Un héros de la liberté oublié : Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers est un de ces héros du XXe siècle dont le nom n'est jamais cité. Normal, il a largement contribué à mettre hors d'état de nuire la cinquième colonne soviétique aux Etats-Unis et mis en lumière les responsabilités de leurs compagnons de route dans la gauche comme il faut, celle qui porte costume et cravatte en fréquentant les soirées mondaines.

Non sans raison, le commentateur Alan Snyder met en lumière les parallèles entre la situation à l'époque du New deal et la présidence Obama. A cette époque comme à la nôtre, les adversaires de la politique du président sont démonisés. Par exemple, toute la gauche bien pensante dénonce le mouvement des Tea Parties comme étant le fruit d'une droite réactionaire et raciste tout comme leurs prédécesseurs ont tenté de dénigrer les adversaires de l'Union soviétique en les accusant de mener une « chasse aux sorcières ».

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Whittaker Chambers: The New Deal as Revolution


Whittaker Chambers had a secret. He had worked in the American Communist underground for most of the 1930s. His break from that underground had been hazardous; he hid his family for quite some time before surfacing. When he did, his unique writing talent earned him a place at Time magazine, where he eventually rose to be one of its senior editors.

Whittaker Chambers at His Desk at Time Magazine

In 1939, with the outbreak of WWII, Chambers decided he needed to inform the FDR administration of what he knew about those currently working in the underground. Through an intermediary, he obtained an interview with Adolf Berle, the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of security. During his evening with Berle, Chambers disclosed a long list of individuals who could be threats to the country during a war that he sensed the U.S. would eventually have to enter.
Berle seemed alarmed by the revelations. Chambers was relieved that now the truth would come out. Yet when Berle took this information to FDR, he was rudely dismissed—FDR didn’t care.
When Chambers finally realized the administration was apathetic to the traitors in its midst, he had to reassess what he knew of FDR and his policies. In his classic autobiography, Witness, he describes how this rebuff affected him:
And with astonishment I took my first hard look at the New Deal. . . . All the New Dealers I had known were Communists or near-Communists. None of them took the New Deal seriously as an end in itself. They regarded it as an instrument for gaining their own revolutionary ends. I myself thought of the New Deal as a reform movement that, in social and labor legislation, was belatedly bringing the United States abreast of Britain or Scandinavia.
What shocked Chambers was that he recognized for the first time that the New Deal was far more than a reform movement. It was ”a genuine revolution, whose deepest purpose was not simply reform within existing traditions, but a basic change in the social, and, above all, the power relationships within the nation.”
This “revolution” was not taking the same form as the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, but its effect was just as sinister:
It was not a revolution by violence. It was a revolution by bookkeeping and lawmaking. In so far as it was successful, the power of politics had replaced the power of business. This is the basic power shift of all the revolutions of our time. This shift was the revolution.
Chambers was quite prescient in this analysis. American historians have long noted that in the last half of the nineteenth century, presidents played second fiddle to business leaders. This never sat well with progressives. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson made strides in the shift to power politics, but they suffered a setback in the 1920s under Harding and Coolidge, who were ingrained with the principles of self-government and sanctity of private property.
Then came the Depression and all the wonders that government could perform to ease the plight of the American people. Chambers saw that even though the New Deal was not an overt socialist/communist ploy, it worked in tandem with that philosophy. New Dealers, most of whom would have never considered themselves either socialists or communists, were, due to their progressive policies, fellow-travelers. As Chambers explains,
Thus men who sincerely abhorred the word Communism, in the pursuit of common ends found that they were unable to distinguish Communists from themselves, except that it was just the Communists who were likely to be most forthright and most dedicated in the common cause.
Critics of Witness often howled at Chambers’s association of liberals with socialists and communists. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, they cried. Yet Chambers put his own reputation on the line giving his witness before Congress in 1948, as he testified in the landmark Alger Hiss case. He knew, from personal experience, that the difference between liberalism and communism was in degree only: both put their faith in man and rejected faith in God; therefore, they shared a common worldview.

