Christopher Hitchens, a recent convert to hawkishness, has a brilliant article in Slate today. It demolishes the 'America in Iraq=France in Algeria' meme. For anyone who hasn't followed it, the thesis centers around the film The Battle of Algiers and tries to make the case that we'll be chased out with similar ignominy.
Hitchens has seen the Left from the inside -- he first saw The Battle of Algiers in Cuba at a workers' camp. This gives the article a fascinating perspective. In a convincing bit of historical akido he flips the meme on its head, and shows that the Ba'athists are the ones who should learn from the film. And, as he points out, the only guerrillas as effective as the Algerians are on OUR side -- the Kurdish peshmurga.
He also draws parallels between Iraq and the recent victory of the Algerian government over Islamist terrorists.
That "Battle of Algiers," not Pontecorvo's outdated masterpiece, is replete with examples and parallels that ought to be of great interest and relevance to ourselves. Can an Arab and Muslim state with a large non-Arab minority and many confessional differences defeat the challenge of a totalitarian and medieval ideology? In this outcome, we and our Arab and Kurdish friends have a stake, whereas in the battles of the past (as of the present) one can only applaud the humiliation of French unilateralism and neocolonialism, whether it occurs on-screen or off.Posted by Discoshaman at janvier 5, 2004 12:55 AM | TrackBack