégâts mortels que ses bombes invisibles dégringolant aveuglément dans la nuit noire vont causer.

Cette partie du commentaire de Spinney est reprise intentionnellement pour illustrer notre propos. Elle suit quelques remarques sur les caractéristiques de ce qu’on devrait désigner comme un processus d’“irresponsabilisation” caractérisant l’automatisme de la guerre moderne, de l’informatisation, de la “modélisation” du monde ; la façon dont cette activité et son environnement poussent l’homme à l’irresponsabilité la plus complète, au refus de la responsabilité des actes qu’il provoque autant qu’au refus de connaître la réalité de ses actes. Ce processus supprime, grâce à la multitude et à la puissance des interfaces, le lien de cause à effet, c’est-à-dire le lien entre le déclenchement de l’acte et les conséquences de cet acte.

« Yet, as is now becoming clear, this doctrinal nonsense also has profound psychological effects on American soldiers and policy-makers, as well as average citizens. It has created a self-referencing myth of antiseptic war that can be likened to a bloodless video game, and its dehumanizing effects now permeate popular American culture. Doubters need only recall the gushing newspaper coverage of “Shock and Awe” which was spoon-fed to the American people prior to bombing of Iraq – together with the ridiculous predictions of the Iraq war being a cakewalk where Iraqis would welcome us with flowers after we bombed them – to feel the disorienting power of its pervasive psychological effect.

»The attached email adds substance to this disorienting abstraction by illustrating its ugly underbody at the most microscopic level – the level of the individual aviator waging precision war at a distance. It is from a Marine F-18 pilot in Iraq. In it, he describes the joy of killing “mother *****,” which is, in his words, “like a hobby.” His sweeping categorization proves that he doesn't have a clue who he is killing and maiming – he implies they are enemy combatants but they might be women, or old men or children.

»Here is a “warrior” who brags about killing for killing's sake, but the people he kills that are just spots on the ground that disappear in clouds of explosions. He describes the joy of war at a distance and sees nothing of its horrors – you won't find any descriptions of blood, broken limbs, trauma, or destruction in this email. You won't even find reference to his own feelings of menace or fear, not to mention their noble counterweights courage and esprit, just braggadocio on the subject of killing. Of course, his targets are all insurgents … no sense of any human capacity for doubt on that point.

»Bear in mind, this is but one email that reveals a lot about the confused moral state of one aviator. Here is a person who probably thinks of himself as a “noble warrior” and a patriot, yet by his own words, he describes himself as a soulless machine with no appreciation of nobility or honor or even what it takes to face a dangerous adversary up close and personal. By his own words, he makes himself into a caricature more like Pac Man than John Rambo, let alone an honorable soldier like Alvin York, a courageous Marine like Chesty Puller, or a sensitive soldier-writer who understood horror and banality of war like Eric Marie Remarque.»

Le message du Marine, celui que Chuck Spinney joint à son article, est pathétique de banalité grossière. On croirait lire une bande dessinée, entendre et voir John Wayne revu en Terminator postmoderne et ainsi de suite avec une pincée du Tom Cruise de Top Gun passé au tamis des progrès informatiques accomplis depuis un quart de siècle. La génération des guerriers pour jeux vidéos est effectivement construite, pour la langue et la culture, à partir de ces deux sources : la bande dessinée patriotique, à l’américaine, et le Hollywood de John Wayne. Pas de surprise. Nul besoin de traduction pour cette dialectique-là (avec censure des mots et grossièretés qui pourraient faire identifier l’auteur ou choquer les bien-pensants des presbytères du Middle-West) : «I'll have to go home, the opportunities to kill these f****** is rapidly coming to an end. Like a hobby I'll never get to practice again. It's not a great war, but it’s the only one we've got. God, I do love killing these bastards.»

Pas de surprise non plus dans cette déshumanisation de l’homme par la machine, en marche depuis longtemps et irrésistiblement emportée depuis la Grande Guerre. Le “zéro mort”, ou bien l’attaque aérienne où il est interdit de descendre en-dessous de 5.000 mètres (consigne de Clinton pour la guerre du Kosovo) sont les enfants postmodernes de ce cheminement, et la guerre contre la terreur, version afghane ou version irakienne, en est le bâtard pire que l’ancêtre. Le pilote tue de façon si anonyme et si irresponsable, avec une jubilation si marquée de l’inconscience la plus complète, avec un si fort sentiment d’inculpabilité, qu’on n’ose le qualifier , — de tueur ou d’autre chose. C’est un soldat sans qualificatif et sans culpabilité, comme s’il était en-dehors de la zone de combat, et d’ailleurs en-dehors de l’humanité. C’est pourtant lui qui la mitraille, l’humanité.

