FMNN: Bagdad: Is there a Comparison with the Battle of Algiers - by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

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Bagdad: is there a Comparison with the Battle of Algiers? - by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

It has become fashionable to refer to Algeria's war of liberation against the French) when talking about Iraq. President Bush is reading British historian Alistair Horne's account of that war-"A Savage War of Peace"-and I am reminded that the Pentagon organized a screening of Gillo Pontecorvo's classic film "The Battle of Algiers" in 2003 in order to study the dangers of confronting Muslim guerrillas. All Americans would benefit from watching "The Battle of Algiers," a masterpiece that, despite the fact that the movie was co-produced by a former leader of the National Liberation Front (NLF), is clinical in its depiction of the cruelty that came from all sides, and is devoid of the moralizing and manipulative intentions that often taint political art.

Algeria and Iraq are different beasts, of course. The French had been in Algeria since 1830, so France was a colonial power. There were about a million French citizens in Algeria (the "pieds noirs"), who treated the Arabs and Berbers as second-class citizens. They had powerful representation in Paris. But there are similarities. There was also a civil war in Algeria between various factions vying for power: the struggle between the NLF and the Algerian National Movement was savage. The NLF targeted fellow Algerians from its inception in 1954 and used indiscriminate terrorism throughout the conflict. Outside influence was considerable: Countries like Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt aided the insurgents.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa is a Senior Fellow and director of The Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute. He is a native of Peru and received his B.S.C. in international history from the London School of Economics. He has been a member of Board of the Miami Herald Publishing Company and op-ed page editor and columnist at the Miami Herald and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, BBC World Service, and Time Magazine. In addition, Mr. Vargas Llosa has been a commentator at Univision TV, news director at RCN radio (both English and Spanish), London Correspondent for Spain’s ABC daily newspaper, commentator at Radio Nacional de Espana in Madrid, international affairs editor at Expreso (Peru), arts editor at Oiga, commentator at Panamericana Television, host of the weekly TV program “Planeta 3” (aired in twelve Latin American countries), and columnist at La Nación (Argentina), El Nacional (Venezuela), Reforma (Mexico), El Tiempo (Colombia), El País (Uruguay), El Listín Diario (Dominican Republic).