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Il faut certes éviter l’effet oeillère de toujours lire les mêmes choses, mais bon ...

Operations Could Bypass Envoys

Ann Scott Tyson and Dana Priest, Washington Post 24/2/05

The Pentagon is promoting a global counterterrorism plan that would allow Special Operations forces to enter a foreign country to conduct military operations without explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador there, administration officials familiar with the plan said.

The plan would weaken the long-standing “chief of mission” authority under which the U.S. ambassador, as the president’s top representative in a foreign country, decides whether to grant entry to U.S. government personnel based on political and diplomatic considerations.

The Special Operations missions envisioned in the plan would largely be secret, known to only a handful of officials from the foreign country, if any.

The change is included in a highly classified “execute order”—part of a broad strategy developed since Sept. 11, 2001, to give the U.S. Special Operations Command new flexibility to track down and destroy terrorist networks worldwide, the officials said.

“This is a military order on a global scale, something that hasn’t existed since World War II,” said a counterterrorism official with lengthy experience in special operations. He and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal is classified.

The Pentagon sees the greater leeway as vital to enabling commando forces to launch operations quickly and stealthily against terrorist groups without often time-consuming interagency debate, said administration officials familiar with the plan. In the Pentagon view, the campaign against terrorism is a war and requires similar freedom to prosecute as in Iraq, where the military chain of command coordinates closely with the U.S. Embassy but is not subject to traditional chief-of-mission authority.

The State Department and the CIA have fought the proposal, saying it would be dangerous to dilute the authority of the U.S. ambassador and CIA station chief to oversee U.S. military and intelligence activities in other countries.

Over the past two years, the State Department has repeatedly blocked Pentagon efforts to send Special Operations forces into countries surreptitiously and without ambassadors’ formal approval, current and former administration officials said.

The State Department assigned counterterrorism coordinator J. Cofer Black, who also led the CIA’s counterterrorism operations after Sept. 11, as its point person to try to thwart the Pentagon’s initiative.

“I gave Cofer specific instructions to dismount, kill the horses and fight on foot—this is not going to happen,” said Richard L. Armitage, describing how as deputy secretary of state—a job he held until earlier this month—he and others stopped six or seven Pentagon attempts to weaken chief-of-mission authority.

In one instance, U.S. commanders tried to dispatch Special Forces soldiers into Pakistan without gaining ambassadorial approval but were rebuffed by the State Department, said two sources familiar with the event. The soldiers eventually entered Pakistan with proper clearance but were ordered out again by the ambassador for what was described as reckless behavior. “We had SF [Special Forces] guys in civilian clothes running around a hotel with grenades in their pockets,” said one source involved in the incident, who opposes the Pentagon plan.

Other officials cited another case to illustrate their concern. In the past year, they said, a group of Delta Force soldiers left a bar at night in a Latin American country and shot an alleged assailant but did not inform the U.S. Embassy for several days.

In Pentagon policy circles, questions about chief-of-mission authority are viewed as part of a broad reassessment of how to organize the U.S. government optimally to fight terrorism. In this view, alternative models of U.S. military, diplomatic and intelligence authority—possibly tailored to specific countries and situations—should be considered.

Pentagon officials familiar with the issue declined to speak on the record out of concern that issues of bureaucratic warfare would overshadow a serious policy question.

Debate over the issue reignited last month, as Armitage and then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell departed and Condoleezza Rice prepared to replace him, said an administration official familiar with the matter. When the Pentagon refused to change language in the execute order, that put the issue before Rice.

In the past week, however, she has made it clear that she intends to protect the existing chief-of-mission authority. “Rice is resolute in holding to chief-of-mission authority over operations the way it exists now, for a very rational reason—you need someone who can coordinate,” said a senior State Department official.

Some officials have viewed the debate as an early test of how Rice will defend State Department views on a range of matters in bureaucratic infighting with the Pentagon.

The State Department’s concerns are twofold, officials said: Conducting military operations would be perilous without the broad purview and oversight of the U.S. ambassador, and it would set a precedent that other U.S. agencies could follow.

“The chief-of-mission authority is a pillar of presidential authority overseas,” said the administration official familiar with the issue. “When you start eroding that, it can have repercussions that are . . . risky. Particularly, military action is one of the most important decisions a president makes . . . and that is the sort of action that should be taken with deliberation.”

U.S. ambassadors have full responsibility for supervising all U.S. government employees in that country, and when granting country clearances they are supposed to consider various factors, including ramifications for overall bilateral relations. For example, one reason the U.S. military never conducted aggressive operations against al Qaeda in Pakistan was a fear that such actions would incite the local population to overthrow the fragile, nuclear-capable government of President Pervez Musharraf.