Chambers Testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities

Chambers summarized the symbiotic relationship quite nicely:
Every move against the Communists was felt by the liberals as a move against themselves. . . . The Communists were fully aware of their superior tactical position, and knew that they had only to shout their innocence and cry: “Witch hunt!” for the liberals to rally in all innocence to their defense.
Some things don’t change: we are still undergoing a revolution by bookkeeping and lawmaking, and we continue to hear the snarls of “witch hunt” whenever this revolution is challenged. What we need now is the same tenacity shown by Chambers. He completed his “witness.” What will we do?

Les Juifs et l'âge d'or espagnol

Certains historiens républicains hostiles à la monarchie ont cherché vainement au XIXe siècle à démontrer que les protestants étaient le moteur économique de la France et que leur expulsion après l'édit de Nantes avait conduit la France sur la voie de la décadence.

Cette idée fausse fait partie de la vaste collection de mythes qui perdurent en histoire et qui refont surface dans la presse sous la plume de journalistes conformistes. Citons à titre d'exemple, le rôle clef des Arabes dans la transmission de l'héritage antique, la mise en esclavage des Africains par les Européens, la responsabilité de l'Allemagne dans le déclenchement de la Première Guerre mondiale, etc.

Pio Moa prend à partie une autre légende, qu'il n'hésite pas à qualifier de « raciste » : celle du rôle décisif les Juifs (convertis) qu'auraient eu dans l'Age d'or espagnol au XVIe siècle. Son post n'est pas très explicite mais il rappelle que la très grande majorité des Juifs convertis s'est parfaitement intégrée dans la société espagnole.

Pio Moa, qui ne connaît de ces questions que ce qu'il lit dans des ouvrages d'historiens patentés, aurait pu ajouter que l'Inquisition n'a persécuté qu'une minorité de familles judaïsantes, celles qui ont poursuivi une pratique domestique du judaïsme sur parfois plusieurs générations.

Cette persécution était rendue possible par le fait que ces familles, souvent très argentées, vivaient avec une nombreuse domesticité qui n'hésitait pas à dénoncer aux autorités religieuses le moindre comportement suspect.

L'historien nationaliste israélien Benzion Netanyahu a écrit un livre passionnant, mais horriblement partial, sur les juifs convertis en Espagne. Il faut l'avoir lu avant de s'intéresser à ces questions même s'il faut absolument le confronter à d'autres analyses (un aperçu en anglais ici). Je constate avec étonnement que son œuvre n'a pas été traduite en France. Etonante lacune.

Pour compléter votre information, deux livres à lire :

Los Marranos españoles : desde fines del siglo XIV a principios del XVI, según las fuentes hebreas de la época

Benzion Netanyahu

Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de educación y cultura, 257 pages, 2002


et aussi :

Crimes et châtiments dans l'Espagne inquisitoriale :


Essai de typologie délictive et punitive sous le dernier Habsbourg et le premier Bourbon : 1655-1724


Michèle Escamilla-Colin


Berg international, 2 vol. 1338 pages, 1992.

De judíos e ideologías

Los judíos conversos fueron el ingrediente alquímico que dio lugar a la Edad de Oro de España”. Buena tesis racista, pero falsa. La edad de oro española se dio en los terrenos político, militar, literario, de pensamiento, pintura, arquitectura, música, en alguna medida de la ciencia, etc. Los conversos tuvieron un papel importante, pero secundario, en la Inquisición, en la Iglesia y en las letras sobre todo. Y la mayoría de ellos se integró por completo --máxime los de segunda o tercera generación, generalmente muy mezclados-- en la tradición católica y universalista española, contraria a la idea clave judaica del “pueblo elegido” (En la actualidad ocurre algo similar en Usa, por lo que muchos judíos hablan de un “holocausto silencioso”). Castro y otros consideraban converso a casi todo el mundo de la cultura, basándose en indicios sin mucho sentido, véase “La España imaginada de Américo Castro”, de Eugenio Asensio. La teoría conversómana es profundamente racista, a su vez en el sentido de “pueblo escogido”, como la de Netanyahu sobre la Inquisición, ya tratada aquí hace algún tiempo ( Ver segunda parte de:(http://desdeelparedon.blogspot.com/2010/03/pio-moa-el-rey-ante-una-ley-delictiva.html, en relación con el libro de García Olmo). Pero ha encantado siempre a los promotores de la leyenda negra, según la cual España siempre representó la ignorancia, el oscurantismo, la barbarie y el atraso... salvo durante un período, gracias a los benditos conversos, cuya sangre judaica hizo posible el Siglo de Oro. La realidad es que en España los conversos (algunos de ellos) destacaron precisamente al y por dejar de ser judíos. Fernández Armesto es, como historiador, bastante cantamañanas (abundan en la profesión). Mucha gente pasa con bastante facilidad del fanatismo antialgo a una beatería contraria.

