September 11, 2001 ruptures

The World Trade Center towers on fire after the impact of AA11 and UA175 flights.

September 11,2001 is a major event of the beginning of the 21st century, thought in a logic of absolute rupture to the point that the 11/09 or 9/11 in English can be qualified as an event consecrating the end of the 20th century or an event consecrating the beginning of the 21st century.

« The tragedy of 11 September marks the end of a period that began in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Empire. We already knew that our traditional enemies had become partners and our allies had become fierce competitors. We have entered the era of terrorist and criminal warfare brutally. »

— Daniel Martin, Special Adviser to the OECD Executive Director.

These are words that suggest the closing of a parenthesis, namely the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 11 September as a period of imagination of a new international era and suddenly there is the discovery that the 19th century is not going to be the expected century of peace and perhaps even a century of war to come.

Continuities of the 11/09

World Trade Center as target

World Trade Center, New York City - aerial view (March 2001)

The Twin Towers have been a potential target since the 1980s, because the challenge is to destroy the very places of American power. There is a symbolic dimension of strong destruction, because the Wolrd Trade Center is the heart of global capitalism and international affairs.

Throughout the history of Manhattan's construction, the architectural history of Manhattan is that of the man who will always build the most. The Twin Towers meant the triumphalism of the American liberal economic model. It is an iconic image with a sum of representations conveyed.

The first attack took place on 26 February 1993, when a truck loaded with 680 kg of nitrate explosive disintegrated in an underground car park in the North Tower, killing six people and wounding 1042. The extension of the damage, a 30 x 60 metre crater across 5 basement levels, and the uncertainty about the damage to the central load-bearing columns (but only one was slightly affected) meant that the two towers remained closed for several months. According to the architect of the World Trade Center, the tower would have collapsed if the truck had been placed closer to the foundations. Six Islamic extremists, including Ramzi Yousef, were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Nidal Ayyad, an Islamist activist, proclaimed at his 1993 trial in the United States that "the World Trade Center will continue to be one of our targets in the United States if our demands are not met.

Ramzi Yousef sent a letter to the New York Times after the bombing that expressed his motive:

"We are, the fifth battalion in the Liberation Army, declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.

   Our Demands Are:

   1 – Stop all military, economical, and political aid to Israel.

   2 – All diplomatic relations with Israel must stop.

   3 – Not to interfere with any of the Middle East countries interior affairs.

If our demands are not met, all of our functional groups in the army will continue to execute our missions against the military and civilian targets in and out the United States. For your own information, our army has more than hundred and fifty suicidal soldiers ready to go ahead. The terrorism that Israel practices (which is supported by America) must be faced with a similar one. The dictatorship and terrorism (also supported by America) that some countries are practicing against their own people must also be faced with terrorism.

The American people must know that their civilians who got killed are not better than those who are getting killed by the American weapons and support.

The American people are responsible for the actions of their government and they must question all of the crimes that their government is committing against other people. Or they — Americans — will be the targets of our operations that could diminish them."

Airliner attacks

The use of civil aircraft to destroy is already recorded. The best-known case is a 1995 project by Ramzi Youssef, who designed the first attack on the World Trade Center with the aim of exploding 11 American airlines' airliners linking Asia and California. The expected number of victims was 4,000 in 48 hours.

The use of knives to hijack airliners was already known by the Japanese Red Army with swords.

Avion détourné Paris-Alger, intervention GIGN. Décembre 1994. - © Thierry Orban/CORBIS SYGMA/Thierry Orban

Using a civil aircraft to destroy civilian populations was implemented in December 1994 with GIA mujaheddin who hijacked an Air France Airbus in Algiers. They are neutralized in Marseille by the GIGN Objectif. Their idea was to blow up the plane over the capital or throw it onto a symbolic monument.

The diagnosis is that the attacks of 11/09 do not differ in any way from all forms of terrorism analysed in the course of history. They are rooted in a well-known geopolitics and geostrategy of the end of the Cold War. Although they have revealed to the general public the existence of Al Qaida Al Sulbah, in no way have they historically created it.

The major contribution of the events of 11 September is the revelation of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda existed prior to 11 September, but it is a tragic event that suddenly raises the power of an organization when the whole history of terrorism was the thought of an overall violence of low intensity, giving rise to an inversion.

