From the battle of Alger to the 9/11 bomb attack: wars of

15 Pages·2013·0.1 MB·English

III
From the battle of Alger to the 9/11
bomb attack: wars of pacification
and war on terror crossed memories
Connecting memories of wars of pacification
and war on terror
Didier Danet & Jean-Paul Hanon
INTRODUCTION
Reacting to the 9/11 bomb attack, President Bush and his
government have devised a form of political military interven-
tion they named “War on terror” directed against Afghanistan
and then Iraq 1.
This apparently new type of war 2 was a change in the nature
of the US way of war if we consider that the dominant doctrine
was based on short operations, few military and civilian casualties
1. Among others: Badie Dina, “Groupthink, Iraq, and the War on Terror:
Explaining US Policy Shift toward Iraq”, Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 2010, 277-296;
Boyle Michael J., “The war on terror in American grand strategy”, International
Affairs, 84(2), 2008, 191-209; Byman Daniel, Michael Scheuer, Anatol Lieven
and W. Patrick Lang, “Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on ‘Terror’”, Middle East
Policy, 12(1), 2005, 1-24; Hayden Patrick, Tom Lansford and Robert P. Watson,
America’s War on Terror, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003; Lewis Michael et al.,
The War on Terror and the Laws of War: A Military Perspective, OUP USA, 2009.
2. Malis Christian, Strachan Hew and Danet Didier, La guerre irrégulière,
Economica, 2011.
182 September 11th-12th
and therefore a soft impact on the political, social and human
consequences of war.
However, for European and particularly French observers,
the very principles of the war on terror are smelling of those
enforced by the colonial empire all along a series of wars of
pacification which took place at the end of the 19th century
and at the beginning of the 20th century in Algeria, Morocco,
the Island of Madagascar. In this regard, the pacification wars
led in Algeria during the first half of the 20th century can be
seen as a study case.
These pacification operations wagged by France are sharing
with the US war on terror similar goals: repressing all forms
of radical contestation against its colonial policy wether they
disrupt the internal order in the colony or the whole interna-
tional colonial system, or both.
Just as the war on terror, those “pacification operations”
where a mix of military and police techniques and tactics (law
and order, crowd control, eradication of the protester leaders,
forced interrogatories) and various development policies intended
to maintaining the domestic order, the empire survival and,
above all, permeating the society of the targeted country with
the adequate set of national values.
Against this historical context and, if you assume that the
pacification wars wagged by France and the war on terror
enforced by the United States share common grounds, traits
and practices, can’t it be drawn from the past French experience
some highlights which could be useful for the US actors still
engaged in the war on terror 3. Are the historical, geographical,
military, cultural backgrounds so different that any parallel
would appear anachronic, outdated of superficial? Conversely,
are we not right to think that the direct connection between
French anti-subversive doctrine and the US counterinsurgency
strategy (the later deriving from the former) is a key element
3. Ouellet Éric and Pierre Pahlavi, “Guerre irrégulière et analyse institutionnelle :
le cas de la guerre révolutionnaire de l’armée française en Algérie”, Guerres mondiales
et conflits contemporains, 235, 2009, 131.
From the battle of Alger to the 9/11 bomb attack 183
to understand what we will name here the question of “the
guilty memory” that the US may have to face, given the very
traumatic aspects induced or caused by the principles and
techniques of the war on terror?
Cant’ we take advantage of this linkage to better under-
stand not only the process but also the military, social political
effects of counterinsurgency operations? Most important
aren’t the traumatic effects of wars of pacification and those
of counterinsurgency operations, led in the name of the war
on terror, enshrined in a history of violence for both coun-
tries, Algeria and Iraq, a history of violence which has its own
dynamic that these two not so different strategies have even
more accelerated.
If we consider that it took the French people nearly half
a century to get more conscious of the memorial aspects of
the Algerian war 4, it could also be interesting to consider that
this experience might usefully highlight an underlying process
of fragmented memory which could similarly affect, to some
extent, the US society.
Beyond anachronism and artificiality, the fundamental
question remains: how the US military and civilian society are
going to address that notion of “guilty memory”? Will it be
different from the French experience? Certainly yes but, in this
case, to what extent and on what fundamental grounds? Can’t
we imagine from today a specific pattern of this memory in
the process which would remain to be built?