Marx era, más que un converso, un judío renegado (echaba pestes de los judíos), pero curiosamente trasladó el componente mesiánico y de “pueblo elegido”, de los judíos al “proletariado”, es decir, ante todo a la élite que pretendía dirigir a los proletarios.


**** Aunque llamamos ideología, en un sentido difuso, a fórmulas políticas con mayor o menor ambición de resolver problemas sociales, la ideología más propiamente consiste en un sistema de ideas que pretende entender, por la razón o la ciencia, la naturaleza humana, la historia y lo que se ha hecho mal en ella, y aportar el remedio consiguiente para los problemas y malestares humanos básicos. Por su propia naturaleza, las ideologías tienden a despreciar la religión y finalmente la moral, y a sustituirlas. Unos encuentran la causa de los males en “la explotación capitalista”, otros en “el patriarcado”, el “machismo”, “la autoridad”, diversas “clases dominantes”, determinadas razas…, y muchos ecologistas, finalmente, han avanzado hasta concluir que el mal consiste en el propio ser humano, especie de cáncer del planeta, de Gaia. Las ideologías prometen torrentes de felicidad y bienestar a sus crédulos seguidores, aunque el resultado, en todos los casos, ha sido catastrófico. Pero no hay modo de convencer a los creyentes en esta especie de religiones triviales y sin misterio. Si las consecuencias son malas, siempre se debe a no haberse aplicado sus recetas lo bastante a fondo y a la gente incomprensiva que no acaba de entrar por el aro. En el caso del feminismo, por ejemplo, los resultados están ahí, aunque casi siempre se los menciona sin relacionarlos con la ideología que los promueve: cientos de miles de hogares deshechos, aborto masivo, cientos de miles de niños criados en familias monoparentales o desestructuradas, homosexualismo agresivo, prostitución abierta o encubierta cada vez más difundida y, derivado de ellos, aumento de la droga, el alcoholismo, la violencia familiar, etc. La relación entre unas cosas y otras salta a la vista con solo que se quiera observar. Pero se niega, tal como los marxistas negaban con descaro los efectos de sus prédicas: si admitían dificultades o defectos en sus regímenes, los responsables finales eran los malvados imperialistas.

Super publicité politique en direct de l'Amérique (du Nord) que j'aime

L'annoncé télévisée de la campagne de Dale Peterson, un agriculteur de l'Alabama qui veut devenir le candidat républicain pour le poste de « ministre » de l'Agriculture de l'Etat. Ses arguments ne manquent ni de sel ni de bon sens et les images parlent toutes seules. J'ai notamment apprécié la carabine. Tout un programme.

Criticus suit le KGB à la trace

Le bloggeur Criticus nous invite à regarder cette conférence donnée en 1983 à Los Angeles par Yuri Bezmenov, alias Tomas Schuman, un ancien propagandiste du KGB en Inde passé à l'Ouest au péril de sa vie.

Il y explique le processus de subversion mené par l'Union soviétique durant la Guerre froide pour démoraliser d'abord, puis déstabiliser les démocraties libérales occidentales.

Le suicide des protestants aux Etats-Unis

Si Elena Kagan est nommée à la Cour suprême, son arrivée marquera la fin d'une époque, celle des protestants aux Etats-Unis.

Quel chemin parcouru depuis la création de ce pays, entièrement de la main de protestants. Voici encore trente ans, cette évolution aurait été tout simplement impensable.

Ne les plaignons pas. Ils ont creusé leur propre tombe.

Bon reportage de Robert Frank dans les colonnes du Wall Street Journal.

That Bright, Dying Star, the American WASP


On a recent morning at the Links Club, New York's wood-paneled preserve of the old banking elite, a small crowd of white-haired members gathered for breakfast.

The talk around the tables, over poached eggs and toast, was of Europe and sovereign-debt markets. Some were quietly negotiating deals. The crowd was mostly older, though it included a smattering of 40-something and 50-something members.

