I saw this movie years before I read A Savage War of Peace, and while the film is a gripping political thriller, I never understood the historical sequence. It shows (quite accurately) the series of terror attacks conducted by the FLN who use the Casbah as their base. Then the meticulous but brutal response of the Paras. The movie doesn't flinch from either the terror or the torture, and (contrary to what many would like to believe about the efficacy of torture) torture is ultimately successful in allowing the Paras to find and destroy the FLN cell--thus winning the Battle of Algiers. But when Ali La Pointe is finally killed, the movie breezes through a coda and says that despite this set-back, the Algerian people rallied blah blah blah and the revolution was successful.

The book gives us a better picture--the Battle of Algiers wasn't a decisive battle. It happened about in the middle of the conflict. Did it help the Algerians? Probably yes--in the sense that it disgusted the mainland French and shortened their patience. In the end, the war was a waiting game; if the FLN could keep it together long enough for the French to get sick of fighting, they would win. Things like the torture of the Algerians made the French sour on the war perhaps sooner than they would have. It also kept support for the FLN high among Algerian Arab citizens--support that they otherwise were frequently in danger of losing.

This war has many lessons for the U.S. It is a shame we are ignoring them all.

Posted by: RWB at August 2, 2007 03:33 AM | Permalink to this comment

Let's not forget there were over a million, probably closer to two million, Frenchmen living in Algeria. France soured on the war all the same. One wonders how quickly France would have divested themselves of the place if they had not had so many of their own civilians in country.

Posted by: Greg at August 3, 2007 05:27 PM | Permalink to this comment