L'histoire selon les vainqueurs, l'histoire selon les vaincus.

Alors que le Tribunal Brussell entend s'interroger sur la légitimité à accorder aux interventions des armées américaines et au projet de nouvel ordre mondial qu'elles soutiennent, je voudrais dire ici, au risque de paraître pessimiste, que cette légitimité existe.
En effet cette légitimité n'est autre que le droit du plus fort, le droit du vainqueur.
Qu'on se reporte à la déjà lointaine expédition américaine contre Panama (1989) ou aux expéditions contre la Yougoslavie, l'Afghanistan ou l'Irak, leur histoire est toujours écrite et donc justifiée par les vainqueurs.
Ce sont eux qui décident de la manière dont les guerres sont présentées.
Le vainqueur se présentera toujours (voir Bush ou Blair récemment) comme un pacifiste épris de conciliation mais acculé par le camp adverse à la guerre.
Ce camp adverse est bien sûr dirigé par un fou, un monstre (Milosevic, Ben Laden, Saddam Hussein...) qui nous défie et dont il convient de débarrasser l'humanité.
Selon cette version, l'ennemi -et lui seul- commet des atrocités.
Des atrocités du vainqueur (Hiroshima ou le bombardement de Dresde pour la seconde guerre mondiale ou plus récemment les nombreuses "bavures" ou dégâts collatéraux) il ne sera jamais question.

Quant aux causes de la guerre, on évoquera généralement de belles causes morales, sans rapport avec les réalités qui sous-tendent les conflits.

Les causes des guerres sont très généralement géo-stratégiques et économiques. Mais on se taira sur celles-ci pour assurer (ce qui est une constante depuis la première guerre mondiale) qu'on va lutter contre le militarisme de l'ennemi (en Yougoslavie ou en Irak), contre la drogue (voir l'expédition contre Noriega), pour étendre la démocratie, défendre les droits des femmes (contre la burgha afghane !) ou ceux d'une petite nation (le Kosovo).

Cette version du vainqueur est omniprésente dans les médias.
Notre opposition aux interventions américaines peut donc aussi se manifester en révélant l'autre face de l'histoire, l'histoire vue du côté des vaincus, qui inverse bien des points de vue.
Comme la dénonciation des entorses au droit, la dénonciation des entorses à la vérité historique des récents conflits peut aider par un regard critique sur le passé à mieux affronter l'avenir.

Anne Morelli
Professeure à l'ULB
08 décembre 2003

My name is Frank Vercruyssen of Theatre Company STAN.

We support this initiative because we believe that every effort to expose the perfidious theories and lethal strategies of these Neo Reaganites, as they – not without pride – call themselves, is vital for the future of the world community.
You might think this is an overstatement, but I assure you, everything you’re scared of, is true…
Having said that, I will read you a few poems.

Hart Seely has compiled comments the US secretary of Defense made at various press briefings of the US Department of Defense in a book called ‘Pieces of Intelligence, the existential poetry of Donald Rumsfeld’. 

Here are a few examples :  

A Confession (May 16, 2001)  
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

 The Situation (October 12, 2001)  
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

 
The Unknown (February 12, 2002)  
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

 
Happenings (February 28, 2003)  
You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.
 It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.
Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.
All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

 
Clarity (February 28, 2003)  
I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.
And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

 
Henny Penny (April 11, 2003)
 I picked up a newspaper today
and I couldn't believe it.
I read eight headlines that talked about
chaos, violence, unrest.
And it just was Henny Penny –
"The sky is falling."
I've never seen anything like it!
And here is a country that's being liberated,
here are people who are going
from being repressed
and held under the thumb
of a vicious dictator,
and they're free.
And all this newspaper could do,
with eight or 10 headlines,
they showed a man bleeding,
a civilian,
who they claimed we had shot –
one thing after another.
It's just unbelievable how people can
take that away from what is happening in that country!
 Q: Mr. Secretary, could I follow that up?
Sure!
(Laughter.)
I think it deserves a follow- up!
(More laughter.)
Let's go get that newspaper!
(Laughter.)

 
Inside And Outside The Tent (April 16, 2003)
What’s going to happen is,
as that happens,
they’ll have meetings.
And if you do something,
somebody’s not going to like it.
That’s certain in life.
It’s also true,
if you don’t do something,
somebody’s not going to like it.
But the fact is,
if you do do something
somebody’s not going to like it,
and that’s what happening.
So someone will come up and say something,
and something else,
as happens in democracies, in free systems,
somebody’s going to say,
“I don’t agree with that.”
And they’ll either say it from inside the tent
or outside the tent.