While undeniably upper-crust, the scene, which included a Latin American and an Asian, was a far cry from the Links Club of 20 years ago, when doing business was forbidden and the strictly homogenous crowd of Protestant blue-bloods spent their mornings comparing golf scores and vacation homes.

"It's changed with the times," said one former member. "That's both our gain and our loss."

In the long downward spiral of what used to be known as America's Protestant Establishment, there have been several momentous milestones: Harvard's opening up its admissions policies after World War II. Corporate America's rush in the 1980s to bring more diversity to the corner office. Barack Obama's inauguration as the first African-American president.

History may reveal another milestone—Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. If she is confirmed, the nation's nine most powerful judges will all be Catholic or Jewish, leaving the court without a Protestant member for the first time.

Of the 111 Supreme Court Justices who have served, 35 have been Episcopalians, making them the largest religious group on the court, according to court historians. The court's first non-Protestant was Catholic Justice Roger Taney, appointed by President Andrew Jackson in 1836.


Whether the court's religious makeup even matters in today's legal world has become a subject of hot debate. Yet by ushering in a Protestant-free court, Ms. Kagan is helping to sweep away some of the last vestiges of a group that ruled American politics, wealth and culture for much of the nation's history.

"The fact that we're going to zero Protestants in the court may not be as significant as the fact that her appointment perfectly reflects the decline of the Establishment, or the WASP Establishment, in America," said David Campbell, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.

Seen from the distance of time, the changes are stunning. In the 1960s, the vast majority of corporate managers were Protestant, according to E. Digby Baltzell's famous 1964 tome, "The Protestant Establishment."

The percentage of Protestants in Congress has dropped to 55% from 74% in 1961, according to Pew Forum. The corner offices of the top banks, once ruled by Rockefellers and Bakers, now include an Indian-American and the grandson of a Greek immigrant.

In old-money enclaves like Palm Beach, Fla., Nantucket, Mass., and Greenwich, Conn., WASPs are being priced out of their waterfront estates and displaced on their nonprofit boards by Jewish, Catholic and other non-Protestant entrepreneurs.

A survey by Pew Research found only 21% of mainline U.S. Protestants had income of $100,000 or more, compared with 46% of Jews and 42% of Hindus.

Until the early 1980s, when a flood of new wealth began to democratize the American elite, the path to power and status in America was straight and narrow. It usually began with old-line families in the lush estates of Greenwich, Boston, New York or Philadelphia and wound its way through New England boarding schools, on to Harvard or Yale and finally to the white-shoe law firms or banks of the Northeast or the corridors of power in Washington.

John J. McCloy—the Philadelphia-born, Harvard-educated lawyer and banker who served as assistant secretary of War during World War II and on several corporate boards, including Chase Manhattan Bank's—became known as "the Chairman of the Establishment."

His son, John J. McCloy II, a Connecticut-based venture capitalist, says Ms. Kagan's nomination is a sign of the nation's commendable meritocracy, but also a "dangerous departure" from Establishment mores, since Ms. Kagan, while a brilliant scholar, has no experience as a judge.

"I think we're losing something fundamental with the Establishment," he said. "The Establishment was really about people who became leaders because they were confident and highly competent in their areas."

The Protestant downfall can be attributed many things: the deregulation of markets, globalization, the rise of technology, the primacy of education and skills over family connections.

Yet many also point to the shifting dynamics of the faith itself, with mainline Protestantism giving way to the more fire-and-brimstone brands of Evangelicals in recent decades. The Episcopal Church, usually seen as the church of the Establishment, has seen some of the most pronounced declines in recent years.

Rev. Mark S. Sisk, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, said the polarized landscape of religion today hasn't favored more moderate faiths like Episcopals.

"When it comes to elective office, I can't think of anyplace in the country where being a middle-of-the-road Episcopalian would be a great plus," he said.

He added, however, that tracking the ups and downs of socioreligious groups like WASPs was no longer relevant.

"That kind of calibration of 'what members of my team are on the front lines' seems to me to be an antique kind of thing to do," he said.

Meantime, WASP culture has been left to live out its days as a fashion statement, on the shelves of Ralph Lauren stores, or as a social badge at defiantly old-world clubs like the Knickerbocker Club in New York or the Bath and Tennis Club in Palm Beach.