Today we do not intend to answer the full scope of these
questions, given the length of time we have. However, to
formulate a first answer, we will first return to the military,
political and social dimensions of the pacification wars led by
the French armed forces in Algeria and how they construct
4. Stora Benjamin, La gangrène et l’oubli : La mémoire de la guerre d’Algérie, Paris,
Éditions La Découverte, 2005; Manceron Gilles and Hassan Remaoun, D’une rive à
l’autre : l’Algérie, Syros la Découverte, 1993; Stora Benjamin, “La France et l’Algérie
dans les pièges de la mémoire”, in L’Europe et ses passés douloureux, Recherches, Mink
G. and Neumayer L., 2007, 39-49.
184 September 11th-12th
our memory. Second, we will ask ourselves the way this experi-
ence could be passed on to make it valuable (for the US military
and civilian society).
II. WARS OF PACIFICATION
AND WAR ON TERROR:
OLD SONG FOR ALL SEASONS WAR
1. War on terror: a new politico-military logic…
Unless classical wars waged by States having opposite interests,
the war on terror is primarily fought against non state actors. It
does not mean that the war on terror is not waged against States
(Afghanistan and Iraq are indeed telling examples), but it means
that the State, as previous main actor, should be eventually
considered as a side or a secondary actor. Afghanistan and Iraq
as States were certainly defeated quickly but the war is still on.
Therefore, clarifying the ambiguous interplay between
States, non state actors and the population, as simple as it may
appear remains important. In Afghanistan, the actual target
is so called terrorist groups, immersed into the population
and the State was only targeted as such because it was said to
provide terrorist groups with some support 5. But, as a matter
of fact, the State is only a collateral actor. Conversely, in Iraq
the State has actually been designated by the Bush adminis-
tration as a terror State under the false pretext of detaining
and deploying weapons of mass destruction and an alleged
link with Al Qaeda. Once the lie has become obvious and the
unsaid motives of the attack been clear for the Iraqi population,
resistants and religious groups of all kind have been this time
the focus of the war; hence, the massive destruction of civilians
(more that one hundred thousand) trapped between the US
forces and the activist groups. In both cases, the population
5. Boyle Michael J., “The war on terror in American grand strategy”, International
Affairs, 84(2), 2008, 191-209; Acharya, Amitav., “State Sovereignty After 9/11:
Disorganised Hypocrisy”, Political Studies, 55(2), 2007, 274-296.
From the battle of Alger to the 9/11 bomb attack 185
is the primary target and therefore the primary location of a
memory in the process 6.
It remains to be said that both wars have broken out an
expended in the wake of a long tradition of violence, a tradition
of violence which, according to President Bush, contradicted
the universal set of values of the United States.
This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq’s
neighbours and against Iraq’s people. This regime has a history of reck-
less aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and
our friends and it had aided, trained and harboured terrorists including
operatives of Al Qaeda.
The United States with other countries will work to advance liberty
and peace in that region… The power and appeal of human liberty is
felt in every life and every land and the greatest power of freedom is to
overcome hatred and violence 7.
As a result, the war on terror is far different from the fight
against terrorism 8. The latter results only to police short-term
actions in order to protect the population. The former, the
war on terror, will be on the contrary translated into complex
military, police, civilo-military operations conducted not only
on overseas theatres but also on the domestic soil. The war on
terror just like the pacification wars, the anti-subversive oper-
ations, the low intensity conflict (“wars for all seasons”) are
wedged without limit of time and just like all those past wars
it has also for objectives to enforce social, economic, political
principles ensuring law and order in the inside and peace and
security in the outside.
6. According to NGO Iraq Body Count, 110 000 civilian people were killed
during the war: [www.iraqbodycount.org].
7. George Bush’s war ultimatum speech, 2003, March 17th, [http://www.
guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/18/usa.iraq].
8. Hanon Jean-Paul, “Militaires et lutte antiterroriste”, Cultures & Conflits,
n° 56(4), 2004, 8-8.
186 September 11th-12th
2. … Rooted into past anti-subversive war
The war on terror is not just about destroying a hostile struc-
ture but rather about establishing the conditions of a peace based
on the values of a western liberal society (this is also another
meaning of wining the “Hearts and minds 9”). However, melting
war on terror and counterinsurgency operations on behalf of
a “Hearts and minds” strategy has some drawbacks reminding
of disastrous past experience and for the same reasons.
Just like in Algeria
The moral and physical destruction of hostile groups in Iraq
has occurred against a past context of relentless war (Iran) and
domestic repression.
There has been a deliberate confusion between insurgent
groups and the population to merge them into the notion of
“potential adversaries” or “unlawful warriors 10”.
This overall suspicion has justified the practice of forced
interrogatories or torture, legitimised by the US government
in the name of protection of its interests and population 11.