The rift between the Pentagon and State Department over chief-of-mission authority parallels broader concerns about the push to empower the Special Operations Command in the war on terrorism. The CIA, for example, has concerns that new intelligence-gathering initiatives by the military could weaken CIA station chiefs and complicate U.S. espionage abroad.

Without close coordination with the CIA, former senior intelligence officials said, the military could target someone whom the CIA is secretly surveilling and disrupt a flow of valuable intelligence.

NATO set: French offer one officer
By Elaine Sciolino The New York Times
Wednesday, February 23, 2005

BRUSSELS The North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced agreement Tuesday on a modest plan to train and equip Iraq’s new security forces, a symbolic display of unity but one that is unlikely to translate into a dramatic change on the ground in Iraq.

The agreement by the 26 countries of the alliance came after France quietly dropped its refusal to participate under a NATO umbrella. It pledged $660,000 to a NATO fund for military and police training in Iraq and has assigned one French midlevel officer to the training mission at NATO headquarters near Brussels, French officials said.

The deal was announced after a meeting between President George W. Bush and other leaders of NATO countries. The United States is anxious to get Iraq’s security forces whipped into fighting form both to restore stability to the country and allow the eventual withdrawal of the 150,000 U.S. troops there.

But the training mission is going much more slowly that expected. In testimony before Congress early this month, two senior Pentagon officials acknowledged that less than one-third of the Iraqi security forces who the Pentagon claims have been trained are capable of tackling the most dangerous missions in the country.

In addition, the officials said, Iraqi Army units have severe troop shortages, and absenteeism and even corruption in the security forces is a problem.

Certainly Bush was delighted to put aside the anger of the past because of the division within NATO over the U.S.-led war in Iraq and congratulate NATO on its commitment to move forward.

“Twenty-six nations sat around the table saying, you know, let’s get the past behind us and now let’s focus on helping the world’s newest democracy succeed,” he said at a joint news conference at the headquarters of NATO with its secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Asked if he was satisfied with the token contributions, Bush said, “Every contribution helps.”

The French about-face has symbolic importance because France, which fiercely opposed the war in Iraq, had steadfastly refused to participate in any initiative to help Iraq that formally came under the NATO umbrella. Even a financial contribution to a special NATO training fund for Iraq had been rejected.

As late as Tuesday morning, French officials were saying that France would not participate in a NATO initiative on Iraq, with one French official criticizing the intense U.S. lobbying campaign of NATO members as an unseemly diplomatic “telethon.”

Even with the agreement, the training mission is hampered by the fact that six NATO countries - France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece and Spain - have refused U.S. and Iraqi requests to help train military forces and police officers inside Iraq, preferring to do training outside the country or to help pay for the mission.

At least three other countries, including Canada, have not refused outright, but neither have they committed trainers to the mission inside Iraq, a NATO official said.

The United States, which has watched several countries withdraw their combat troops from Iraq in the past year, had pushed hard to win unanimity of the world’s most powerful military alliance for the training mission, particularly after the recent elections in Iraq.

But as several NATO countries resisted U.S. appeals to put even one soldier or police officer on the ground, the United States curbed its aims, saying that paying for the transport of equipment was to be lauded as an important contribution.

Even those countries that have sent troops have sent small numbers.

Last October, NATO’s top general, General James Jones of the U.S. Marine Corps, said that up to 3,000 soldiers and police officers might be needed as trainers as well as security forces to protect them.

But the number was scaled back dramatically after a decision was made to do most of the training inside the relatively safe Green Zone in Baghdad that reduced the need for security. NATO now is aiming to recruit 159 security force trainers in the first phase of the mission.

As of now, however, there are about 111 trainers on the ground in Iraq; while more are on the way, there is still a shortfall of trainers, who are all volunteers, NATO officials said.

NATO hopes to expand the mission later this year to allow NATO to run a military academy outside Baghdad, if its members contribute the troops and money.

As a result of the intense U.S. lobbying campaign, 17 other member states have committed more than $5 million in the last two weeks for trust funds that will cover such expenses as transporting Iraqi officers to NATO training posts outside Iraq and for equipment purchases.

By contrast, the United States has already contributed more than $50 million since last summer for the training mission.

Jones and other senior U.S. military officers have complained about the lack of adequate funding for the training mission and the cumbersome NATO system of fund-raising.