In "The Protestant Establishment," Mr. Baltzell pointed to the prejudice and insularity of the elite as the eventual causes of its decline. "A crisis has developed in modern America largely because of the White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment's unwillingness, or inability, to share and improve its upper-class traditions by continuously absorbing talented and distinguished members of minority groups into its privileged ranks."

Jamie Johnson, the documentary filmmaker and heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, said he believed the destructive effects of wealth over multiple generations were also a factor.

"The generations of affluence bred a certain kind of casual, passive approach to life and wealth building," he said. "Lots of people just got lazy."

Write to Robert Frank at robert.frank@wsj.com

Des photos de Pearl Harbor

J'ai reçu des photos de Pearl Harbour (je n'aime pas écrire Harbor) d'un internaute qui pense qu'il s'agit de faux. Comment peut-on avoir oublié dans un grenier des photos d'une telle valeur ?

En réalité, ces photos sont bien connues pour la plupart et certaines ont même été publiées dès décembre 1942 par Life (et également ici). La plupart sont disponibles en ligne sur le site des National Archives.

Le seul intérêt de ces photos est d'être des tirages récents des négatifs originaux. Cela se voit à l'absence de censure.

J'ai identifié sans recherches particulières certaines d'entre elles. Les voici :

Three capital ships afire and sinking, the USS WEST VIRGINIA, the USS TENNESSE, and the USS ARIZONA after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec.7,1941., 12/07/1941

Version de la photo conservée aux National Archives.

USS Downes DD-375 (left) USS Cassin DD-372 (leaning against Downes) and USS Pennsylvania BB-38.

Version conservée aux National Archives.

USS Shaw (DD-373), commissioned on 18 September 1936, was in Floating Drydock No. 2 on 7 December 1941. Shaw was hit by three bombs, which severed her bow and caused the forward magazines to explode. YFD-2 sank, taking the forward section of Shaw with it.

A series of photographs showing the magazine of the USS Shaw (DD-373) exploding. "The most remarkable combat photographs of all time - taken at the exact moments the destroyer blew up

Version de la photo conservée aux National Archives.

destroyer Navy's caption: The smoldering battleship USS NEVEDA silhouetted in the fire and smoke of theUSS SHAW which exploded when her magazine was hit by bombs from Japaneseaircraft during the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941., 12/07/1941.

Version de la photo conservée aux National Archives. Détail de la photo ci-dessus ?

Pearl Harbor attack- Stern of USS Shaw (DD-373) in floating drydock YFD-3. Shaw is has been attacked and fires are out of control which will later result in her forward magazine detonating. Bow of USS Nevada is partly visible at far right of photo with tugboat Hoga tied up at the bow pouring water onto the Nevada fires."

Naval photograph documenting the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii which initiated US participation in World War II. Navy's caption: The terrific explosion of the destroyer USS SHAW when her magazine exploded after being bombed by Japanese aircraft in the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, 12/07/1941

Voici la version conservée aux National Archives. Elle date visiblement de la Seconde Guerre mondiale car le navire au premier plan a été noirci alors que sur le tirage récent, il est parfaitement visible.

Abondoning ship aboard the USS CALIFORNIA after the ship had been set afire and started tosink from being attacked by the Japanese in their attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941., 12/07/1941 ARC Identifier 295981

Version des National Archives.

Sailors stand amid wrecked planes at the Ford Island seaplane base, watching as USS Shaw explodes in the center background, 7 December 1941. USS Nevada (BB-36) is also visible in the middle background, with her bow headed toward the left. Planes present include PBY, OS2U and SOC types. Wrecked wing in the foreground is from a PBY.

Version de la photo conservée aux National Archives.

Ford Island seaplane base.

View looking toward Pearl Harbor Navy Yard with USS Shaw burning in floating drydock YFD-2, and with USS Nevada (BB-36) burning at right. USS Oglala (CM-4 is capsized in the foreground.

Navy personnel on the seaplane ramp at Kaneohe Naval Air Station move a damaged PBY-5 seaplane to safety.

La distance de tir

La configuration d'une arme individuelle a longtemps répondu à des considérations techniques simples : être en mesure de tirer un projectile létal à une distance maximale. En outre l'arme doit être utilisable par un fantassin aux capacités intellectuelles moyennes dans des conditions difficiles.

