Now, Bill Bonner or Empire of Debt fame, has written briefly about the conquest of Bagdad, the French experience in Algeria and its aftermath:
If life were like school, George W. Bush would have known that Iraq would test him and his administration. He might have done a little study before getting involved in the area.
He could have begun his research with the life of one of the world’s most successful men of action - Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered the entire ‘known’ world. But even Alexander couldn’t survive Iraq. He died in Babylon in 323 AD.
In retrospect, George W. Bush might have spent a few hours studying more recent conflicts between Christendom and the Muslim world. America’s current president surely could have learned something from reading a little about France’s war in Algeria. The French are always ahead of us; no military campaign or political project is so stupid that the French haven’t already tried it.
It was after World War II that an independent movement in Algeria took hold. France sent its brave young men to put down the uprising, but after fighting for a few years, the French had had enough. They could win the battles, but they could never win ‘hearts and minds’ by killing Algerians. Only when the French had withdrawn, did the real killing begin and the real heroes appear.
Hundreds of thousands of local Algerian soldiers had fought next to the French. These ‘Harkis’ had been loyal to the French for many years. But when the time came for the French to leave, the Harkis were to be left behind. What awaited them was vengeance.
An article in Le Point from February 2002 noted that were 200,000 Muslim Harkis who had fought with the French. And after the French left, approximately 50,000 of them - including many entire families as well as civilian authorities that had cooperated with the French - were murdered. Whether the French saw it coming or not, we don’t know. But a few officers realized that their men - if they were left behind - would be massacred.
Brave men follow orders. But braver ones have the courage to disobey.
“One colonel didn’t want to abandon his men. He marched them up to Oran where the ships were taking the French back to France. He went up to the ship’s captain and demanded that he load on his troops - who were not French, but local Harkis…you know, Arabs. The captain of the ship said he was not authorized to take the Harkis. The colonel pulled out his pistol and put it up to the captain’s head. ‘Take them all, or I’ll blow your brains out,’ he said. He got them back to France. But I think the colonel was arrested. And the Harkis were sent back.”
Still a few officers - such as Daniel Abolivier - were able to organize an underground railway to get the Harkis to France. A few survived. The others were lucky if their throats were cut.
George W. Bush likes to be thought of as a man of action. But there is a time for thought…and a time for action. A married man who has fallen in love with his secretary, for example, has already gone too far. He should have thought about it earlier. And when George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq, too, a crucial opportunity for reflection, for study and for preparation was missed. Now, he has to wonder what will happen to his own Harkis when he leaves.
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