The breakdowns of 09/11

The "asymmetrical war"

The attacks of 09/11 took place in an extremely short period of time. Between the initial impact on the North Tower and its collapse it takes 2 hours. 08.

Boeing 767 d'American Airlines similaire à l'un des quatre avions détournés.

Four airliners are being hijacked simultaneously by 19 commando members:

• 0800 hours 46: American Airlines hijacked Boeing 767 Flight 11 struck the upper section of the North Tower of the WTC. Bursting between the 93rd and 99th floors, the kerosene explosion ignited several lower floors, including the West Street lobby.
• 0903: The hijacked Boeing 767, United Airlines flight 175, is encased between 77th and 85th floors of the South Tower. Fifteen minutes later, a thick, smothering smoke reaches the 90th floor and the upper floors.
• 0937 hours: American Airlines' Boeing 757 on hijacked Flight 77 crashed on the west wall of the Pentagon in Washington D. C. The full evacuation order for the impact zone was given at 9:55 a. m., three minutes later the building collapsed.
• 0958 am: The South Tower of the WTC collapses in ten seconds causing the instantaneous death of all employees and rescue personnel inside.
• 1000: A United Airlines Boeing 757 crashes near the town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, following the passengers' intervention against the terrorist commando.
• 1028: The North Tower also collapses. The official number of people killed in the World Trade Center is 2985:265 passengers of the four hijacked planes, 125 civilians and military personnel at the Pentagon, 343 firefighters in New York, 23 police officers. The remainder are mainly employees and visitors in the towers. In total, it is the representatives of more than 62 nationalities who are killed in a rigorously planned terrorist action.

Time is extremely short with a contraction of history. Something emerges in the unthinkable with the attempt to understand the clash of political issues. Fiction becomes reality. This is very important to understand the American society that truly functions on the image making the iconic image and having sacredized it so that the virtual has a dimension of reality. In America, Jean Baudrillard shows that American society is a society that works a lot on image.

The concept of world-events

The events of September 11 cannot be understood without reference to the media effects. It's an absolute media event because we have the first amateur images. These are images that are captured and will be broadcast immediately causing fear. The first images of the amateurs show the embedding of the planes in the towers and are broadcast with a very slight delay on all the television channels. The media at the scene grabbed the first survivors standing at the foot of the towers and the movements and calls of the arms of all those who found themselves blocked by fire on the floors.

Even more so than in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, one of the first truly high-profile terrorist events, it is the spectacle of live death that frightens the viewer. The panic effect goes beyond rationality.

In the minutes that follow, it is the near collapse of the two towers that bears witness to the irremediable death of thousands of victims trapped in the ruins, while the cameras also film the desperate escape of passers-by in the adjacent streets. Death becomes a spectacle with all the tragedy and pathos.

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  Carmen Taylor - DR]

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Media coverage of the attacks immediately boosted their status as a global event

{{#ev:youtube|OK6qQmFsuhI|250|right}} The event is observable without a soundtrack or rather with background noise with clearly audible pleas, screams and cries. Before, the feelings of rebellion and injustice are marked by incomprehension, fear, stupor and terror. The form of denial of "I can't believe it" is first and foremost the most obvious expression of New Yorkers, but also helpless viewers in front of their television sets.

It's a full-scale disaster movie. The event is in line with the culture of the disaster films of Hollywood productions, irresistibly evoking fiction in that it transcends reality and our imagination. The "This is bigger than life" reflects the real nightmare that everyone has to face and tame in order to continue living.

The journalistic and television procedure is that of looping. Repetition makes the icon. Iconic images have social functions that are not only complacent, but can be subversive. Continuously and obsessively looped through, these images directly refer to other iconic images of the tragic history of the American nation that, as they only refer to pure emotion.

The images recall those of the attempt to escape by air of the last Vietnamese men hoisted on the roof of the American embassy when the Vietminh entered Saigon, those of the naked girl burned with napalm running away from the fighting zone, or those of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy also broadcast compulsively on the channels. The entrance of the two planes into the facades and the immense explosions and debris flights that followed are reminiscent of the movement image on the presidential limousine.