Les progrès de l'industrialisation, de la métallurgie et de la balistique ont permis progressivement à l'arme d'infanterie de dépasser une portée utile de 200 m durant les guerres de la Révolution et de l'Empire à des portées maximales de 1200 mètres avec, par exemple le Chassepot de 1866 pour des tirs indirects de barrage.

La générations d'armées qui vont participer à la Grande Guerre, le Mauser, le Lebel ou le Lee-Enfield représentent le summum de cette évolution. Des armes de qualité, parfaitement standardisées et capables de tirs d'une étonnante précision à des distances considérables.

Un tir de Lee Enfield à 1000 m.

Toutefois, les Allemands ont étudié l'usage de ses armes et ont conclu que les capacités de ces armes demeuraient inemployées dans la grande majorité des cas. Il est exceptionnel pour un fantassin de voir l'ennemi et de l'engager à grande distance.

La conclusion de cette étude fut l'abandon progressif des armes individuelles existantes au profit d'armes plus compactes, au calibre inférieur et à la portée utile réduite.

Toutefois, comme le découvrent actuellement les Américains, sur certains terrains d'opérations, la version raccourcie du M16 en usage dans l'US Army se révèle inférieur à l'AK-47 utilisé par les musulmans.

Cet article de Julius Cavendish montre comment dans le paysage désertique de l'Afghanistan, les Américains ont besoin d'armes capables d'avoir une portée utile supérieure aux 300 m du M14.

Workhorse rifle 'failing US troops in Afghanistan'


The US military thinks it may have got one of the basics wrong: its guns are not good enough. A US Army study found that the M-4 rifle, the workhorse weapon of America's troops, is ineffective at ranges of more then 300m because bullets lose the velocity necessary to kill an enemy.

Although the dense vegetation and warrens of mud-packed houses in parts of southern Afghanistan lend themselves to close-range fighting, there are also many battles where Taliban fighters make use of the heavier calibre of their AK-47s to ambush Nato and Afghan soldiers from afar.

The AK-47's 7.62 mm round is effective at more than 400m. And the AK-47 is extremely durable, as are most of the other marks of Kalashnikov weapons. "You can dip it in the river, drop it in sand but it still works," an Afghan security contractor said.

In comparison, the M-4 fires a lighter 5.56mm round. "The 5.56mm calibre is more lethal since it can put more rounds on target," Colonel Douglas Tamilio, a programme manager at the US Army's centre for small arms development, told the Associated Press. "But at 500m to 600m the round doesn't have stopping power."

Nato sources said the alliance's soldiers use the M-4 "because it's a close-in weapon, since we anticipate house-to-house fighting in many situations". The M-4 worked well in Iraq, where much of the fighting was close-quarter battles in cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah. But in Afghanistan, some Taliban fighters will open fire at ranges of close to a kilometre. Taliban snipers held up US Marines and their Afghan comrades during Nato's operation to clear the farmlands of Marjah, in central Helmand, this year.

Among the solutions the US Army is proposing, is that nine soldiers in each infantry company carry the new M-110 sniper rifle, which fires a 7.62 mm and is accurate to more than 800m. Infantry companies already include sharpshooters with M-14s, and weapons teams carrying grenade-launchers and light machine-guns.

Another idea is to design a rifle with a heavier calibre than the M-4, trading in some of its high rate of fire for greater range. But some experts argue that the 5.56mm round is maligned by the US Army report. Instead, they say that the M-4's failings are the result of its shorterbarrel, which makes it easier for soldiers to wield as they scramble in and out of vehicles. The M-4 is a compacted version of the M-16 rifle, a more cumbersome weapon. "Unfortunately, weapon engineers shortened the M-16's barrel to irrational lengths," Martin Fackler, a ballistics expert, said. The British Army uses the 5.56mm SA-80, backed by the 7.62mm "gimpy", the general purpose machine-gun with a high rate of lethal fire.

But in the labyrinth of vineyards and orchards in Kandahar province, where much of this summer's fighting is expected, range is unlikely to be an issue. The dense vegetation lets insurgents get within 200m before opening up on Nato troops, well within the M-4's range.