Odd how it takes a Frenchman of Hungarian descent to restore
the nation’s influence. Algeria as well as the rest of the “Barbary
Coast” were French colonies for 115
years. It took 17 years for the French to truly conquer Algeria ,in particular; from the 1st expedition in 1830. After such a long period of occupation, specially at the latter end of the Algerian war; it was natural for the French and the
Algerians to get tired of each other.The thinking of one of their leading strategists in counter-insurgency, Col. Galula lies at the heart of both David Petraeus’s army field manual and the implementation of the surge. The aggressive tactics of Massu,Galula, Trinquier, et al even Ausseresse did win the battle for the Casbah. Which was undermined to by the cacophony of
protests by Sartre, Beavoir,et al.
DeGaulle, who sent the expeditions back to Algiers and Hanoi, promised
to back the pied noir and the veterans to keep Algeria French. Once in office, he ceded to the
politically popular demands of negotiating with the FLN; which caused a reaction among the most committed veterans of the Algerian & former Indochina conflict,(Massu, Trinquier, Salan, et al hence the April ’61 putch attempt, and the formation of the OAS, which effectively reversed any support
for an Algerian policy. Interesting with the accession of DeGaulle and
the end of the Algerian war so would
the marked turn in favor of Arabism
in the Quai do’ Say. France could not escape the consequences of the
‘redeployment’ from Algeria, try as it might. The consolidation of pied noir veterans and non veterans, the
arrival of the harkis (those Algerians who had cooperated with the government,) plus their successors pushed north by the FLN’s
consolidations and most recently the
fratricidal FLN/GIA Salafist war.
(Ahmed Ressam, Zacarias Moussaoi,
Jamal Zougam :the Madrid bombing
coordinator are just a few names that come to mind. Among the veterans, a powerful revanchist political movement, headed by associates of rabble rousing Pierre Poujade (the Wallace or Buchanan
of French Politics) like Le Pen and
the National Front arose. The series
of circumstances surrounding the Algerian war’s prosecution and aftermath; don’t have exact
parallels with current or even near
future American policies but there
are some similarities; albeit with
greater stakes. Could the Iraqis or the Afghanis become the harkis at some distant point? Could a political candidate more amenable to the media’s influence end up curtailing our involvement in the War on Terror’s largest theatre of operations, for seemingly understandable reasons? What would such a retreat have on the region, on this country and the society as a whole. One recalls the French experience in Indochina ran almost as long as the British experience in the NorthWest Frontier of India
(Pakistan):1837-1947.
This ofcourse makes the UAE an interesting choice for basing
rights for French forces. The Maktoums and the bin Zayan royal
families which preside over each end of the emirates are clearly fairly pro -western; although one of the Zayan dynasty trafficks in anti-semitic folderall. They do supply the likes of CAIr with a sizable portion of the donations. However, the ziggurat like
structures rising out over
the skyline in Dubai; are evocative
of similar structures over Kuala
Lampur and not to put too fine a point on it; the WTC. This is likely
to draw the attention of AQ like elements. The UAE’s DPW acquistion of the venerable British firm Peninsular & Occidental (one does
remember the puts them in control of practically every major cargo checkpoint in the western world. This was a little speculated about detail in the DPW brouhaha in the States. Most recently CitiGroup received a considerable capital flow from that region. It is not
out of the question, that there would be strike against targets in the UAE and/or subsidiaryfacilities around the world.
This is not idle speculationeither. the UAE supplied at least one of the 9/11 hijackers (Waleh al Shehri)one of their lead money launderers (Paracha Wazir)another figure tied
to KSM (Ammar al Baluchi) and
allegedly one of the emirati princes were fox hunting with Bin Laden in 1999? In addition, one should not hesitate to consider that
the emirates split their loyalties during the Iran/Iraq war. It does put Mssr. Sarkozy’s actions in an interesting context.
