Churchill/50e: Obama enterre la relation particulière (No special relationship please, we’re Americans)

Nous exprimerons notre appréciation profonde de la foi musulmane qui a tant fait au long des siècles pour améliorer le monde, y compris mon propre pays. Barack Hussein Obama (Ankara, avril 2009)

Combien effrayantes sont les malédictions que le mahométanisme fait reposer sur ses fidèles ! Outre la frénésie fanatique, qui est aussi dangereuse pour l’homme que la peur de l’eau pour le chien, on y trouve une terrible apathie fataliste. Les effets sont patents dans certains pays. Habitudes imprévoyantes, systèmes agricoles aberrants, lenteur des méthodes commerciales, et insécurité de la propriété se retrouvent partout ou les adeptes du Prophète gouvernent ou vivent. Un sensualisme avilissant dépouille la vie de sa grâce et de sa distinction, ensuite de sa dignité et de sa sainteté. Le fait que dans la loi mahométane toute femme, qu’elle soit enfant, épouse ou concubine doive appartenir à un homme comme son entière propriété, ne fait que repousser l’extinction totale de l’esclavage au jour où l’Islam aura cessé d’être un pouvoir important parmi les hommes. Certains musulmans peuvent montrer de splendides qualités, mais l’influence de la religion paralyse le développement social de ceux qui la suivent. Aucune force aussi rétrograde n’existe dans le monde. Loin d’être moribond le mahométanisme est une foi militante et prosélyte. Il s’est déjà répandu partout en Afrique centrale, attirant de courageux guerriers pour chaque avancée et partout où la chrétienté n’est pas protégée par les armes puissantes de la science, science contre laquelle elle a vainement luttée, la civilisation de l’Europe moderne peut s’écrouler, comme s’est écroulée la civilisation de la Rome antique. Winston Churchill (La Guerre du fleuve, 1899)

Cette religion, qui plus que toute autre a été fondée et propagée par l’épée et dont la doctrine et les principes sont l’instinct avec des incitations au massacre qui ont produit sur trois continents des races de guerriers, stimule un fanatisme sauvage et impitoyable. L’amour du pillage, caractéristique encore des tribus des collines, est favorisée par le spectacle de l’opulence et de luxe qu’affichent à leurs yeux les villes et les plaines du sud. Un code d’honneur non moins pointilleux que celui de la vieille Espagne est soutenu par des vendettas aussi implacables que celles de la Corse. … En effet, il est évident que le christianisme, aussi dégradé et déformé soit-il par la cruauté et l’intolérance, doit toujours exercer une influence modificatrice sur les passions des hommes, et les protéger contre les formes les plus violentes de la fièvre fanatique, comme nous sommes protégés contre la variole par la vaccination. Mais la religion mahométane augmente, au lieu de la diminuer, la fureur de l’intolérance. Elle a été initialement propagée par l’épée, et depuis ses sectateurs sont sujets, au-dessus de tous les peuples de toutes les autres croyances, à cette forme de folie. Le christianisme (et aussi le judaïsme) est propice à la civilisation de l’humanité, ce qui signifie la reconnaissance publique des droits naturels égaux de tous les êtres humains. Il modère les passions de l’homme et augmente la propension à la tolérance, ce que ne fait pas l’islam.  Churchill (La Guerre du Malakand)

Nous ne devrions pas abandonner notre relation spéciale avec les États-Unis et le Canada au sujet de la bombe atomique. Churchill (Chambre des communes, 7 novembre 1945)

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated or starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle until, in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forward to the rescue and liberation of the old. Churchill

This morning we discussed suicide if Hitler lands. Jews beaten up. What point in waiting? Virginia Woolf (May 15, 1940)

We are in danger of war today, not because European people have attempted to interfere in America, but because we American people have attempted to interfere in the internal affairs of Europe. Charles Lindbergh (May 1940)

This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing. If you persist it will only result in greater bloodshed. Hitler is not a bad man. Mahatma Gandhi (letter to the British Viceroy of India, 1940)

Even repeated by the announcer it sent shivers (not of fear) down my spine. I think one of the reasons why one is stirred by his Elizabethan phrases is that one feels the whole massive backing of power and resolve behind them, like a great fortress; they are never words for words’ sake. Vita Sackville-West

 If only I could dine with Stalin once a week, there would be no trouble at all. Churchill