The individual crushed by the weight of the event

The abrupt onset of death without any obvious explanation crushes each one of its own evidence and makes more bitter the sensation to use Albert Camus' expression of "the absurdity of human existence". The event is incomprehensible at the moment without meaning. There is no one who can explain that on the one hand it is terrorism and on the other hand it is the work of Al Qaeda. The events of 11/09 to quote Baudrillard refer to "the absolute event, the mother of events, to the pure event that concentrates in it, all the events that never took place".

The dramaturgy of the event has become stronger over time as the coverage has been unprecedented, evacuating all other news from the news, occupying CNN's entire media space in a kind of visual pornography that exerts a sort of morbid fascination with images that never lose their fulgurance, emotion or violence. For many months, the written press remained in unison with television in dealing with the events of 11/09.

Once the event cannot be understood, it cannot be processed. In the towers, the call center was not able to manage the event. The event in its cover has such a tragic dimension that it has a traumatic dimension.

The deconstruction of the concept of terrorism

The first feelings of horror were exacerbated by the heart-wrenching revisions that the attacks of 11 September caused on the spot in the field of the usual perception of terrorism and the terrorist act at the end of the twentieth century.

Basically, there will be a deconstruction of the concept of terrorism. The first loss of meaning is the comfortable question of terrorism as an "act of civilized barbarity". There's the concept of innocence. In a bin Laden fatwa, there are no innocent people. Elementary representations of terrorism first commonly support the assumption that victims are never really chosen at random. In the righteous, Albert Camus describes a terrorism that has authority and seeks to spare the innocent.

Through some of its targeted and spectacular actions, the modus operandi of international terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s reinforced this interpretation. The assassination of an anti-terrorist judge, police officer, bodyguard, boss or high-ranking official refers to the notion of an elite and a sphere at the top of the social hierarchy holding the norms and values of legitimate violence.

Terrorism is then referred back to a class relationship from which one is excluded and distanced by belonging to the middle class. According to the very circumstances and ideological claims of terrorist groups, any commonality with terrorists, however small their religion, social and cultural origins, as well as the sharing of part of their analyses until they express empathy towards them, contributes to a logic of the psyche to a feeling of estrangement from the threat.

If terrorism is selective, terrorism itself is seen as empathic. Each individual can see acts of violence, but without sympathy there is a detachment. Once terrorism is no longer selective, the individual is directly concerned.

Terrorism: A Traditional Affair of "Optimism Bias"

In the areas of threat, risk and disaster, individuals confronted with terrorism use a "bias of optimism". We are in technological societies, the "optimistic bias" is that the individual has to deal with situations in which he or she does not have managerial competence. Optimistic bias is to trust in a situation that is delegated to ensure a bias that allows things to be done. This guarantees them the means to act in objective situations of anguish and fear and to build their existence more generally in all affective tranquillity and psychological security.

These basic representations of terrorism suggest that everyone has intellectual capacities to control and avoid any situation that is so dangerous as to allow them to escape all forms of terrorist violence.

This initial representation justifies the second, which consists in believing that the terrorists themselves incorporate, paradoxically, a sort of code of honour: like the Mafia, he would urge them not to go beyond certain limits and to ban certain forms of violence, as do the bandits on the main roads who protect widows, the elderly and orphans in Épinal's books. Common definitions of terrorism in the 1970s implicitly inferred this imagination from common definitions of terrorism.

They situate the terrorist act on the side of pure rationality linked to accumulated psychological, economic, political and cultural frustrations. Any terrorism that adopts a touch of value and honour places terrorism on the side of rationality. The "terrorist act" would not imply any nihilism. It would be part of a reasoned management of the act of destruction. Even if the terrorist risks death, it is not an end in itself, because with his own death the capacity for nuisance and action disappears.

September 11 reverses this analysis. Individuals thought the act of violence to the end including death. Nihilism is extremely disturbing for the reassured vision of classical terrorism. Consecrated notions of "asymmetry" or "weak weapons" have reinforced this view of a limited ability to harm terrorist action as such.

09/11: Questioning all bias of optimism? The unthinkable terrorist violence in the city

The modern West, since Descartes, has made technology both the means of domesticating our immediate environment and the mode for mankind to act on matter and his universe in the name of his own skill and intelligence. The image of the city that the Cold War left to our collective unconscious until 9/11 is that of a territory secured by a no-man's-land of barbed wire, minefields and missiles.

