Re: Wonder if the Algerian-French war is in the curriculum at West Point and the Political Science departments at the major US universities?
Of course the French-Algerian war is taught to West Point preppies... as a case study of how NOT to deal with "Arab scum". The Pentagon freaks probably consider that the French behaved like a bunch of decadent wimps towards Algerian "terrorists"... American Judeofascists blame the French for their Algerian debacle, Judeofascists would have bombed Algerian villages with napalm, they would have invaded Tunisia --just like the US is currently invading Iraq-- in order to isolate Algerian independentists from their rear bases.... Instead, the French military merely erected the so-called Morice Line along the borders between Algeria and Tunisia in the east and between Algeria and Morocco in the west.(*)
As I pointed out, the key difference between the two conflicts (ie the French/Algeria one vs the Israel/Palestine) lies in the "opinion dynamics": sure, French opinion in 1950/60 France was more reactionary and colonialist than it is today and, the Indochine defeat notwithstanding, Algeria wasn't viewed as a remote, alien colony like Vietnam or Senegal.... Ever since 1830 it was part and parcel of the French Republic and home to over a million French citizens.
Yet the French were well aware of the atrocities and daily injustices that had been committed against native Algerians, there were French newspapers and intellectuals and leftist politicians who denounced colonialism and urged the French government to democratize Algeria. Only the most extremely racist and fascist quarters in public opinion sided openly with Algeria's Pieds-Noirs... even though the conservative, right-wing fringe was also supportive of Algérie Francaise. For that matter, former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is said to have been an OAS mole in the French government in the late 1950s who, via his cabinet chief Michel Poniatowski, secretly tipped off the OAS leadership... Also, there weren't any French evangelicals and there wasn't a French Bible Belt to turn the whole issue into a fanatical strife. But the French were lucky enough to have an exceptional, farsighted head of state: General De Gaulle. For only De Gaulle proved capable to grant Algeria independence while, at the same time, prevent France from collapsing into civil war. Hence the $60,000 question: is Prez G. W. Bush an American De Gaulle?
Gus
(*) This barrier, like the Maginot Line before World War II, was named after the minister of defense in office at the time of its construction. The Morice Line in Algeria was completed in 1957 and ran along the Algerian-Tunisian frontier for 460 kilometers and along the Algerian-Moroccan border for 750 kilometers, from the Mediterranean Sea to the barren Sahara Desert. At the core of this barrier was an eight foot high electric fence charged with five thousand volts. On both sides of the fence was a fifty yard area heavily sprinkled with antipersonnel mines. At the edge of the mine fields was a continuous row of barbed wire of the style common on the Western Front in World War I.
The electric fence was designed to kill anyone who came into contact with it. Beyond the barbed wire on the Algerian side, roads were constructed over which passed frequent armed ground patrols equipped with Alsatian tracker dogs to detect and destroy infiltrators who attempted to breach the line. Assault helicopters conducted aerial patrols. Powerful searchlights illuminated the barrier at night. Electronic sensors could determine with precision the location of enemy raiding parties. Radar was situated to automatically sight and fire 105 mm howitzers.
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