In a speech at NATO headquarters Tuesday, President Jacques Chirac of France said nothing about the French decision to participate in the NATO plan, but he reminded his partners that France has offered to train 1,500 Iraqi police officers outside of Iraq, a program that would cost France $20 million.

“In Iraq,” Chirac told NATO leaders, “France wants to contribute to stability.”

Iraq has not responded to the French request, which is seen in NATO diplomatic circles as a rebuff of the French offer. With almost 3,700 troops on the ground, France is the second-largest troop contributor to NATO missions, behind Germany and ahead of the United States.

In addition to NATO, the European Union has launched its own training mission for Iraq, announcing on Monday that it will open an office in Baghdad to coordinate the training of Iraqi judges, prosecutors and prison guards. The program will train about 770 Iraqis outside of Iraq because of the precarious security situation there.

In another initiative, the European Union and the United States agreed Tuesday to play host to an international conference on Iraq’s reconstruction, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, whose nation holds the rotating EU presidency, told reporters after a U.S.-EU summit meeting with Bush.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/22/news/nato.html

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For this President Bush, a new Germany
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, February 23, 2005

BERLIN When President George H.W. Bush visited Mainz in 1989, he made a landmark appeal for a special relationship between the United States and Germany, similar to that between Washington and London.

Eastern Europe was in flux, Germany was still divided and President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union was introducing reforms that were sending shock waves through the communist world.

Despite all the uncertainties, the American president saw Germany as the staunch defender of European integration and the linchpin in the trans-Atlantic relationship.

Sixteen years later, his son, President George W. Bush, will visit Mainz on Wednesday. This time, Europe is united and there is a German chancellor who is prepared to speak confidently about Germany’s national and security interests - and who is seeking a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, convinced that his country deserves it because of its economic and political clout.

“Germany’s security culture is changing,” Karsten Voigt, the Foreign Ministry’s special envoy to the United States, said in an interview.

“Germany was traditionally a global player in terms of the economy but not in terms of security,” he said. “Until recently, global security was not on our horizon.”

Voigt, who spends his time crossing the Atlantic to explain how both sides see each other, added, “The U.S. will have to engage us on the security issue.”

Over the past few years, German thinking and acting over security have radically changed as the country shakes off the constraints of the cold war and its dependence on the United States for its defense, and has come to see a stronger, more integrated European Union as a way to influence U.S. foreign policy.

As a result, German officials close to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said the United States and other countries should recognize that Berlin was now prepared to articulate and defend its interests - as Schröder did before the U.S.-led war in Iraq, when he used his opposition to the war to aid his re-election campaign in 2002.

“Germany is bringing more of its national interests into the European security and defense arena,” said Jens van Scherpenberg, U.S. expert at the German Institute for International Policy and Security in Berlin.

“Germany was used to playing second fiddle to France and Britain,” he said. “Schröder wants Germany to act on an equal basis. It wants to have the same ranking in the orchestra.”

With its European NATO allies, Germany is involved in peacekeeping missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa - unthinkable in the early 1990s because of the pacifism generated by World War II.

The interior minister, Otto Schily, has increasingly worked closely with his European and American counterparts since the Sept. 11 attacks.

And on wider international issues, Germany, along with France, has been at the forefront in pushing the EU to lift its arms embargo against China, much to the annoyance of Washington, which believes that the move could lead to regional instability.

Bush is expected to raise the issue with Schröder, and to discuss Iran, where for months Berlin, London and Paris have been exploring every possible diplomatic path to persuade Tehran to cease its nuclear program.

German officials said Schröder was unlikely to be swayed by Bush to change his mind over China or Iran, since Berlin sees these issues as part and parcel of its attempts to carve out security and economic interests in a German and European context.

This desire to have a more assertive role in Europe, and for Europe to play a more assertive role on the international stage, was the main thrust of Schröder’s speech at the recent Munich Security Conference, where he said NATO was no longer the main trans-Atlantic forum in which to discuss political and security issues because such issues were not raised there.

“The speech was about how the Europeans could use NATO to influence U.S. policy,” said Klaus Becher, director of the independent Knowledge and Analysis consultancy.

U.S. senators and diplomats at the conference said the speech was Germany’s attempt at weakening NATO while strengthening the EU.

German foreign policy experts disagree with the U.S. assessment of Berlin’s views on NATO, China and Iran. They argue that if the United States wants Germany to be involved in global security, then it will have to engage Germany on the security issue.

“The point is that they, the Americans, should draw us into the security dialogue beyond Europe and in a much more global context,” Voigt said. “Take the case of China. The Americans do want us to consider the security element but that means engaging us.”