Public opinion in Western countries has been characterized by a refoulement of the city as a specific territory of strategic threats. The feeling of belonging to a protected world because it is civilized has justified in public opinion the relegation of terrorism to the status of epiphenomenon, described as the ransom necessary and obliged to modernity.

The American territory by means of anti-terrorist arrangements could only be lived as an island particularly protected from any major terrorist act. In the United States, the feeling of collective security was all the stronger since the United Kingdom's intervention in Washington in 1812, when the Americans had never been directly affected on continental territory.

The end of the status of "innocence" in the face of an absolute threat

The 11 September attacks shattered all the representations that reassured us about our own destiny. For the philosopher Jacques Derrida, this is a "major event in history", for it is the first sign of absolute terror in which the modern world is projected by "anonymous, absolutely unpredictable and incalculable forces". We are now all projected into a world of insecurity as part of the deconstruction of the concept of terrorism.

11/09 comes from the deconstruction of the concept of terrorism claimed by the philosopher. The large number of victims seals the revision of the terrorist interpretation. The 11/09 reached far beyond Pearl Harbor, whose loss of life was three times less than that of Pearl Harbor.

Asymmetry of means is no longer the guarantee of limited damage. The notion of "weapons of the weak" is not contradictory to the notion of unlimited violence. Victims are no longer defined politically, they can be from all walks of life, all ages, all faiths and all walks of life.

Bin Laden, in his interview with ABC in May 1998, reminds us that he does not have to make a distinction between military and civilian as far as the Americans are concerned, since they are all targets. In Islam there is a ban on killing, especially Muslims. Calls by Bin Laden's lieutenants for Muslims to leave U. S. city centers to avoid Al-Qaida's retaliation added to the sense of permanent and global threat.

De nouveaux concepts stratégiques

The war on terror

The transformation of Al-Qaeda's political discourse and September 11 is a real rupture. The semantic study of the vocabulary now used bears witness to the earthquake of 11/09.

From the Offut airbase on which Air Force One landed, President George W. Bush sets the tone by launching the famous "We're at war" in his 15-hour press conference. The use of this term is very dangerous because war is regulated by treaties in a system of international relations, since it has been the privilege of nation-states since the Treaty of Westphalia. By saying "we are at war", George Bush will create a rupture between the vision of terrorism and war. It upgrades Bin Laden to the level of a military partner.

This statement blurs forever the theoretical distinction between war and terrorism. Since the 19th century, terrorism has always been defined as a substitute for war, but never as an act of war. War as opposed to terrorism exists, as Clausewitz meant, only in the relationship and adequacy between the political end[Der Zweck] and the goal of war[Das Ziel]. It is the continuation of diplomacy and politics by other means. It presupposes intervention in space within the time frame of conflict and post-war situations.

In legal terms, it is codified by the international law of war and the humanitarian law of the Geneva and Hague Conventions.

The emergence of a war discourse

12/09 George W. Bush states that "yesterday's deliberate and murderous attacks on our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war. Bush is shifting the boundaries between terrorism and war. It undermines both the usual definition of war and terrorism. George Bush will engage the nation-state against terrorism, locating terrorism as an international affair that enshrines Bin Laden as a military interlocutor.

The paradox is the basis of the terrorist act, which is a surprise attack without declaration of war on mainly civilian targets that become by force of words a military act in the form of declaration of war.

The use of the word "war" establishes Bin Laden as the adversary and paradoxically legitimizes Bin Laden's fight, even though it embodies the evil against the struggle for good that the American nation must engage in the war against terrorism. It's a redefinition of American war policy.

Bin Laden and Bush become two metonymies to refer to war indiscriminately. The "bin Laden strategy" therefore announces a military response.

This is confirmed by Secretary of State Colin Powell when he proclaimed as early as 13 September that "in some cases, war can be a military action, but it can also be an economic, political, diplomatic or financial one". September 11 reversed the geopolitical situation. The United States, which was in an imperial autistic vision, will suddenly become again an aggressive or proactive power in terms of international relations and also in terms of action. We'll reuse the very instruments of American power.

