What's Behind the Straight Talk

The new French "firmness" begins with a terminological overhaul

writes André Glucksman.

It rejects euphemisms and linguistic taboos. If there is a risk of war, it should not be euphemized. Rather, it should be clearly stated and talked about, precisely to stop any escalation, before reaching the "catastrophic alternative."

… Essentially, Kouchner has invited the Europeans to go beyond Moscow's stalling maneuvers at the UN, if necessary. It is said that when the wise man points to the moon, imbeciles only see his finger. When Kouchner talks about "war," many Europeans feel that it is a dirty word fired like a handgun into the subdued atmosphere of respectful negotiations.

Speaking of "the implacable strategy of the scorched population", Glucksman goes on to point out that

We think we know what we are talking about when we speak of "insurgents" and "Iraqization," but we err.

The Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon, the resistance against Hitler and the anti-colonial insurgencies were first and foremost directed against a foreign army, secondly against "collaborators" and lastly and only sporadically against the people in order to mobilize them by intimidation.

In Iraq, the order of the targets is inversed. American troops are no longer the priority targets. The Americans lost 3,700 of their own in four years. During each of the "hot months" though, over 3,000 Iraqis lost their lives, mainly women and children, blown to pieces not by Americans but by the so-called insurgents. The Americans' frustration is due to the fact that they are facing an adversary who can kill as many of their own as they like, indefinitely, true to the motto "the more of our own we kill, the more you loose."

…Today, homicidal and suicidal bombers are creating the implacable strategy of the scorched population. This is neither a resistance against an invader nor even a civil war, but, more diabolically, a war against the civilian population.

None of this moves the Iranian mullahs, who, through the "moderate" former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have declared themselves willing to sacrifice 15 million of their own for the theological glory of eradicating the Zionist entity, the necessary sine qua non for the universal hunting down of all crusaders and infidels.

The sacrifice of one's own and oneself, the systematic self destruction of a whole people, are not a new and unknown pathology in history. However, none of these butchers, in their fury, had our modern nuclear toys at their disposal.

To recognize this reality is to recognize why Kouchner was right to talk of war.