As a consequence, even the staunch supporters of a policy in which Germany would play a greater role in global security and be engaged by Washington admit that Berlin will have to spend more on defense.

“It is going to require more efforts and more resources,” Scherpenberg said. “And that means a stronger economy.”

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/22/news/germany.html

des précisions sur ce muselage seraient appréciées alors qu’il n’a jamais été tant publié en France

Il est heureux que personne n ait mentionne la lettre (volee a Paris en juin 1999) de Lafayette a Louis XVI ou il s excusait d etre alle combattre pour l Amerique du Nord.
(voir liste des objets voles sur le site de drouot).
Voila qui aurait relance le debat.

Que voila un beau texte.
Il m a fallu deux relectures pour en retirer la substantifique moelle.

Si je comprends bien vous voulez dire que la reunion des Grands Chefs et leur diner cordial* n etait que la conclusion d une “entente-desaccord” sur les points suivants:

- la question irakienne n etant maintenant qu une question de reconstruction, il etait necessaire

- que l ambassadeur Negroponte revienne au bercail et prenne le poste de DNI (qui supervisera les 14 autres agences de renseignements: d ou son surnom: “the 15th ghost”)car les problemes immediats de l Amerique sont:

- d une part la Chine et ;a Russie** car ces deux pays semnblent avoir decide unilateralement que la doctrine de Monroe etait
caduque***

- et d autre part le Venezuela et Cuba****

- et bien sur les questions nucleaires qui vont de la composition du Conseil de Securite au developpement civil du nucleaire** (meme reference que precedemment compte-tenu des competences de Condi en la matiere et de sa longue association avec les milieux du nucleaire et bien sur de la fascination du president Chirac pour ces questions).

Tout ceci pour simplement vous dire que j ai, maintenant, vraiment compris votre texte.

Notes:

* ... au fait quel etait le menu ? C est ce qui m interesse le plus .. car pour le reste ... tout etait deja prevu.

** ...ce pourquoi Condi a ete nommee Secretaire d Etat .

*** ... comme d autres considerent les Nations Unies “obsoletes”.

**** ... et les competences precedemment acquises par Negroponte offrent la technicite necessaire pour faire face a ce nouvel axe de menaces.

Il est bien dommage que dedefensa n ait pas encore reagi a la deposition de Rummy au Congres le 17 fevrier. D un autre cote comme disait Henry Kissinger : “il ne faut jamais accelerer l Histoire ..” !!
Neanmoins l “article d ambiance” souleve une interessante question qui n a pas ete posee en ce qui concerne la privatisation de fonctions essentiellement regaliennes (pour le moment et tout au moins en Europe) concernant le monde securitaire ou le civl se melange tres facilement avec le militaire mais ou les responsabilites civiles et penales des entreprises sous contrat sont encore dans le flou (tout au moins en Iraq).

Pour ce qui est de l audition du 17 fevrier - et comme toujours - on a tendance a retenir que ce qui fait la une des journaux. Dans le temps I.F. Stone passait son temps a decortiquer dans son “IF Stone weekly” les auditions du Congres (car c est vraiment la que tout se joue).
Il n y a plus de I.F. Stone - et Noam Chomsky a ete pratiquement musele - quant au reste de la presse elle ne commence a se reveiller qu a cause de la concurrencxe que represente les blogues politiques.
Ceci etant un echange significatif a eu lieu entre Rummy et le senateur mJames M. Inhofe ou il etait question de pourcentage du PNB represente par le budget de la defense nationale.
Rummy a pris un air nostalgique en rappelant d abord qu il etait de plus de 5% au temps de la guerre froide pour ensuite redescendre - il a cite quelques chiffres dans les 2 et 3 % autant que je me souvienne - pour en venir aux 3,5% actuels ” que le public (c.a.d. le bon peuple americain considere eleve alors qu en fait beaucoup mieux pourrait etre fait”. Le senateur a hoche la tete avec un grand soupir et tout le monde a compris que la balle etait dans le camp des senateurs car Rummy a ajoute : “ceci etant le Pentagone s est contente de rester dans les limites considerees actuellement acceptables”.
En l absence de texte ces commentaires sont reportes approximativement.
Mais il s agit bien la d un echange typique ou un message est transmis aux elites concernees leur annoncant ce qui etait attendu d elles.
Conclusions ?
Le budget bactuel n a rien a voir avec ce qu il devrait etre ... pour respecter le pourcentage du PNB.
Utopie ?
Que non dirait IF Stone car depuis aussi longtemps que l age permet de s en souvenir le Congres US a toujours maintenu que les pays de l Alliance ne consacraient pas assez de leur PNB a la defense commune.
Alors qu en conclure ?
Que Rummy ne s adressait pas seulement aux senateurs ...