A single glass of champagne imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The nerves are braced: the imagination is agreeably stirred; the wits become more nimble. A bottle produces the opposite effect. Churchill

Claiming a preference for plain food was used by Churchill and his contemporaries to wrap themselves in the flag, to assure themselves that no matter how high their station, they had not abandoned their muscular Britishness for the more effete tastes of continental Europe. No drippy French sauces for a true Englishman. Cita Stelzer

There is a grotesque stereotype that he was a buoyant and bellicose man who had simply found his time. What really differentiated him from the pragmatic foreign secretary, from the hero-aviator, from the ambivalent philosopher, and from the Indian apostle of nonresistance, was that Churchill’s moral judgment of evil was more acute and implacable than theirs. He himself, in his history of the war, called the final result « Triumph and Tragedy. » But what we of the generation who participated in it called it at the time, and since, was Victory. Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, he removed from the White House a bust of Winston Churchill. It has been speculated that this might have been done because the president was offended by an opinion rendered by Churchill in 1899 during his early career as a British officer in the Middle East. He then wrote: « Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exits in the world. » It seems probable that the next president will restore the Churchill bust to the Oval Office. An even better outcome would be for some publicly minded person or group, with the concurrence of the responsible authorities, to place a statue of Churchill on or near Capitol Hill in Washington, together with the text of his July 1943 speech to the House of Commons. Richard W. Jencks

La Grande-Bretagne est l’un de nos alliés les plus proches, les plus fermes, et la relation, le lien qui existe ne se rompra pas. Barack Obama (visite de Gordon Brown, mars 2009)

On m’a dit que les trois orateurs qui se sont exprimés ici sont le pape, sa Majesté la reine, et Nelson Mandela, ce qui est soit une histoire difficile à suivre, soit le début d’une blague très drôle. (…) En tant que nations, historiquement, les plus puissantes au monde, on doit se rappeler que notre influence ne puise ni dans le poids de notre économie, ni dans notre capacité militaire, ni dans la terre qu’on a acquise, mais dans les valeurs, que nous devons toujours défendre à travers le monde sans faiblir. Barack Obama (visite d’Etat à Londres, mai 2011)

Obama est le premier président américain élevé sans attaches culturelles, affectives ou intellectuelles avec la Grande-Bretagne ou l’Europe. Les Anglais et les Européens ont été tellement enchantés par le premier président américain noir qu’ils n’ont pu voir ce qu’il est vraiment: le premier président américain du Tiers-Monde. The Daily Mail

Culturellement, Obama déteste la Grande-Bretagne. Il a renvoyé le buste de Churchill sans la moindre feuille de vigne d’une excuse. Il a insulté la Reine et le Premier ministre en leur offrant les plus insignifiants des cadeaux. A un moment, il a même refusé de rencontrer le Premier ministre. Dr James Lucier (ancien directeur du comité des Affaire étrangères du sénat américain)

There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment. Haut responsable du State Department

We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people. Obama (2011)

We have no greater partner than France, we have no greater ally than France. Janet Napolitano (november 2012)

Vous aves dit relation particulière?

Renvoi sans cérémonie et dès son installation du buste de Churchill du Bureau ovale, cadeaux aussi insignifiants qu’insultants à la Reine et au Premier ministre britanniques (baladeur rempli de ses propres oeuvres, assortiment de 25 DVD, de Toy story à The wizard of Oz,  illisibles au Royaume Uni), remarques désobligeantes d’un haut responsable du State Department, attribution du titre d’allié le plus fort à la France, soutien appuyé – au mépris du récent vote pro-britannique des plus de 99% de ses résidents – de l’Argentine sur le dossier des Malouines, sermonnage de l’Angleterre pour sa position sur l’Europe, utilisation d’un diner d’Etat avec le premier ministre britannique pour remercier les 40 plus gros donateurs de sa campagne, snobage de l’enterrement de Margaret Thatcher, tentatives d’alliés du président au Sénat pour bloquer une résolution en l’honneur de la Dame de fer  …

En ce 50e anniversaire de l’attribution, par le président Kennedy, du titre de citoyen d’honneur des États-Unis d’Amérique à Winston Churchill que certains Américains souhaiteraient honorer par une statue du grand homme sur Capitol Hill …

Alors que la Banque d’Angleterre annonce la création d’un nouveau billet à l’effigie du héros de la lutte contre le nazisme …

Comment ne pas repenser outre sa légendaire attraction pour tout ce que la planète peut compter de tyrans ou de notoires anti-américains et malgré ses dénégations …

A cette étrange mais si progressiste aversion (pour sa lucidité quasi-prophétique concernant la religion de ses pères?) du plus anti-churchillien des présidents américains pour son premier et historique allié ?