Cela écrit et entendu, il y a un aspect du texte de Chuck Spinney qui soulève un malaise, lequel est par ailleurs éclairé par la convergence de deux événements : la victoire définitive de la guerre mécanique et anonyme avec la Grande Guerre et l’entrée sur la scène du monde des USA à l’occasion de la Grande Guerre. Le malaise est tout entier capturé par cette remarque que Spinney ajoute à son commentaire :

«I am confident that the man who wrote this ghastly thing is an aberration and not at all representative of the men and women in our military.»

Spinney donne la réponse à notre malaise en même temps qu’il contredit sa remarque lorsqu’il relève, comme caractéristique du tueur aseptisé qu’on n’ose même pas qualifier de tueur : «Of course, his targets are all insurgents … no sense of any human capacity for doubt on that point.» Nous aimerions aller plus loin en nous demandant si Spinney serait prêt à y aller avec nous : “absence de la capacité de douter”, non pas sur le fait de savoir si toutes ses victimes sont des “insurgents”, mais sur le fait de savoir si tout “insurgent” mérite d’être une victime d’un John Wayne-Terminator au front bas, c’est-à-dire exécuté comme coupable par avance et sans autre forme de procès (d’ailleurs, on sait qu’il n’a pas droit à un procès puisque non-citoyen américain).

Dans ce texte, manifestement, le guerrier, et l’homme tout court d’ailleurs, a perdu le sens du tragique qui nourrit le doute et l’angoisse. Il l’a remplacé par la morale américaniste standard, en pacotille et fer-blanc, par l’inculpabilité qui en est la progéniture psychologique naturelle, et par la vanité de la maîtrise du monde par la technologie virtualiste qui est le moteur à explosion de l’ensemble. John Wayne-Terminator n’a jamais rien su des angoisses sans fin de Achille au pied léger, demi-dieu et plus grand guerrier des temps mythiques. Malheureusement, on sait bien que l’une des caractéristiques de la civilisation américaniste, c’est le refus absolu de cette tragédie qui introduit par définition le facteur insaisissable de la transcendance. La démonstration est complète.

Voici le texte de Spinney. (L’on y appréciera sur la fin la vision résolument optimiste de la situation en Irak, démarhe plus psychologique qu’intellectuelle qui complète le portrait psychologique proposé par Spinney.)

It Was A successful mission (Too Bad We Lost the War)

By Chuck Spinney, February 25, 2007, Special to Defense and the National Interest.

We all know that the American Way of War is to use our technology to pour firepower on the enemy from a safe distance. Implicit in this is the central myth of precision bombardment that dates back to at least to the Norden Bombsight in World War II. The theory of precision firepower is a seamless part of the larger war-fighting theories of close control and surgical strike in the chaos of combat, as well as the necessary corollary belief that unintended damage – euphemistically called collateral damage – is morally acceptable, because it is self-evidently an unavoidable and irreducible cost of waging a precision business.

Of course this is all hogwash, as the conduct of the Iraq War has proven once again. Real war is always uncertain and messy and bloody and wasteful and accompanied by profound psychological and moral effects. But these preposterous theories are central to the American Way of War, because they justify the maintenance of the high cost, hi-tech military essential to the welfare of the parasitic political economy of the military-industrial-congressional complex that is now seamlessly embedded in our political culture.

Yet, as is now becoming clear, this doctrinal nonsense also has profound psychological effects on American soldiers and policy-makers, as well as average citizens. It has created a self-referencing myth of antiseptic war that can be likened to a bloodless video game, and its dehumanizing effects now permeate popular American culture. Doubters need only recall the gushing newspaper coverage of ''Shock and Awe'' which was spoon-fed to the American people prior to bombing of Iraq – together with the ridiculous predictions of the Iraq war being a cakewalk where Iraqis would welcome us with flowers after we bombed them – to feel the disorienting power of its pervasive psychological effect.

The attached email adds substance to this disorienting abstraction by illustrating its ugly underbody at the most microscopic level – the level of the individual aviator waging precision war at a distance. It is from a Marine F-18 pilot in Iraq. In it, he describes the joy of killing “mother *****,” which is, in his words, “like a hobby.” His sweeping categorization proves that he doesn't have a clue who he is killing and maiming – he implies they are enemy combatants but they might be women, or old men or children.

Here is a “warrior” who brags about killing for killing's sake, but the people he kills that are just spots on the ground that disappear in clouds of explosions. He describes the joy of war at a distance and sees nothing of its horrors – you won't find any descriptions of blood, broken limbs, trauma, or destruction in this email. You won't even find reference to his own feelings of menace or fear, not to mention their noble counterweights courage and esprit, just braggadocio on the subject of killing. Of course, his targets are all insurgents … no sense of any human capacity for doubt on that point.

