Bush, de Gaulle, Torture, and The Battle of Algiers

“ 'The depressing problem of getting entangled in the Muslim world,' [author Horne] replied. 'Algeria was a thoroughly bloodthirsty war that ended horribly and cost the lives of about 20,000 Frenchmen and a million Algerians. There was a terrible civil war. ...De Gaulle ended up giving literally everything away and left without his pants.'

President de Gaulle had all the same misconceptions as W., that his prestige could persuade the Muslims to accept his terms; that the guerrillas would recognize military defeat and accept sensible compromise; and that, as Mr. Horne writes, 'time would wait while he found the correct formula and then imposed peace with it.'

Mr. Horne also sees sad parallels in the torture issue: 'The French had experience under the Nazis in the occupation and practiced methods the Germans used in Algeria and extracted information that helped them win the Battle of Algiers. But in the long run it lost the war, because it caused such revulsion in France when the news came out, and there was huge opposition to the war from Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.'

In May 2005, Mr. Horne gave a copy of his book to Rummy, with passages about torture underlined. 'I got a savage letter back from him,' the author said."

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via Wit