Barack Obama’s top ten insults against Britain – 2013 edition

Nile Gardiner

May 13th, 2013

For the past three years I have published a list of Barack Obama’s biggest insults (including those of his administration) against America’s foremost ally, Great Britain, during his time in office. Here is an updated list to accompany President Obama’s meeting with David Cameron at the White House today. The major additions this year are the snubbing of Lady Thatcher’s funeral by the Obama administration, as well as attempts by senior allies of President Obama in the Senate to hold up a resolution honouring the Iron Lady. In addition, the Obama presidency has further entrenched its pro-Argentine position on the Falklands, and has also lectured Britain on its Europe policy, warning the UK against leaving the European Union, in a blatant attempt to influence an internal British public debate.

Since first taking office in 2009, the Obama presidency has displayed what can only be described as a sneering disdain and contempt for America’s most important ally, an approach which has continued into Obama’s second term. Barack Obama has been the most anti-British US president of modern times, even kicking off his first term with a decision to remove a bust of Sir Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and send it packing to the British Embassy. He followed this with a sustained campaign against Britain’s biggest company, with his press secretary Robert Gibbs threatening to put a “boot to the throat” of BP in the wake of the Gulf oil spill of 2010.

The Obama administration has also sided with Argentine president Cristina Kirchner in calling for UN-brokered negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, and flat out refuses to back the Falkland Islanders’ right to self-determination despite the recent referendum which showed that 99.8 percent of the inhabitants of the Falklands wish to remain a British Overseas Territory.

1. Siding with Argentina over the Falkland Islands

This has remained the top insult for four years running. For sheer offensiveness it’s hard to beat the Obama administration’s brazen support for Argentina’s call for negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands, despite the fact that 255 British servicemen laid down their lives to restore British rule over the Islands after they were brutally invaded in 1982. In a March 2010 press conference in Buenos Aires with President Cristina Kirchner, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Argentina a propaganda coup by emphatically backing the position of the Péronist regime.

In June 2011, Mrs. Clinton slapped Britain in the face again by signing on to an Organisation of American States (OAS) resolution calling for negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, a position which is completely unacceptable to Great Britain. To add insult to injury, the Obama administration has insisted on using the Argentine term “Malvinas” to describe the Islands in yet another sop to Buenos Aires. In 2012, against a backdrop of growing aggression by Argentina, including efforts to blockade international vessels fishing in Falkland waters, the Obama administration continued to undercut Britain, again supporting direct negotiations between Argentina and Britain, parroting Kirchner’s line.

In 2013, the Obama administration declined to formally recognise the result of the March Falklands referendum, reiterating its call for London and Buenos Aires to negotiate the sovereignty of the Islands – despite the fact that 99.8 percent of Falkland Islanders voted to remain a British Overseas Territory. At a press briefing following the referendum, a senior State Department official treated Britain and Argentina as equals with “competing claims” to the Falklands, and refused to support the Falkland Islanders’ right to self-determination. This is hugely insulting to Britain, not least at a time when 10,000 British troops are fighting alongside their American allies on the battlefields of Afghanistan.

2. Snubbing the funeral of Lady Thatcher

Incredibly, the Obama presidency declined to send a single serving official from Washington to attend the Iron Lady’s funeral in St. Paul’s Cathedral in April. While the United States was represented by former Secretaries of State George Schultz and James A. Baker III, the only American official present was Barbara Stephenson, charges d’affaires and acting ambassador at the US Embassy in London. To put this in context, the US sent a similar level of representation, in terms of serving officials, to attend the funeral in March of Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez.

To say this was a huge insult to the memory of the greatest peacetime prime minister of the 20th Century would be an understatement. It was an act of tremendous rudeness towards the British people, who turned out in large numbers to bid farewell to Lady Thatcher as her coffin was carried through central London on its way to St. Paul’s. Vice President Joe Biden usually represents the president at such occasions, but was a no-show despite receiving an invitation. Also absent were First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also nowhere to be seen.