Les sources coulent à flot, apparemment ...

Autrement, cette news, moins dramatique certes mais à plus long terme immédiat (ok ?)

U.S. to privatize security for bases in Europe
Pamela Hess, WPH 17/2/05
   
WASHINGTON—Germany’s decision to recall some 2,500 troops that had been protecting American bases in Europe will cost about $100 million to replace, according to Pentagon budget documents.
   
  With the U.S. Army stretched by the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon plans to spend $100 million to hire private security guards to protect its bases in Germany.
   
  The request is outlined in the $82 billion supplemental appropriation request for 2005 the White House submitted to Congress Monday.
   
  In January 2003, Germany offered its own troops to protect about 50 American installations around Europe as U.S. soldiers were pulled off to train and deploy in advance of the war in Iraq. Security had been provided by a mix of soldiers and private security forces.
   
  But last fall, the German government announced it would withdraw some 2,500 German forces from guard duty at American bases after nearly two years, a cost-cutting measure that also came in the wake of the Pentagon announcement that some 70,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Germany.
   
  Installing civilian guards at the gates of military bases is not unprecedented. In January 2002, the Army Corps of Engineers hired DynCorp and ITT for base management in Qatar, including base security. By 2003, there were at least 4,500 civilian guards protecting bases in the United States. The bases were previously protected by military police, most of who were deployed for the war in Iraq. Private guards have also been installed at base gates in Bosnia.
   
  “The driving force behind all this is (that) U.S. forces are stretched thin as a result of bad planning,” said Peter Singer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of “Corporate Warriors.”
   
  According to the Army, more than half of its active duty, Guard and Reserve forces are deployed overseas, the lion’s share in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.
   
  Moreover, the U.S. military has been almost halved in size since 1991. At the same time, reliance on private contractors has increased exponentially.
   
  “They gutted military police over the last several years ... and it turns out that MPs are more valuable than F/A-22 Raptor (fighter jets),” Singer said.
   
  He said the outsourcing of base security is part of a larger trend to hire private companies to perform duties now occupied by military personnel, ostensibly to free up troops for combat duties.
   
  “It’s privatization-mania,” said Singer. “They are not taking the time to figure out if they are saving money.”
   
  The Center for Public Integrity in September reported the Pentagon spends half its annual budget procuring services and goods from contractors—more than $900 billion over the last five years. Some 56 percent of the money paid to defense contractors in 2003 went for services rather than weapons or supplies, according to the watchdog group.
   
  Singer has looked at the numbers, and he said they aren’t good.
   
  “They are not saving money ... and they haven’t tested the market to find out what is the best price” for security, he said.
   
  The awards made for U.S. base security were made without a formal competition for the work. Instead, the Pentagon used a loophole in the law that allows companies owned by Native Americans to be awarded contracts without a formal bidding process. In 2003, two Native American companies partnered with major private security providers to get and perform the contracts which are worth up to $500 million.
   
  “The question is if it is appropriate or not (to contract out guard duties) depends on what roles you consider public issues and what are private,” Singer said. “Too often we’re not asking those questions.”
   
  A senior military official told United Press International the suicide bomber who infiltrated a U.S. mess hall in Iraq in December renewed debate within the service leadership about whether contracting, particularly overseas, has gone too far. The suicide bomber, believed to be an Iraqi hired to work on the base, blew himself up in a mess tent during lunch, killing 22.
   
  “We’ve cut the military so much we can’t go to war without contractors anymore,” the senior official complained. “We can do the war fight. We’re still expeditionary. But we’ve made it so we can’t take care of ourselves anymore.”
   
  This leaves military bases vulnerable as contractors rely on cheap foreign or local labor to perform the low-paid jobs in mess halls and janitorial services—positions that provide entrée to possible security problems..
   
  Pentagon officials argue that while contractors may be more expensive in the near-term than hiring and paying new recruits, they don’t come with the same long-term healthcare and retirement costs.

Je presume que dans quelques annees on se retrouvera dans ces memes colonnes et on epiloguera sur Fallujah et la Bataille d Alger. Toutefois, en ce qui concerne l identite des interlocuteurs en Irak il faut quand meme remarquer qu en Algerie il y avait une difference entre le FLN, le GPRA, les Messalistes, les Kabyles et quelques autres aspirants.
C est tout au moins ce que je crois me rappeler de cette epoque trouble (et d une lecon rapide avec le jeune Hernu) et si leurres il y avait, les methodes brutales et expeditives employees des deux cotes - et visant les tetes - prefiguraient les seules lecons eventuellement retenues par Fort Bragg: d ou le Programme Phoenix ... et ses consequences.
Et la mise a la porte de Bernard Fall.

