The New Contours Of American Militarism

[Chitah]

The New Contours of American Militarism

David Ignatius of the Washington Post has a column on Tuesday concerning US options in Iraq. He reports three scenarios from Washington insiders:

1) reduce the number of US troops in hopes that the Sunni Arabs will accommodate themselves to the new Shiite-dominated government, and vice versa;

2) Go on fighting the insurgency in the Sunni heartland while doing reconstruction work in the calmer Shiite south and Kurdish north;

3) Mount a massive and brutal counter-insurgency campaign against the Sunni Arab guerrillas, rather on the model of what the military government did against its Muslim radicals in the 1990s. Ignatius urges the employment of Iraqi forces in this campaign rather than American ones.

One problem with the "special operations" (some would say "death squad") scenario is that it is most likely that these pro-US units would largely be recruited from among Kurds and Shiites, and if they were deployed mainly against Sunni guerrillas, it would have the effect of raising ethnic tensions. Iraq is not El Salvador. Of course, as Ignatius recognizes, the other problem is that it raises thorny ethical problems and questions about what Americans stand for.

"The Iraq Syndrome", a growing phenomenon and legacy of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps inclines the American public more toward finding an exit strategy than toward an intensified, brutal 9-year-long counter-insurgency effort.

The increasingly praetorian character of American responses to crises is underlined in an elegiac article by Tom Engelhardt.

J'ai mis en gras les 3 liens de Cole, je les mets ci dessous:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic…-2005Jan10.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic…-2005Jan10.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/…/01/01_503.html

[Chitah]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/2073…hospital11.html

At the beginning of their recent attack on Fallujah, U.S. Marines and Iraqi National Guard troops stormed Fallujah General Hospital, closing it to the city's wounded and confiscating cell phones from the doctors. A senior officer told The New York Times the hospital was "a center of propaganda."

Interviews with hospital personnel (which had revealed the extent of civilian casualties in an aborted April invasion) would not be a problem this time.

[melodius]

So nice.

Je me réjouis déjà de lire les rationalisations sur les forums, listes et blogs de certains de nos petits camarades.

[Chitah]

So nice.

Je me réjouis déjà de lire les rationalisations sur les forums, listes et blogs de certains de nos petits camarades.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Et sur les mêmes blogs, je sens que la stratégie privilégiée est la numéro 3, c'est-à-dire l'écrasement des rebelles* sunnites.

Et il est vraisemblable que les généraux US ne laisseront pas les politiques décider autre chose.

* (résistants, ou terroristes, ou….le nom importe peu)

C'est comme le Dôme du Rocher, certains l'appelent mosquée Al Aqsa.

Ou Mary Pierce, certains appelent la tennis woman Marie Pierce.

[melodius]

Je ne partage pas ton analyse des militaires US. Ils se rendent beaucoup mieux compte des dangers d'une telle stratégie que le gouvernement. Après, tout, c'est eux qui sont en première ligne pour en assumer les conséquences.

[Chitah]

Je ne partage pas ton analyse des militaires US. Ils se rendent beaucoup mieux compte des dangers d'une telle stratégie que le gouvernement. Après, tout, c'est eux qui sont en première ligne pour en assumer les conséquences.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

C'est possible, en effet. Tu as raison, à mon avis, la pression politique pourrait être ici très iomportante (volonté de Bush de régler le problème du triangle sunnite rapidement).

Mais je vais regarder sur les blogs des gens qui aiment et chérissent la guerre pour trouver des infos….