3. Holding up a Senate Resolution honouring Lady Thatcher

Disgracefully, Senate Democrats – key Congressional allies of President Obama, representing his own party – held up a Senate resolution honouring the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher for several days, before it was finally passed unanimously the day before her funeral. Senior Democrats, led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, attempted to remove references in the resolution to the Falklands War and to IRA terrorism, but relented in the face of strong Republican condemnation. The White House remained silent on the matter. As Senate Republican leader, and sponsor of the resolution, Mitch McConnell remarked, “Margaret (Thatcher) was one of the most influential and revolutionary figures of the 20th Century, and failing to name her achievements would do her memory and her legacy a great disservice. It would be unheard of to commemorate Churchill for example and ignore his heroic role in steering his countrymen through the Battle of Britain, nor would we think of honoring Lincoln without mentioning the Civil War.”

4. Lecturing Britain against leaving the EU

The Obama administration has attempted to intervene on several occasions over the past few months on the issue of British membership of the European Union. In an interview with Adam Boulton on Sky News, outgoing US Ambassador to London, Louis Susman, made it clear that Washington is firmly opposed to Britain leaving the EU:

From our viewpoint it is something that won’t help us – not without speaking for the United Kingdom… We believe strongly it’s in America’s interests to have a strong EU – it’s the key to trading and to certain diplomatic matters and intelligence matters and military matters. And for our best ally not to be a strong voice there, not to be there, frankly we don’t think it’s in our interests.

Susman was echoing the remarks made by Philip Gordon, then US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, who declared that British membership of the EU is “in the American interest” and made clear his support for the EU speaking with “a single voice.” The comments naturally sparked outrage among Conservative MPs. Barack Obama himself has even phoned the British prime minister to express his view that a British EU exit would weaken US-British ties.

As I noted in a previous post on the US Ambassador’s intervention:

Susman’s remarks illustrate how the Obama presidency likes to pay lip service to the Special Relationship, while actively undercutting it on the European stage by backing ever-closer union in Europe, and the evolution of a federal EU. Obama administration officials parrot the language of the European Commission, as though their words were dictated by Jose Manuel Barroso or Herman Van Rompuy. It is a sad state of affairs when the world’s superpower effectively outsources its Europe policy to an unelected, unaccountable and anti-American entity in Belgium.

5. Throwing Churchill out of the Oval Office

It is hard to think of a more derogatory message to send to the British people within days of taking office than to fling a bust of Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office and send it packing back to the British Embassy – not least as it was a loaned gift from Britain to the United States as a powerful display of solidarity in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Obviously, public diplomacy is not a concept that carries much weight in the current White House, and nor apparently is common sense. Four years on, the Churchill bust incident continues to embarrass the Obama White House, and remains a sad symbol of this administration’s contempt for the Special Relationship as well as one of the greatest figures in British history.

6. Placing a “boot on the throat” of BP

The Obama administration’s relentless campaign against Britain’s largest company in the wake of the Gulf oil spill was one of the most damaging episodes in US-UK relations in recent years, with 64 percent of Britons agreeing at the time that the president’s handling of the issue had harmed the partnership between the two countries according to a YouGov poll. The White House’s aggressive trashing of BP, including a threat to put a “boot on the throat” of the oil giant, helped wipe tens of billions of pounds from its share value, directly impacting the pensions of millions of Britons. This led to a furious backlash in the British press, with even London mayor and long-time Obama admirer Boris Johnson demanding an end to “anti-British rhetoric, buck-passing and name-calling”.

7. Using a State Dinner for the British Prime Minister as a campaign event

In March 2012, the White House used an official state dinner for David Cameron to reward over 40 top Obama re-election campaign financiers with coveted seats at the taxpayer-funded banquet. Collectively, the campaign bundlers had raised more than $10 million for Obama’s 2012 presidential run. I wrote in a Telegraph piece on the day of the event:

A state dinner with the British PM should be a celebration of the US-UK Special Relationship, and not a reward ticket for hugely wealthy fundraisers who have given large sums of money to the president’s re-election campaign. David Cameron has been shamelessly used by a cynical White House that has cared little for the Anglo-American alliance in its first three years in office before rolling out the red carpet this week. It is disrespectful towards the leader of America’s closest friend and ally, as well as an abuse of presidential power.

