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Sat 15 Sep, 2007 10:00 am
Vanity of Power
Le Monde | Editorial
Tuesday 11 September 2007
Six years ago today, the September 11 attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and against the Pentagon in Washington exploded the contradiction between American omnipotence and vulnerability. For the first time since the war with Great Britain in 1812, the United States was attacked on its own soil. It reacted as a "hyper-power," attempting to sweep along its allies behind it, and, beyond them, the entire international community into a total war against terrorism.
In Afghanistan, the US succeeded in creating that "coalition of the willing" to fight the Taliban, who had welcomed and supported bin Laden. The US failed to reconstitute that alliance when it wanted to evict Saddam Hussein from power by force. The quasi-spontaneous solidarity that the US enjoyed the day after September 11, 2001, converted to distrust at best, hostility at worst. Never has the United States' popularity, and that of its president, been as low as it is now on all continents.
By increasing controls and not hesitating to limit individuals' freedoms (especially those of foreigners on their soil), the Americans have been able to shelter themselves up until now from new al-Qaeda attacks. Which is not to say that they have become any more impervious to such attacks than other democracies. Six years after September 11, they are barely less vulnerable and they are no longer all-powerful. If the United States remains the strongest country militarily, its power clashes against the hard realities of guerilla war on the ground, in Afghanistan as in Iraq. The technological revolution of military affairs seems no better adapted to this situation than big battalions.
On the political plane, the record of the last six years is no more promising. The Utopian idea of democratizing the Greater Middle East has sunk into the sands of Mesopotamia. On the other hand, the "Axis of Evil" has grown stronger with Ahmadinejad's Iran. Ahmadinejad is trying to benefit from the Americans' unpopularity - and that of Westerners in general - whom he deems to be on the defensive everywhere, from Afghanistan to Palestine. Persuaded that George W. Bush, stuck in the Iraq quagmire, cannot launch into another conflict, Ahmadinejad continues his nuclear program without paying attention to warnings and sanctions.
The American president is convinced that the present difficulties are mere incidents along the way, [nothing] compared to the judgment of History, which will vindicate him. In the meantime, he puts the other Western democracies and his allies in the most uncomfortable position, torn between disapproval for a dangerous policy and the petitions of friendship from a great people that has lost its way.
A Not-So-Blind Terrorism
A Not-So-Blind Terrorism
By Jean-Marcel Bouguereau
Le Nouvel Observateur
Tuesday 11 September 2007
One may forget the date of Hiroshima, but one may not forget September 11, the hinge between two periods of history. There is a before and an after the Towers. A notice of dark times. Bin Laden attended to reminding us of that just before Congress's debate on American strategy ... in Iraq. In recent days, his henchmen have shown us that in the Maghreb and in Europe, organizations claiming to belong to al-Qaeda have succeeded in provoking carnage.
We cannot forget the stupefaction that struck us all on September 11, but is that a reason to commemorate it? Every year, The New York Times wrote recently, the repetition of ceremonies ends up provoking lassitude about reliving a day everyone wishes had never happened.
Moreover, is it normal to celebrate a defeat? Do we commemorate Waterloo in France and Pearl Harbor in the USA? No, we celebrate November 11, 1918, D-Day, and May 8, 1945. But once Bush considered September 11 an act of war, justifying his anti-terrorist initiative, he transformed the civilian tragedy into a military defeat. A strange defeat. For, opposite the American super-power, Osama bin Laden was right to observe that the "19 youths" who acted as Kamikazes had "scrambled [America's] compass." They even made George Bush lose his compass altogether. George Bush, who went on to bog himself down in Iraq, where he, according to bin Laden, "lost his prestige, exhausted his finances, and ruined his reputation," while today six Americans out of ten believe that the war "is not worth fighting."
Besides, was it necessary to attack Saddam Hussein when he had nothing to do with any of it? As though it were a question of distracting people's attention from impotence vis-à-vis al-Qaeda and the elusive bin Laden? All the more so, as al-Qaeda - which up until then had not been in Iraq - has, since the Americans' arrival, made it its new rear base, transforming that country into a new Afghanistan.
In spite of its erratic, elusive character, this terrorism is far less blind than people allege. And it sticks to a single goal: making the USA bite the dust. [Bin Laden] said it: George Bush "repeats the mistakes the Soviets committed in Afghanistan, by refusing to acknowledge the setbacks suffered by the American Army in Iraq. Your position is oh so very like theirs about twenty years ago."
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Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.
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