War exists only because it will stop. It is part of international relations. To wage war is to be aware of a certain form of force that will force the enemy to return to a certain form of diplomatic relations. What is important when starting a war is to be able to get out of the war. George Bush is going to erase the war line. The declaration of war will project him away from American territory.

A war discourse taken up in extenso by the media

The aggression described as the first "terrorist Pearl Harbor" of the 21st century allows the media to indicate that suicide bombings, by their scale of destruction, can no longer be described as terrorist acts, but as warlike acts. The famous "War on Terror" blooms at the bottom of CNN's screens.

For Edward W. Said, the absence of a willingness to differentiate by the vast majority of the public has justified indiscriminate patriotic mobilization. The media will incorporate George Bush's words, but without being able to challenge them.

In Germany, Jürgen Habermas was alarmed by the decision to declare war on terrorism, insofar as this gave him de facto political legitimacy. It expressed concern about the possible loss of legitimacy of democratic governments due to the struggle against an unknown adversary.

The attacks of 11 September forced us to rethink the concept of terrorism, which raises a paradox: they have facilitated its reconstruction, even though its redefinition is still questionable, since it seems to be determined by a set of certainties that deny the notion of the indetermining of the risk, which is in fact the very essence of terrorism. There is a refocusing of the issue of terrorism through war, which no longer requires the means to fight terrorism.

Une théorie du nouveau terrorisme

Le terrorisme international a définitivement disparu et nous serions entrés dans une nouvelle ère du terrorisme qui serait une ère globalisée parce que le discours de Al Qaeda est d’abord un discours d’une globalisation du terrorisme. Il y a un nouveau terrorisme qui nécessite des réponses militaires.

Le 11/09 a bousculé l’idée de la seule action groupusculaire circonscrite dans l’espace et dans le temps en raison de capacités limitées de nuisance et de l’enjeu territorial de la lutte à mener. Il s’agit d’interventions minutieusement préparées qui jouent du temps et de l’espace pour cibler des objectifs et frapper vigoureusement. L’asymétrie des moyens du terrorisme jusque-là vécue comme une faiblesse relève désormais de la force par sa capacité à déjouer par la ruse toutes les barrières dressées contre lui.

Les spécialistes du terrorisme ont consacré la notion de « Low Tech » par opposition au terrorisme « High Tech » pour caractériser le mode opératoire du 11/09. Le « Low Tech » recouvre également la « productivité » forte de ce type d’attentat à savoir un coût « d’investissement » faible en termes d’infrastructure et logistique, avoisinant les centaines de milliers de dollars pour un montant global de dommages estimé aujourd’hui à plus de sept milliards de dollars.

Un terrorisme qui se joue efficacement de la « société du spectacle »

Le situationnisme est un courant qui dit que le monde est entré dans une telle modernité qu’on ne peut le remettre en cause parce qu’on est rentré dans une société du spectacle.

Al-Qaida joue de l’impact médiatique que sa terreur occasionne. Il a une maitrise des médias très maitrisée. Al Qaeda va très vite comprendre l’importance des médias dans la diffusion de ses idées et la diffusion de la terreur. Cela va permettre de tenir les médias. La stratégie est celle d’une communication par les médias. Ben Laden est présenté comme un héros qui le relie à la dimension prophétique de Mahomet. Il y a l‘émergence d’un pouvoir symbolique qui se construit contre l’occident et l’impérialisme américain.

La médiatisation est fondée sur une opposition sémantique. Il n’y a pas de revendication immédiate de Al Qaeda le 11 septembre. Il y a un vide qui rend les choses encore plus terribles parce qu’on ne comprend pas et progressivement Al Qaeda entre en scène. Un important glissement stratégique s’opère au détriment de l’acte purement militaire au profit de la destruction de cibles à forte dimension symbolique. Tout ce qui est au niveau des représentations faites sens et symbole de l’occidentalisation comme processus technique, social, culturel et politique peut être élevés au rang de cible la ville est devenue une bastille à occuper ou à frapper dans son organisation et sa production.

