A Savage War of Peace

Alistair Horne’s seminal book on the Algerian War, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, is a thorough look at a war that closely resembles the current conflict in Iraq. I read a couple of really interesting articles on this book earlier and felt compelled to read it. Terrorism, civil war, torture: these things also took place in Algeria and it would seem that there are some lessons to learned, but it seems they have not been heeded. It was a very long and complicated book, but not without its rewards. Apparently it has been read by Bush and several of his advisors. I think it would have been more meaningful to me if had a better grasp of the conflict and French history since 1945 in general, but that being said there was a lot of interesting information about this conflict. Terrorism, de Gaulle, France, and other conflicts like those in South Africa, Ireland, and Indo China. I think this paragraph sums up the situation pretty astutely:

One is left with the controversial role of de Gaulle, criticized both for going too slow and too fast. As far as the latter reproach goes, in the last stages of negotiations he suffered from the lesson not learned by Kissinger in Vietnam, or perhaps by Israel vis-à-vis the Arab world, or by the South Africans; namely, that peoples who have been waiting for their independence for a centenary, fighting for it for a generation, can afford to sit out a presidential term, or a year or two in the life of an old man in a hurry; that he who last s the longest wins; that sadly, with the impatience of democracies and their volatile voters committed to electoral contortions every five or four years, the extremists generally triumphs over the moderate. Just keep on being obdurate, don’t leave deviate from maximum terms, was the lesson handed down by the F.L.N. (Front de Liberation Nationale) and remains as grimly valid today-Northern Ireland or the Middle East or southern Africa. One after another de Gaulle saw his principles for peace eroded in the face of the F.L.N.’s refusal to compromise. As his disillusion grew, so did his resolve to liquidate the war with all the speed. In his final haste injustices were perpetrated, such as the exclusion from the peace talks of any representative Algerian faction (e.g. the M.N.A.-Mouvement Nationaliste Algerienne)) other than the F.L.N. Yet de Gaulle did liquidate that savage war.

Comments

[Friendly Banker]

You are correct that Alistair Horne's book has been read by, "Bush and several of his advisors". In fact it is noted in the bibliography of General David H. Petraeus'(commander of Multi-National Force Iraq) counter-insurgency manual now being used to provide principles and guidelines for operations in Iraq. There are a number of direct references to Algeria in the General's manual and would point you to an interesting refernce to Algeria under the Ethics section (Section 7-42 under the link below).

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

[MC]

Actually, it's a blurb on the cover of the NY Times reprint that I ordered that Bush adn the US Military read it-as it was also mentioned in the Salon article I linked to. I guess I was being a little sarcastic because they used torture during the Algerian campaign and thought that it worked against them in the end.