En revennt sur les lecons-apprises du passe il semblerait qu a Fort Bragg (qui se pose toujours en ecole professionnelle) on ait tente d ameliorer le systeme: d abord Shock and Awe et ensuite balkanisation.

Retrospectivement (que personne ne prenne ombrage de la suite qui bien sur est une extrapolation farfelue) alors que la France a quitte l Algerie (et garde le couscous) on peut se demander si l action militaire aupres des populations n aurait pas du etre menee en conjonction avec une balkanisation du pays. La triste histoire de l apres-guerre depuis 1962 n en aurait peut etre pas ete pire et l evolution aurait peut etre pu se faire dans un respect des groupes ethniques ... ou politiques.

Mais evidemment cela est de l utopie pure et simple.

En ce qui concerne l Irak il apparait bien evident que l implosion de la Yougoslavie ait ete une lecon rapidement apprise ... et qui peut servir de modele ....: il suffit de reflechir un peu et les war-games sont la pour ca (ils coutent assez cher pour meriter d etre utilises).

Madame, Monsieur,

Nous avonsreçu ce message :

Sujet : Nouveaute sur dedefensa.org
Date : 15/02/05 17:17:27 Paris, Madrid
De :

A :

Envoyé via Internet (afficher l’en-tête)
Les Américains commencent à paniquer et armeraient des adversaires des chiites

Suite sur http://www.dedefensa.org/section.php?section_id=9

Mais impossible de decouvrir l’article dans la page ! C’est fort dommage !
Avec nos remerciements et nos félicitations pour vos analyses et infos

Sincères salutations
Patrick CHAPUS

Je rebondis sur le commentaire de mhb concernant l’approche politique du problème irakien par des “négociations”. Pour négocier, il faut d’abord un (des) interlocuteur(s) et une plate-forme politique. Les deux manquent en Irak ou plutôt non, ils n’en manque pas, il y en a trop !
Puisqu’on faisait un parallèle entre l’Algérie et l’Irak, restons-y un instant. Dans les premiers mois voire les deux premières années qui ont suivi le déclenchement de l’insurrection en Algérie, les autorités françaises avaient le plus grand mal a identifier “l’ennemi” soit pour l’abattre soit pour négocier avec lui. On a dit les pires âneries à l’époque : certains voyaient Nasser derrière les insurgés, d’autres les communistes, et les plus allumés (Bigeard) parlaient de croisade pour sauver l’Occident chrétien. Le FLN était pourtant parfaitement identifiable et ses instances dirigeantes et exécutives parfaitement connues puisqu’elles s’exprimaient “publiquement” (Tunis, Rabat, Le Caire, Bandoeng) et leurs revendications s’en tenaient à la proclamation du 1er novembre 1954 et aux décisions du Congrès de la Soumma (Août 1956) sans jamais varier d’un pouce jusques y compris lors de la négociations des Accords d’Evian. Cela n’a pas empêché les autorités françaises et les Français d’Algérie de s’aveugler, de s’auto-intoxiquer et de fabriquer leurs propres leurres.
La même pagaille a joué en Irak. Dès les premières escarmouches, les diverses tentatives d’identification de l"ennemi” ont donné lieu aux pires élucubrations. La confusion règne jusqu’à maintenant et la “résistance irakienne” se garde bien de dévoiler ses tenants et aboutissants contrairement au FLN algérien. Alors, pour simplifier, on regroupe tout sous la même étiquette de “Terroristes” ou, quelle bénédiction ! - Al Qaida et ce providentiel polichinelle de Abu-Musab el-Zarqaoui dont on agite la marionnette opportunément (1er siège de Falluja avril 2004, 2e siège de Falluja novembre 2004, et veille des élections américaines). Ayant déjà du mal à trouver qui combattre ou séduire, on a encore plus de mal à trouver un scenario de guerre psychologique pour contrer la guerrilla et gagner la bataille des “Hearts and Minds”. Une vraie pétaudière que l’entrée en scène prévisible des dissidents Chiites de Sadr et les milices pro-américaines qui sont en train d’être constituées pour contrer les Chiites “légitimistes” de Sistani, va singulièrement compliquer. Mais qui a dit que l’Orient était simple ?