Bear in mind, this is but one email that reveals a lot about the confused moral state of one aviator. Here is a person who probably thinks of himself as a “noble warrior” and a patriot, yet by his own words, he describes himself as a soulless machine with no appreciation of nobility or honor or even what it takes to face a dangerous adversary up close and personal. By his own words, he makes himself into a caricature more like Pac Man than John Rambo, let alone an honorable soldier like Alvin York, a courageous Marine like Chesty Puller, or a sensitive soldier-writer who understood horror and banality of war like Eric Marie Remarque.

I am confident that the man who wrote this ghastly thing is an aberration and not at all representative of the men and women in our military.

It begs the question: Since the Bushian Surge (BS) strategy of winning the trust of Iraqis by providing them with more security will be reinforced by a more generous dose of airpower, together with its whacky theories of precision and surgical destruction, how widespread is an outlook that reduces doctrinal BS to JKMF (just killing “mother *****”)?

The e-mail follows (heavily edited to remove any identifying information):

Subject: sitrep

Sent: 2/6/2007 6:12:31 AM Eastern Standard Time

From:

To:

The fellas from *** started showing up the other day. It's starting to sink in....... I'll have to go home, the opportunities to kill these f****** is rapidly coming to an end. Like a hobby I'll never get to practice again. It's not a great war, but it’s the only one we've got. God, I do love killing these bastards.

Well, the government in Baghdad has been telling the Shii (sic) that the Americans are coming big, look the f*** out … So, the bad guys have begun moving out of the city. Business is beginning to pick back up for us. I think the Iranians are going to pick things up to help give CNN some ammunition to show the buildup is a failed idea.

The other day, ***** ***** got 3 nice passes with the gun and rockets on some Muj in a little town called ***. I firmly believe they are implants from the ''big city.'' Looked as though they were in the process of trying to attack the Iraqi Police headquarters. I wonder why the insurgents would be attacking the Iraqi Police … CNN says the IP are ineffective. Funny, the ''ineffective'' IP stood their ground and called in 3 strikes. Only 1 confirmed kill.

Had a great 5'' rocket attack last week. 5 Muj emplacing an IED … rockets can be like a box of chocolates sometimes … You never know what you're gonna get. Allah was with these jack a*****, as the rockets hit all around them. These f****** get up, brush themselves off and take off hobbling across a farm field. The ground commander never expects survivors, so it takes them a while to coordinate a follow on attack. In the mean time, the idiots stay together in a pack, carrying their parts through a small palm grove. Ground commander finally gets his act together and clears a follow on gun run to finish them off. Roll in and just as pilot is about to go ''hammer down,'' a herd of sheep and family members appear at the top of the pod video and the run is aborted. Went home thinking they had gotten away … Some pipe bustin' Fellas from the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) rolled up on the farmers and apprehended all of them, along with their bomb making materials. They said the Muj tried to say their HE burns were from a tractor rolling over of some s***. As an aside, you will never be shown the aborted attack, which saved at least 5 unarmed family members and their livelihood …

I hope they show a before and after picture of Baghdad. I think you will be quite surprised at the effort. An order of magnitude more than anything they have ever seen before. Should be interesting to watch. I'd really like to stick around and see how the extra a** effects the ops in some of the more obscure areas.

As we prepare to get out of here, I have to think back to what this place was like when I was leaving 2 years ago … The convoys would be attacked by small arms fire every night … All night long. Today, we rarely ever see a convoy attacked by small arms fire. When the Marines take any fire, they turn and attack, so the Muj have determined it’s not a money play and stopped (besides, killing a KBR worker won't make it to CNN back in the states). I used to spend most of my on station time investigating Mortar and Rocket points on origin from counter battery radar hits. I think I've received about 6-8 of those missions in 6 months. Camps in Ramadi and Fallujah used to get indirect fire all day and night … Now, it’s rare. Our base used to get rocketed every 12 days … We've been rocketed once in 6 months.

During my first 3 tours here, I never saw a single Iraqi Army unit. This tour, they have taken over significant portions of the Area of Operations. Hell, I've nearly bombed them on at least 3 occasions because of their aggressive patrolling (they fail to tell anyone where they are going). They still have a ways to go: The retards I was providing overwatch for this morning, were trying everyone's patience. But, they were engaged in the arena and patrolling a dangerous area on foot. How can we possibly abandon these people now?

Another thing that struck me the other day is how much better the US Army has become. 7 years ago, they were a bloated lazy mess … I believe most didn't know how to use their personal weapons very well. Poor at convoy ops and patrolled in their HMMWVs. Now, they are lighter, more expeditionary, mobile, better armored. They patrol on foot and aggressively pursue contact with the insurgency. I think they still have a ways to go to be better at coordinating fires, but they are more Marine like than ever. As long as their version of a Forward Air Controller (FAC) continues to sit in a command post and ''control'' air fires from a computer terminal, they will never get it right (SEAL and Marine FACs are embedded with the infantry company).

OD&YBF