De nouvelles modalités de lutte

Selon les confessions [non confirmées] d’un combattant d’Al-Qaida capturé en Afghanistan, le détournement d’un avion civil pour le précipiter sur un réacteur nucléaire avait déjà été envisagé. Cela va obliger les États occidentaux à réfléchir à de nouvelles modalités de sécurisation des transports aériens.

D’autre part, ma fabrication à partir de déchets radioactifs d’une « bombe radiologique » appelée encore « bombe sale » est jugée de l’ordre du possible par les experts du domaine. Al-Qaida a déjà tenté de se procurer des données techniques quant à la fabrication des armes nucléaires et des armes chimiques. De nouvelles menaces apparaissent.

Une nouvelle organisation de l’action terroriste

La menace traumatique est qu’une forme de terrorisme nouveau est en train d’émerger prenant une forme structurelle nouvelle. La redéfinition du terrorisme à l’heure d’Al-Qaida intègre les formes inédites que ce dernier a bâties dans l’organisation de la terreur.

Les réseaux de résistance constitués par les français sous l’occupation allemande ou encore ceux du FLN, pendant la « guerre d’Algérie », se présentaient sous forme d’organisations pyramidales, hiérarchisées fonctionnant sur un modèle centre-périphérie destiné à couvrir tous les territoires potentiels d’actions coup de poing et de conflits potentiels. L’identification des membres de chaque cellule et des contacts entre les groupements, obtenue le plus souvent par l’usage régulier de la torture, permettait de remonter jusqu’aux responsables. L’arrestation des chefs militaires et politiques était définie comme une priorité́ pour mieux décapiter l’ensemble d’un réseau subversif.

Il y a un mimétisme de la modernité d’aujourd’hui par le terrorisme d’aujourd’hui. Le multinational vont créer des cellules autonomes sur leur territoire. Un système pyramidal est un système trop lourd et trop peu efficace. La multinational fonctionne sur un modèle d’horizontalité voulant avoir un point qui comprenne comment cela fonctionne et ensuite est rendu automne chaque cellule productive pour être adaptée au territoire qu’elle exploite. Il faut autonomiser la structure qui va s’insérer et s’adapter aux conditions de développement. Le système d’horizontalité fait qu’il y une fonctionnement autonome.

Le réseau Al-Qaida, de dimension internationale, bien que comprenant un centre névralgique – celui de ses chefs politiques et militaires – existe d’abord par un système d’a-centralité que confère la structuration des différentes branches divisées pour chacune d’entre elles en cellules autonomes nommées « anqud » [grappes de raisin]. Les contacts entre cellules et supérieurs sont strictement limités au point que personne ne peut appréhender l’espace entier de son réseau et de ses ramifications.

C’est la même chose pour la structure d’Al Qaeda qui a été pensé comme une structure très actuelle puisque c’est un système qui n’est pas central. Derrière, il y a une autonomisation absolue des cellules. Al Qaeda va se vendre comme une marque. Une structure émet des ordres, mais en même tant n’a pas prétention à structurer un champ de violence verticale absolue. Lorsqu’un groupe terroriste veut faire un attentat, il suffit qu’il se revendique d’Al Qaeda pour que ce soit Al Qaeda. Dans la lutte contre Al Qaeda, des difficultés nouvelles apparaissent. Ce sont des potentialité de violence qui peuvent apparaitre dans n’importe quel contexte, n’importe où, et dans d’importe quelles conditions. Dans Al Qaeda, il y a une dimension moderne de la structure qui renvoie à notre société occidentale.

Les acquis stratégiques de la nébuleuse

The Triangulum Emission Garren Nebula NGC 604.

La structure d’Al Qaeda est une conception en forme de nébuleuse. Opter pour l’expression de « nébuleuse » plutôt que de celle de « réseau » à propos d’Al-Qaida rend compte de la complexité des systèmes d’action, de décision et de financement. Au-delà d’une doctrine très générale fixée sous la forme des fatwas et des appels incessants au jihad, il n’existe donc pas de véritable chaîne organique de responsabilités ou d’autorités pour agir.