The practice of counterinsurgency doctrine as a tactic against
terror has given the terrorist groups a coherence, a substance,
9. On the limits of “Hearts and Minds” Strategy: Peters R., “The hearts-and-minds
myth”, Armed Forces Journal, 144, 2006, 34-38 (H&M is a “catch-all” concept);
Bennett H., “The Other Side of the COIN: Minimum and Exemplary Force in
British Army Counterinsurgency in Kenya”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 18(4),
2007, 638-664 (Repression is an effective policy in couterinsurgency); Freedman L.,
“The changing forms of military conflict”, Survival, 40(4), 1998, 39-56; Freedman
L., The transformation of strategic affairs, Routledge, 2006 (Hearts and Minds are
often opposed); Hoffman F. G., “Neo-Classical Counterinsurgency?”, Parameters,
37(2), 2007, 71; Metz S. and Millen R., Insurgency and counterinsurgency in the
21st century: reconceptualizing threat and response, Strategic Studies Institute US
Army War College, 2004. (In Iraq of Afghanistan, insurgents do not really need
population support.)
10. Robben Antonius C. G. M., “Chaos, mimesis and dehumanisation in Iraq:
American counterinsurgency in the global War on Terror”, Social Anthropology,
18(2), 2010, 138-154.
11. Bellamy compares Iraq (US), Northern Ireland (UK) and Algeria (France).
Bellamy Alex J., “No pain, no gain? Torture and ethics in the war on terror”,
International Affairs, 82(1), 2006, 121-148.
From the battle of Alger to the 9/11 bomb attack 187
a status they did not have nor they did not claim for and they
should not have had anyway.
The reinvention of war has been a constant and compulsory
process to justify the war on terror and eventually to find an
outcome to the conflict.
All things which have resulted in revivifying a past history of
sufferings and bitterness through an updating of all the factors
which are going to nourish the constant reinvention of war
through shared torments.
Therefore the link between pacification operations of the
past and war on terror appears conspicuous:
– First, the doctrines, techniques and practices applied according
to a counter-subversive logic are driven by short-term effec-
tiveness constraints 12.
– Second, the enforcement of these doctrines, techniques and
practices inevitably imply breaches of all the laws enacted to
reduce the suffering of the belligerents and the population 13.
The historical and doctrinal linkage is even more conspic-
uous if you consider that the new counter-insurgency strategy
enforced in Iraq is derived, if not simply borrowed, from a
long legacy of anti-subversive warfare doctrine devised by
12. Goya Michel, “L’innovation pendant la guerre américano-sunnite en
Irak (2003-2007)”, in La guerre irrégulière, Malis C., Strachan H. and Danet D.,
Economica, 2011, 293-302.
13. See for example the general condemnation of the US concept of “unlawful
combatant”: Camus Colombe, “La lutte contre le terrorisme dans les démocraties
occidentales : État de droit et exceptionnalisme”, Revue internationale et stratégique,
66, 2007, 9; Szurek Sandra, “Guantanamo : le camp dans la “guerre contre le
terrorisme”?”, in Le retour des camps; Gill T. and Van Sliedregt E., Autrement, 2007,
118-129; “Guantánamo Bay: A Reflection On The Legal Status And Rights Of
‘Unlawful Enemy Combatants’”, Utrecht Law Review 1(1), 2005, 28-54; Hoffman M.
H., “Terrorists Are Unlawful Belligerents, Not Unlawful Combatants: A Distinction
with Implications for the Future of International Humanitarian Law”, Case W. Res.
J. Int’l L., 34, 2002, 227; Mofidi M. and Eckert A. E., “Unlawful Combatants or
Prisoners of War: The Law and Politics of Labels”, Cornell Int’l LJ, 36, 2003, 59;
Paust J. J., “War and Enemy Status After 9/11: Attacks on the Laws of War”, Yale
J. Int’l L., 28, 2003, 325.
188 September 11th-12th
a number of English 14 or French officers like Gallieni 15 and
Liautey 16 at the end of the 19th century, Trinquier 17, Gallula 18
and Aussaresses 19 who engaged in colonial wars in Indochina
and Algeria. The works, experiences and doctrines of the later
were then passed on to US and South American officers to
be readapted to low intensity conflicts in the seventies and to
counter-insurgency operations lately 20. In short, the French
experience of colonial wars should be considered as a major
source of the current US counter-insurgency strategy as exem-
plified in the 2006 FM 3-24 21.
This being said, to fully understand that new strategy of
counter-insurgency means returning to the pacification oper-
ations led more than half a century ago in Algeria and would
allow to take some distance with the present experience of
counter-insurgency in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Beyond the
already said geographical, historical and cultural differences, the
question raised here remains how the US military and civilian
14. Callwell C. E., Small wars: their principles and practice, Printed for HM
Stationery off., by Harrison and sons, Thompson, 1903; S.R.G.K., Defeating commu-
nist insurgency: The lessons of Malaya and Vietnam, FA Praeger New York, 1966; Kitson
F., Low intensity operations: subversion, insurgency, peace-keeping, Stackpole Books
Harrisburg PA, 1971; Gwynn S.C.W., Imperial Policing, Macmillan and Co, 1934.