L auteur de l introduction du livre de Trinquier (Bernard Fall) etait aussi un “adviser” a Fort Bragg mais a rapidement ete remercie pour ses “explications” qui ne correspondaient pas a ce que la “direction” voulait entendre.
Auteur de “La rue sans joie” Bernard Fall, toujours a la recherche de “l explication” est mort dans l explosion d une mine sous sa jeep dans la campagne vietnamienne.
Un brillant analyste de la situation il etait devenu un personnage embarassant par ses explications du conflit qui ne concordaient pas avec la politique suivie et considere comme trop “gauchisant” par certains. Meme ses meilleurs amis sur place quii etaient sensibles a ses “explications: n ont pu lui assurer son poste a Fort Bragg.
Retrospectivement c est bien dommage.

Quelques précisions à propos du film “la Bataille d’Alger”
1) Le réalisateur est bien Gillo Pontecorvo. Mais l’âme du film, à la fois acteur principal du film et co-scénariste est Yacef Saadi, chef de la Zone autonome d’Alger et à ce titre responsable des opérations militaires ;
2) Le bon général Aussaresses a été envoyé par Pierre Messmer alors ministre de la Défense, porter la bonne parole de la lutte antiguerrilla aux forces speciales américaines à Fort Bragg en 67. Le livre de Trinquier y a bien été étudié. Cerise sur le gâteau, le film de la Bataille d’Alger y a été projeté par le même Aussaresses quelques mois après sa sortie aux gens de Fort Bragg.
3) Un principe de la guerrilla qui a été ignoré est celui-ci : “Frapper le traître avant de frapper l’ennemi”. Ce qui explique les “exactions” commises par le FLN contre sa propre population. N’ayant pas de relais au sein de la population, l’ennemi voit ses sources de renseignements et de “séduction” taries.
4) La guerre de guerrilla est d’essence politique. Trinquier l’avait compris. Il avait compris aussi qu’une victoire militaire est absolument inutile. Si le bras armé du FLN a été vaincu militairement, la tête politique - le GPRA, gouvernement provisoire de la république algérienne, en exil à Tunis - lui, se portait comme un charme et était l’interlocuteur exclusif des autorités françaises. Le FLN avait pris soin soit d’éliminer ses concurrents (MNA de Messali, Bellounis) soit de les “absorber” (Centralistes du MTLD dissident, une partie agissante du parti communiste algérien).
5) Le terrorisme - surtout urbain - en tant qu’instrument de lutte est l’arme du pauvre. Les réseaux de poseurs de bombes à Alger étaient constitués essentiellement de femmes qui utilisaient des couffins et autres sacs à main pour transporter les bombes. Ainsi, quand on demanda à Larbi Ben M’Hidi (dirigeant du FLN arrêté en 57 par Aussaresses et pendu par ses soins) pourquoi il utilisait cette tactique il répondit : “Donnez-nous vos avions, nous vous donnerons nos couffins”.
6) La mise en place de réseaux contre-terroristes pour étouffer un mouvement de guerrilla est inopérante ou a une portée limitée si les têtes politiques qui inspirent cette guerrilla restent à l’abri. Toujours en Algérie, mais lors de la décennie de terrorisme islamiste, les militaires algériens ont créé et inspiré des réseaux islamistes Canada Dry destinés à créer des dissidences et de la surenchère au sein des groupes authentiquement FIS ; mais surtout, ils ont ciblé en priorité les dirigeants politiques de ces groupes qu’ils ont soit purement et simplement assassinés soit mis sous étroite surveillance à l’étranger pour ceux qui s’étaient exilés, soit “retournés” pour ceux qui avaient goût pour le pouvoir et l’argent.

un article de la BBC à propos de la proportion de gens qui parlent anglais à la maison :

Foreign languages gain ground in US

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3176546.stm

“According to the 2000 census, 47 million people over the age of five - nearly a sixth of the US population - do not speak English with their families. This is an increase of 15 million people since 1990”

Encore une fois la puissance du lobby juif est à l’oeuvre car l’immigration massive de non-européens est l’une des obsessions des activistes juifs depuis le début du 20e siècle. Je vous réfère au chapitre 7 du livre de Kevin MacDonald, “The Culture of Critique” :

Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881-1965: A Historical Review

http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/books-immigration.html

Il semble y avoir effectivement un effort en cours pour “transformer” la situation irakienne qui consisterait a admettre la “politisation” du probleme en entamant des “negociations” avec la branche politique d Al Quaeda (si elle existe !!) et des autres groupes insurges .
C est tout au moins une idee qui commence a faire son chemin dans les think tanks (avant de s incruster par le processus bien connu de la manipulation des medias et de la mise en condition des groupes politiques occidentaux)
Cet article doit etre pris pour ce qu il est, c.a.d plus une preparation “de nouveaux concepts” - et apparemment acheve remarquablement son but.
Car si on relit un peu l histoire qui a suivi la projection du film et surtout l identite des instigateurs de cette projection en 2003, on s apercoit quer la raison principale de l interet du film a l epoque par les “specialistes” qui l ont alors vu et etudie avait plus avoir avec les “lecons” d O - qui lui aussi etait “conseiller”  de Fort Bragg - et s est toujours rendu disponible pour relater son experience dans cette fameuse nataille.
C aurait peur etre ete moins sanglant si au lieu de commencer par le “Methode d’O” les lecons de Trinquier avaient ete etudiees en premier.
C est ce que Richard Sale ne dit pas car ce serait encore remettre sur le tapis la question de la torture qui comme chacun sait est un tres mauvais livre de Henri Alleg qui heureusement a ete supprime
en son temps et ne fait pas partie des lectures du Pentagone.

Top general seeks radical overhaul of NATO’s finances
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, February 15, 2005

MUNICH NATO’S top commander says he is seeking a radical overhaul of the alliance’s finances as it becomes more involved in peacekeeping missions in distant countries yet continues to use a system introduced during the cold war to pay for them.

Although the issue is not expected to be raised during President George W. Bush’s visit to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s headquarters next week in Brussels, it nevertheless reflects a debate slowly emerging inside the organization over how to become more flexible and agile in paying for sending troops at short notice to far-away trouble spots.

“The way in which the alliance’s peacekeeping missions are financed are better suited for the more static defense and reactive alliance we had in the 20th century,” said the commander, General James Jones, in an interview in Munich, where he was attending the annual security conference. “We have to examine how we fund our operations.”

When NATO was established nearly 56 years ago, military operations were confined to Western Europe and were concentrated on large and static territorial defense armies to defend Europe against a conventional attack from the former Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact.

These operations were financed in two ways. One was through a common fund into which all countries contributed. The other, known as “costs lie where they fall,” meant that any country that contributed troops or equipment to a NATO mission was obliged to pick up all the costs.

But as NATO moves outside Europe and ventures as far afield as Afghanistan, where it commands an 8,000-member peacekeeping mission, or to Iraq, where it will run a modest training mission, Jones said the new demands facing NATO required financing arrangements that involved more common funding.

“One aspect of NATO’s common funding operations is the NATO Awacs capability,” Jones said.

He said that Awacs, NATO’s airborne warning and control system, “is funded by 13 nations and it is immediately useable.”

“NATO nations will not object to Awacs being used because of money. Its already funded,” Jones added.

Jones has no doubts that no matter what suggestions he or the NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, makes, they can expect a cool reception from the finance ministries that have battled with defense ministries to cut or maintain current levels of defense expenditure.

Any move toward more common funding would entail national governments contributing more to NATO.

What is at stake for Jones in any reform of NATO funding for missions is the future of the NATO Response Force. The force is designed to bring NATO into the 21st century. Having a highly trained and flexible force of up to 20,000 troops, which can be deployed between 5 and 30 days to go anywhere in the world, would end NATO’s culture of static territorial defense.

Jones said his big concern was that if the current financing system was retained, it could jeopardize the NATO Reaction Force. It could mean that countries willing to contribute troops to this force might end up being reluctant because they would have to pay on the basis of “costs lie where they fall.”

“If you build a NATO Response Force, of 18,000 or 20,000 men, then you actually use it to do something, such as training, peacekeeping, small forays here and there, emergency relief and disaster relief,” Jones said.

“And if all these missions are built into the NATO Response Force then the ‘costs lie where they fall’ will become more critically examined,” he added. “I think it will have a lessening of enthusiasm on the part of nations who will contribute, for example, a brigade size force of whatever out of fear it will be used.”

Jones said the “costs lie where they fall” system ended up placing the financial burden on those countries that have the troops and equipment, and those that are usually willing to participate in NATO missions.

In practice, this means that countries like Belgium, which agreed in 2003 to the NATO-led Afghanistan mission but then delayed sending aircraft after its Finance Ministry objected to having pay the crew and maintenance charges, often contribute nothing to those missions.

“If you are a small nation and you are making a contribution, like for example the Czech Republic that has antichemical and biological warfare capability, it is always in demand,” Jones said.

“At some point you are going to say that because the principle is ‘costs fall where they lie,’ in an expeditionary world where we are going to be using our forces more frequently, we will probably have to develop a financing system that is more agile,” he said.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/14/news/nato.html