8. DVDs for the Prime Minister

This insult has featured in all four editions, not least because it remains a powerful example of breathtaking diplomatic ineptitude that would have shamed the protocol office of an impoverished Third World country. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was treated extremely shabbily when he visited the White House in March 2009, and was sent home with an assortment of 25 DVDs ranging from Toy Story to The Wizard of Oz – which couldn’t even be played in the UK.

9. Insulting words from the State Department

The mocking views of a senior State Department official following Gordon Brown’s embarrassing reception at the White House in March 2009 says it all:

There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.

10. Calling France America’s strongest ally

In January 2011, President Obama held a joint press conference at the White House with his French counterpart, gushing with praise for Washington’s new-found Gallic friends, declaring: “We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people.” As I noted at the time:

Quite what the French have done to merit this kind of high praise from the US president is difficult to fathom, and if the White House means what it says this represents an extraordinary sea change in US foreign policy. Nicolas Sarkozy is a distinctly more pro-American president than any of his predecessors, and has been an important ally over issues such as Iran and the War on Terror. But to suggest that Paris and not London is Washington’s strongest partner is simply ludicrous.

These kinds of presidential statements matter. No US president in modern times has described France as America’s closest ally, and such a remark is not only factually wrong but also insulting to Britain, not least coming just a few years after the French famously knifed Washington in the back over the war in Iraq. In November 2012, Obama’s Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano repeated her president’s line, telling a French audience that “we have no greater partner than France, we have no greater ally than France.”

Voir aussi:

Why Capitol Hill Needs a Churchill Reminder

Richard W. Jencks

May 10, 2013

Winston Churchill was named prime minister of Great Britain on May 11, 1940, the day after the Germans, having conquered Eastern Europe, began their offensive in Western Europe. Holland fell on May 14, Belgium on the 26th.

As the month progresses the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, urges again and again that peace negotiations be opened with Hitler through the mediation of Mussolini. The Italian ambassador in London has made credible assurances that Hitler will offer reasonable peace terms to Britain.

President Roosevelt, on the other hand, shares Churchill’s view that surrender is unthinkable. FDR is deviously using his powers to evade the U.S. Neutrality Act and make war material available to Britain. But it is an election year, and a May 1940 Gallup poll shows that only 36% of Americans are willing to help England if doing so means a risk of war.

Meanwhile, Charles Lindbergh, an American hero, an aviation expert, the sensitive son of a pacifist father, sets the theme for an isolationist America: « We are in danger of war today, not because European people have attempted to interfere in America, but because we American people have attempted to interfere in the internal affairs of Europe. » Among the British population there is growing fear. In Sussex the novelist Virginia Woolf writes in her diary on May 15 after talking with her husband. « This morning we discussed suicide if Hitler lands. Jews beaten up. What point in waiting? » Leonard Woolf is a Jew.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell, who had been jailed in World War I for his pacifism by a government of which Churchill was a minister, is considering whether he should abandon those pacifist beliefs if Britain faces imminent invasion. He does not think that passive resistance would work against Hitler. These considerations do not prevent Russell from confiding to his philosophy students at the University of California in Los Angeles (this writer among them) that world peace, in the long run, will probably be better served by Hitler’s victory. World peace, Russell posits, cannot be had without world government. Over the long years ahead, he says, civilizing influences will operate to soften the bestial edges of Nazi rule.

Philosophy of sorts is at work elsewhere. In arms factories, members of England’s Communist Party are pursuing deliberate slowdown tactics on orders from Moscow. Stalin still believes that Hitler will adhere to the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact. (Stalin will hold that belief, against the advice of his own intelligence agents and Western emissaries, until Russia is attacked in June 1941.) In America, FDR is assailed by the Stalinist left as a war monger. In late May, Halifax urges a joint Anglo-French approach to Hitler through Italian mediation. On May 28, Churchill and his war cabinet consider the question for hours. The cabinet appears to be evenly divided until Clement Attlee breaks the deadlock. « Once any negotiations begin, » he says, « we should find it impossible to rally the morale of the people. »

On the second of June, Britain completes the evacuation of some 222,000 beaten British troops from Dunkirk, many by means of the private boats of British channel residents. Churchill had only dared hope for the rescue of 30,000.

