Algeria may not be the best of analogies .... i don't know that much about it, but it was more of a civil war, an effort against colonialism, by locals, in a time when colonies were being abandoned by the dozen .... i knew a man from the Val de Loire who was an officer in the engineers there, he was in charge of a D8 cat, a truck and lowbed, a couple of light vehicles and a few infantry to guard them .... his job was often to clear streets after bombings or after the army had shelled an area, and he was ordered to waste little or no time looking for wounded in the debris, just bulldoze a path for tanks and trucks, and move on .... he didn't think much of either side involved
Was it fear that kept the US out of that? .... i dunno, might have been good common sense .... colonies had had their day, Algeria was clearly not France [even though the french declared it to be] .... it had been a long term colony, prosperous and well-run until then, that's true, but even de Gaulle came to realise that it was over ... the muslims had their own civil government up and running well before independence, they started it underground and they used to kill algerians who didn't swear allegiance to it, pay its taxes, obey its laws, etc ... what can you do in a case like this, remember it was not long after the french got whipped by the vietnamese, maybe they just should not be in the empire business
How about Aug'14-to-Apr'17, and Sept'39-to-Dec'41, for better analogies .... Canada is ready aye ready, jumps in with both boots from day one, and the US sits back and gets rich on the conflicts for 33-month and 27-month periods .... was fear the motivation here, i dunno, sort of doubt it's that simple, in any case when it became apparent it was push come to shove, there you were beside us as allies
There is another lesson in this analogy - You tend to do better in war when you have the patience to wait for us to start them
We could use some allies right now, to help set up a functioning parliament of democracies, maybe jack up the nameplate on the UN and slide all new parts under, or some other way, dunno ... maybe this General Wesley Clark could be an asset to such an effort, sounds like he would, but it's pretty clear Bush won't carry his weight, it's time to leave him behind a shrub with one last round for himself, and move on out |
