Eight Days Elsewhere
Eight Days Elsewhere
May 25, 2010
Where am I? Where are we? Anywhere, at sea. A cabin, a big bed, the muffled noise of the engines rocking us. Five days doing nothing but sleeping, resting, watching the sea, as far as the eye can see. A complete break.
We are on our way back. I have recharged the batteries a bit. I needed to.
In the cabin, there is a TV. An object I have lost the habit of. I turn it on out of curiosity. The only French channel on board: TV5. I switch it on, distractedly. A show by Drucker, a champion in the art of polishing brushes. Everyone is beautiful, everyone is nice. That night, the air force was in the spotlight. Everything was covered, from recruitment to the war mission in Afghanistan. It's television reality. Except for the question not to ask: "What are we doing there?"
A young officer gives the answer, as if by heart:
*- I am convinced that we are here to help the Afghans build their country, to establish a sustainable democracy, to set up an educational system, a public health service. That is why I get into my fighter jet to carry out my mission of supporting the ground troops. *
It's beautiful, it's moving. The golden shoulder boards shine under the lights. The cut of the dark blue uniforms is impeccable.
Drucker, addressing a young woman dressed entirely in khaki:
*- So, you're a sniper, Miss. What does that mean? *
*- Well, on the helicopter, I am the assistant of a machine gun, ready for any intervention deemed necessary against a hostile, an enemy. *
A spotlight on a young pilot officer, a 38-year-old man, flying a Mirage 2000 armed with a nuclear warhead. (We don't have a female pilot in this situation yet, but it won't be long).
- What does it feel like to be on board a plane armed with a nuclear missile? And first of all, who would give the order to launch this nuclear fire?
*- It is the President of the Republic, who, as you know, is the Head of the Armed Forces. If he gives this order, it is because all the resources of diplomacy have failed and this strike will remain the last resort to ensure the defense of the country. *
*- And where are you based? *
*- At Istres. *
- How many planes are equipped with this ultimate weapon?
*- Two Mirage 2000, on 24-hour alert. *
Vision of Nicolas Sarkozy launching the nuclear fire. How can one be, with a little finger on the pants seam, ready to die to carry out a monstrous mission, under the orders of a "People's President", of unfathomable vulgarity?
The brain replaced by a program
Interlude: the singer Sardou, gesticulating, sweetening strawberries, a has-been of song, a has-been of everything, makes a tour in a Mirage 2000. He returns "transported", and tells us:
- If I hadn't had a singing career, I would have joined the Air Force. These guys are fantastic!
A glimpse of the selection of pilot candidates from "the mass of young people". Fourteen candidates. Often just a high school diploma. Cold speech from the base commander, who greets them:
*- Do you know how many were selected from the group of thirteen last year? *
The naval aviation trainee pilots remain silent. The commander answers, squinting:
*- Four. *
The young candidates tremble. It's like Top Gun. At the end of the training, after selection, four young pilots are sent for training in the United States, in a base specifically designed for the training of military pilots. They feel they belong to an elite. They are the best. Among them, a young girl, elegant with her nice blue and white naval hat. Exciting, a future killer, isn't it?
The audience trembles and the well-makeup young woman says with a smile:
*- We are constantly preparing ourselves for the idea that one day the aircraft we will fly will be equipped with weapons, and that we may be called upon to use them to carry out the missions assigned to us. *
The TV viewer trembles, Michel Drucker trembles, Michel Sardou trembles. How beautiful this youth is, ready to give their blood for the country, to drench "insurgents", "rebels" with a deluge of shells, napalm, fragmentation bombs, or even nuclear charges! And how television-friendly all of this is! A beautiful, very successful show.
Of course, because in Afghanistan, everyone knows, we are there to serve the French Nation and nothing else, to be faithful to democratic and humanist ideals, our own, to contribute to the prestige of France in the world, to maintain its rank in the concert of nations, to show its strength, its determination.
I remember that in our UFO-science association, we had to separate from a 31-year-old guy who had taken our 1901 for a milk cow. He had also been part of a group of candidates to become a fighter pilot, but, to his great disappointment, had not been accepted. I had told him:
*- It wouldn't have done you any harm to one day find yourself flying a fighter jet armed with shells and missiles, ready to drop them without question on a target that would have been assigned to you? *
*- I prefer doing that than leading a mediocre life. *
Fortunately, our paths separated. For me, the peak of a mediocre life is precisely to abandon any possibility of moral judgment of one's actions, entrusting this assessment to a hierarchical authority. As the peak of a mediocre scientific life is to put one's intelligence and knowledge at the service of the Army.
Back to Afghanistan. Forty-five young French people have already fallen there, "on the field of honor." In addition, how many disabled, disfigured, severely burned? You can do the math.
In this Drucker show, the emotional truth sequence. This time, we are not in the Saint Dizier base, which was built at great expense as a TV set, but in Afghanistan. Two pilots are preparing for a ground support mission, on a Mirage 2000. Drucker stays in the background, listening to the comments of an officer "in order not to interfere with the crews' concentration." The tone becomes serious. Drucker:
*- We are going to see them leave and, this time, we won't be envious of taking their place. *
All of this, all this media circus reminds me of the Algeria of the late 1950s. At Supaéro, we had a local military training, although the school was supposed to train civilian pilots and had a military office, headed by a colonel, an old member of the Normandie Niémen group. According to a friend who had lived through that time:
*- Your colonel was too high-ranking to not be assigned a command, but too stupid to carry it out properly. *
That became obvious quickly. He was assisted by an adjutant, red-faced to the point of caricature. It was he who took us to shoot at the Issy les Moulineaux range, which I already mentioned in another file. A place now destroyed, to erase an inconvenient trace, at the time of the France-Germany reconciliation, managed by de Gaulle and Adenauer. A shooting range that, throughout the war, was set up as a place for executing people brought from the street L...