L’initiative d’action demeure décentrée, autonomisée et entremêlée à la fois par les motivations supérieures des fatwas et des enjeux géostratégiques plus locaux et contextualisés. Il n’y a plus d’espace de responsabilité hiérarchisé. Les choses sont très complexes, ce n’est pas simplement une violence globalisée, mais il y a des revendications globales qui peuvent rencontrer le concept de globalisation ou qui peuvent s’opposer. Des mouvements extrêmement violents vont réfuter Al Qaeda parce qu’Al Qaeda peut être dangereux pour eux-mêmes.

Les attentats de Madrid montrent qu’on est dans un nouveau schéma. Il n’y a pas de relation directe entre espace et temps de l’action. La préparation d’un attentat peut mobiliser des énergies très éloignées du théâtre réel des opérations. « Les opérationnels » peuvent être sur place ou venir également d’un territoire étranger. L’absence de revendication immédiate des actes terroristes par le mouvement surajoute à cette sensation d’insécurité perçue par un adversaire plus caché et enfoui que directement visible, reconnu et même accrédité.

La guerre préemptive

Comme on entre dans la guerre, des concepts militaires vont se constituer engageant une nouvelle guerre moderne. Cela consiste à dire qu’il faut étudier le djihad international et faire la guerre au terrorisme dans les pays porteurs du terrorisme. Cela va permettre l’émergence des guerres préemptives.

Continuatrice de la guerre en Afghanistan, l’opération Anaconda lance en 2002 l’attaque d’Al-Qaida et des Talibans dans une vallée, sans toutefois atteindre Ben Laden.

Par l’importance des destructions matérielles et du nombre des victimes, les attentats du 11/09 ont défié les représentations conventionnelles de l’action terroriste. Le combat présent du nouveau terrorisme comme celui des antiterroristes se décrit plus comme celui d’une véritable guerre moderne. Pour la puissance américaine, le combat sans merci à promouvoir contre les réseaux d’un jihad internationalisé justifie la lutte contre les bases arrières installées dans des États accommodants. Cela va permettre de redéfinir une géopolitique au Moyen-Orient pour contenir les Rogue State et les faire tomber.

La guerre contre le terrorisme peut s’appliquer contre des États soutenant le terrorisme, mais également contre ceux détenant des armes de destruction massive ou susceptible de transférer tout ou une partie de ces moyens à des groupuscules terroristes. La guerre préemptive est profondément ancrée dans l’idéologie individualiste et libertarienne de la démocratie américaine. C’est l’idée selon laquelle l’action préalable relève de la légitime défense en matière de conflit potentiel, marque l’histoire de la première puissance mondiale.

Le concept la légitime défense est posée comme un droit moral qui reposerait tout autant sur la défense des droits de l’homme que sur l’efficacité sociale et culturelle du modèle démocratique. Apparaît le concept de la capacité à intervenir qui appliquée à l’encontre des guerres de subversion ou de rébellion, elle a permis de justifier l’usage de la force militaire sur bien des continents, dans bien des aires régionales comme l’Amérique centrale, le Sud-Est asiatique ou encore l’Afrique centrale. Le bombardement des villes Libyennes en 1986 par les forces américaines a souligné la permanence de cette vision de la guerre préemptive. L’après 11/09 s’ouvre comme une ère de renouvellement de ce principe de guerre conforté par la suprématie militaire de l’hyperpuissance des États-Unis.

L’application de la guerre préemptive après le 11 septembre

Le contentieux avec l’Irak a offert au gouvernement américain, l’opportunité de consacrer la notion d’État-voyou, [Rogue States], soit une nation hors la loi qui par sa politique intérieure comme extérieure représente une réelle menace pour ses voisins et le reste du monde. Dans le cadre de la première guerre du golf, il s’agit de contraindre Saddam Hussein. Avec la deuxième guerre du golf, on décide de faire tomber le régime. La dénonciation d’armes de destructions massives comme les liens affirmés entre le régime baasiste de Saddam Hussein et le terrorisme international ont été les arguments utilisés pour justifier l’usage de la force militaire dans une guerre préemptive de légitime défense.

Le schéma de l’action diplomatique est inversé. Elle n’est plus un préalable nécessaire pour la recherche des solutions pacifiques. D’autre part, le recours à la force relève pour les États-Unis de sa légitimité et ne saurait souffrir d’aucune contestation au niveau des relations diplomatiques multilatérales. Il n’y a pas de diplomatie.