But the defeat is palpable and news of it prompts that great moral preceptor, Mahatma Gandhi, to write to the British Viceroy of India: « This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing. If you persist it will only result in greater bloodshed. Hitler is not a bad man. »

On June 4, Churchill gives the House of Commons his historic accounting of Dunkirk, the status of the war, and the prospects for its conclusion. His peroration embraces the same sort of statement of resolve that Halifax had set down in his diary of the May 28 war-cabinet meeting as « the most frightful rot. »

The frightful rot was now represented by these words: « We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated or starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle until, in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forward to the rescue and liberation of the old. »

The next morning, Virginia Woolf’s old and close friend, Vita Sackville-West, writes to her husband, Harold Nicholson, about the speech: « Even repeated by the announcer it sent shivers (not of fear) down my spine. I think one of the reasons why one is stirred by his Elizabethan phrases is that one feels the whole massive backing of power and resolve behind them, like a great fortress; they are never words for words’ sake. »

Indeed, they were words intended to foreclose peace. Who can tell what that peace would have meant? Probably Hitler would have turned on Russia in 1940 and would have been victorious. There could have been no American foothold in Europe. Hitler’s death camps would have had to be greatly expanded.

Africa, the Middle East with its oil, and the road to India would have been Hitler’s for the taking. Japan would have accelerated her move into Southeast Asia. America, in her isolation, would be at peace—for how long, no one could know.

Hitler, for a while, did not give up his hopes. After ordering his generals to prepare for the invasion of Britain he convened the Reichstag on July 19 to warn Britain of « unending suffering and misery » if she did not accept his peace terms. Later that summer, along with Hitler’s bombs, came leaflets showered on southern England, reiterating those terms.

It was much too late. Churchill had made a negotiated peace impossible.

There is a grotesque stereotype that he was a buoyant and bellicose man who had simply found his time. What really differentiated him from the pragmatic foreign secretary, from the hero-aviator, from the ambivalent philosopher, and from the Indian apostle of nonresistance, was that Churchill’s moral judgment of evil was more acute and implacable than theirs. He himself, in his history of the war, called the final result « Triumph and Tragedy. » But what we of the generation who participated in it called it at the time, and since, was Victory.

Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, he removed from the White House a bust of Winston Churchill. It has been speculated that this might have been done because the president was offended by an opinion rendered by Churchill in 1899 during his early career as a British officer in the Middle East. He then wrote: « Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exits in the world. »

It seems probable that the next president will restore the Churchill bust to the Oval Office. An even better outcome would be for some publicly minded person or group, with the concurrence of the responsible authorities, to place a statue of Churchill on or near Capitol Hill in Washington, together with the text of his July 1943 speech to the House of Commons.

England has long recognized great Americans with public statues, beginning with the statue of Abraham Lincoln just outside Parliament Square. Closely following World War II, England honored President Roosevelt with public statues, one in Grosvenor Square and one of FDR with Churchill, seen sitting and talking together, on a bench in Mayfair.

This spring marks the 50th anniversary of a White House ceremony when President Kennedy granted honorary U.S. citizenship to Winston Churchill, the son of an American mother. It is a propitious time to bestow another honor on him.

Mr. Jencks is a former president of the CBS Broadcast Group.

Voir enfin:

Avant-propos

Agnès Alexandre-Collier

En prononçant les deux mots, «special relationship», la toute première fois à la Chambre des communes le 7 novembre 1945, Winston Churchill aurait-il pu prévoir que cette expression ferait couler autant d’encre ? Cette formule énigmatique, du moins elliptique, parvenait-elle réellement à exprimer toute la complexité et la subtilité des liens tissés entre le Royaume-Uni et les États-Unis, unis par une histoire, une langue, et, dans une certaine mesure, une culture communes ? Le prestigieux leader, qui a toujours su manier le verbe avec habileté, n’a jamais manqué d’occasions, après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, pour présenter sa vision d’un monde à reconstruire, au sein duquel la Grande-Bretagne devait trouver sa place. C’est ainsi que la diplomatie britannique d’après-guerre a été dominée par l’image – popularisée par Churchill lui-même – des trois « cercles », à l’intersection desquels se situerait la Grande-Bretagne : celui qui englobe la Grande-Bretagne et son Commonwealth, celui qui relie la Grande-Bretagne à l’Europe continentale, et enfin, celui qui entoure les États-Unis et la Grande-Bretagne .

À la lumière de la rhétorique churchillienne, on comprend

donc que la Grande-Bretagne, alors au proie à un dilemme, n’ait pu

concevoir et définir son lien avec les États-Unis que par rapport aux

liens qu’elle entretenait ailleurs.