Un état de guerre permanente

La question à se poser est celle de savoir si ne nous serions pas rentré, avec ce modèle qui consiste à dire que le terrorisme est une guerre, dans une guerre permanente. Les évolutions du terrorisme contemporain et les bouleversements de ses modes opératoires rapportés aux évolutions géostratégiques de l’hyperpuissance américaine permettent de comprendre l’état de guerre permanent dans lequel le monde est aujourd’hui entré.

Du statut de l’exception la guerre antisubversive se perçoit comme un phénomène banal, ou pour le dire autrement s’apparente à un risque ordinaire de la modernité telle que le définit le sociologue Antony Giddens. Ce qui était exceptionnel devient de l’ordre de la normalité.

La notion de guerre post-moderne

Certains auteurs ont théorisé le concept de guerre post-moderne. Elle est moderne dans le sens que c’est un état de guerre qui s’efforce de rendre compte de ce changement de paradigme qui rassemble dans une même catégorie de pensée, d’une part, guerre et terrorisme ; et de l’autre « pacification démocratique » et redéploiement géoéconomiques. Ce sont des guerres paradoxales conduites au nom des droits de l’homme se présentant sous l’aspect d’un conflit éclair destiné à épargner les populations civiles et limiter les pertes humaines militaires.

La première guerre préemptive depuis les attentats du 11/09 est le conflit irakien qui confirme les évolutions opérées par la guerre post-moderne. La destruction systématique des réseaux de communication et des infrastructures techniques qui est un préalable obligé avant toute avancée des forces terrestres. C’est une guerre technologique qui consiste à détruire le système informationnel de l’ennemi. La « désorganisation du territoire » a pour objet de « fixer » l’adversaire sur des positions défensives pour mieux faciliter l’avancée rapide des troupes au sol. Cependant, les succès stratégiques immédiats ne peuvent masquer l’échec politique de l’entreprise. Depuis l’établissement de la pax americana, jamais la solution démocratique n’a semblé aussi éloignée. L’Irak est le théâtre d’un ensemble de guérillas qui revendiquent le pouvoir et dénoncent l’absence de légitimité des instances publiques et administrations mises en place par la coalition. Avec le temps, les troupes de libération sont perçues comme des troupes d’occupation.

L’usage de la force dans le cadre de la guerre préemptive a affaibli les règles internationales et diplomatiques instituées depuis la création de l’ONU. L’abandon des règles de gouvernance mondiale mises en œuvre dans le cadre du Conseil de Sécurité a ouvert la voie à la multiplication de conflits. Il y a un dispositif généralement d’affaiblissement des instruments de la gouvernance mondiale qui est inquiétant. Le premier XXIème siècle est le temps des guerres durables. Depuis le 11 septembre, nous vivons avec l’étrange sensation qu’il n’existe plus de véritable sanctuaire à l’abri de la barbarie humaine.

Annexes

• Weinstein, N. (1989) Optimistic biases about personal risks. Science. [Online] 246 (4935), 1232–1233.
• Weinstein, N. D. (1980) Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. [Online] 39 (5), 806–820.

Bibliographie

• Gilbert Achcar, Le choc des barbaries. Terrorismes et désordre mondial, Bruxelle, 2002
• Pascal Boniface, Les leçons du 11 septembre, Paris, Puf, 2001
• Jacques Derrida et Jürgen Habermas, Le « concept » du 11 septembre, Paris, Galilée, 2003
• Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New-York, The Free Press, 1992
• Eric de La Maisonneuve, Jean Guellec (coordonné par), Un monde à repenser, 11 septembre 2001, Paris, Economica, 2001
• Sous La direction de Sylvie Kaufmann), 11 septembre un an après, L’aube, Le Monde ;
• Bernard Lewis, Que s’est-il passé ? , Paris, Gallimard, 2002
• Bernard Lewis, L’Islam en crise, Paris, Gallimard, 2003
• Olivier Roy, L’échec de l’Islam politique, Paris, Seuil, 1992 ; L’Islam mondialisé, Paris, Seuil, 2002 ;
• « Le terrorisme entre stratégie, psychiatrie et mise en scène », Critique, avril 2004.

Lectures

• Empire of Freedom or Imperial Republic (1890 - 1939)?