Cette « relation spéciale » ne s’est jamais limitée à de simples échan-

ges diplomatiques anglo-américains mais s’est jouée à trois niveaux

interdépendants : celui des élites qui ont été amenées à coopérer pour

définir des politiques communes ou parallèles, celui des dirigeants dont

certains ont pu nouer des liens privilégiés et mettre en application ces

politiques communes et celui des populations qui ont nourri l’une pour

l’autre des sentiments complexes oscillant, selon les circonstances, de

la fascination à l’hostilité sans jamais sombrer dans l’indifférence abso-

lue

3

. En matière de relations internationales, il est vrai que les liens

qui se tissent entre des pays ne sont jamais exclusivement rationnels

ou utilitaires. Ils reposent inévitablement sur des sentiments qui diffè-

rent selon l’histoire que partagent ces pays, qu’il s’agisse d’affinités

1

.

« […] we should not abandon our special relationship with the United States and Canada

about the atomic bomb »,

Hansard House of Commons debates

, vol. 415, col. 1 299, 7

November 1945.

2

.

Discours au congrès du parti conservateur de 1948.

3

.

Jorgen Rasmussen et James M. McCormick, « British Mass Perceptions and the Anglo-

American Special Relationship »,

Political Science Quarterly

, volume 108, 1993, p. 516.

La « relation spéciale » Royaume-Uni / États-unis

6

culturelles ou de simples préjugés ou stéréotypes qui, partant de l’igno-

rance mutuelle, nourrissent l’imaginaire collectif. Si minime soit-elle,

cette dimension affective ne doit jamais être négligée. Dans le cas des

États-Unis et du Royaume-Uni, elle occupe une place prépondérante et

alimente un certain nombre de fantasmes, en particulier sur le conti-

nent européen.

On a en effet beaucoup critiqué, en Europe, la relation entre ces

deux pays, l’Empire déchu et le Nouveau Monde, liés par une sorte de

revanche du destin qui avait permis à l’ancienne colonie britannique de

dépasser, voire de dominer ce prestigieux Empire auquel elle avait été

auparavant soumise. L’ironie du sort atteignit son paroxysme lorsque,

après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le Royaume-Uni apparut non seu-

lement comme le « Cheval de Troie de l’Amérique », pour reprendre la

fameuse formule gaullienne, mais semblait même se complaire dans ce

rôle ingrat. Dans les années 1950, la presse britannique se demandait

parfois s’il valait mieux adhérer au Marché commun ou devenir le cin-

quante et unième État des États-Unis

1

. Il est vrai que Britanniques et

Américains se sont longtemps considérés comme les champions de la

liberté et de la démocratie contre la dérive totalitaire du continent eu-

ropéen à une sombre période de son histoire. Au-delà de ces valeurs

partagées, les deux pays semblent unis par des affinités telles que le

Vieux Continent, observateur tour à tour privilégié ou exclu, doit avoir

recours à des termes tels que « Atlantisme » ou « Anglo-saxon » pour

qualifier cette relation à la fois unique et mythique. C’est pour ces rai-

sons que, au début des années 1960, le Royaume-Uni a cherché à se

rapprocher davantage des États-Unis plutôt que d’une Europe à la-

quelle il se sentait étranger, même si certains Britanniques avaient

déjà vite compris que ce rapprochement avec les États-Unis était aussi

la triste conséquence du déclin, notamment économique et militaire, de

leur propre pays et permettait ainsi de maintenir l’illusion que les

deux pays étaient en position d’égalité.

Il n’en reste pas moins que la relation spéciale, dont on perçoit à la

fois toute la réalité et les limites pendant la période de la guerre froide,

est le fruit d’une histoire bien antérieure à 1945. Elle s’applique non

seulement à un réseau de liens extrêmement complexes entre les deux

pays mais à une multitude d’aspects diplomatiques, militaires, écono-

miques, motivés par des intérêts tantôt convergents tantôt conflictuels.

L’objet de ce recueil d’articles est donc d’étudier tous ces aspects dans

un souci constant d’intelligibilité et de rigueur. Nous espérons avoir

relevé le défi.

1

.

Voir, entre autres exemples, l’article de l’écrivain Kingsley Amis, in :

The Observer

, 20

janvier 1962.