15. Gallieni J. S., Rapport d’ensemble du général Galliéni sur la situation générale
de Madagascar, Imp. des Journaux officiels, 1899 (reprint: Paris, Lavauzelle, 1920).
16. Lyautey L.H.G., Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894-1899), Paris,
A. Colin, 1920.
17. Trinquier Roger, Modern Warfare: a French View of Counterinsurgency,
Praeger Publishers, 1964.
18. Galula David, Pacification in Algeria, 1956-58, Praeger Publishers, 1963;
Galula David, Contre-insurrection : Théorie et pratique, Economica, 2008.
19. Aussaresses Paul, The Battle of the Casbah: terrorism and counter-terrorism
in Algeria 1955-1957, Enigma, 2006; Aussaresses Paul, Services spéciaux Algérie
1955-1957 : Mon témoignage sur la torture, Perrin, 2001; Aussaresses Paul and
Madeleine Sultan, Je n’ai pas tout dit: Ultimes révélations au service de la France,
Éditions du Rocher, 2008.
20. Robin Marie-Monique, Escadrons de la mort, l’école française, Éditions La
Découverte, 2008; Ranalletti Mario, “Aux origines du terrorisme d’État en Argentine”,
Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire, 105, 2010, 45.
21. Petraeus D. H., Amos J. F. and Nagl J. A., The US Army and Marine Corps
Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007.
From the battle of Alger to the 9/11 bomb attack 189
society is going to deal with the notion of “guilty memory” that
has permeated large parts of the French society all along the
years (in an unsaid manner). Quite differently it seems, but if
past war experiences of that kind can be helpful to invent less
painful ways to live with memories of war, comparisons are
worth being tried.
III. THE MEMORIAL DIMENSIONS
OF PACIFICATION OPERATIONS IN ALGERIA
1. The military memorial dimension
When the US government decided to draw its inspiration
from the French pacification war model, it has also taken
for granted a political military process whose weaknesses, if
not obvious at first glance, are nonetheless infectious. These
weaknesses will be all the more difficult to overcome since the
military at large will have to reconcile a general discourse on
“winning the Hearts and minds” of the population with a long
deployment on the Iraqi soil, massive killings of civilians and
the extensive use of forced interrogatories as well as DNA tests
on large segments of the population said to prevent potential
terrorist attacks or to control movements of Iraqi people.
In this regard, if we turn to the past experience of wars of
pacification in Algeria, the general use of systematic control
of inferiorized population 22, psychological indoctrination 23,
forced interrogatories and torture 24 by the French Army to deter
any form of collaboration with terrorist groups has resulted in
22. Rigouste Mathieu, “L’ennemi intérieur, de la guerre coloniale au contrôle
sécuritaire”, Culture et conflits, 67(3), 2007, 157-174.
23. Villatoux Marie-Catherine, “Traitement psychologique, endoctrine-
ment, contre-endoctrinement en guerre d’Algérie : le cas des camps de déten-
tion”, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, 208, 2002, 45; Villatoux Paul,
“L’institutionnalisation de l’arme psychologique pendant la guerre d’Algérie au
miroir de la guerre froide”, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, 208, 2002,
35; Thénault Sylvie, “Personnel et internés dans les camps français de la guerre
d’Algérie”, Politix, 69, 2005, 63. Consulted on November 16, 2011.
24. Périès Gabriel, “Conditions d’emploi des termes interrogatoire et torture
dans le discours militaire pendant la guerre d’Algérie”, Mots, 51, juin 1997, 41-57.
190 September 11th-12th
the political silencing of the French armed forces which still now
makes difficult and even impossible any debate on this issue.
If we add that this unsaid, unexpressed guilty conscience was
compounded by the three hundred thousand “Harkis” (Algerian
suppletive troops) the French Army left behind unarmed, 60 000
of them were killed by the new Algerian power later on. Still
today, the very weak political influence of the military in France
is to be related with the memorial effects of the harsh practices
which still go deep into the French political and military culture.
However, the memorial effects of torture as self evident
and routine practices not only did affect the military as a
political body but also large groups of population: 1,2 million
conscripts have served in Algeria for more than seven years,
30 000 “Harkis” have succeeded in migrating to France. As
for the conscript soldiers, the recalling of the trauma they
have suffered is all the more spectacular that it remains largely
ignored by the population and, as a consequence, when it
comes to the public attention through the media, it stirs
considerable emotion 25. The consequence of this is that a
whole people, once they have returned to civilian life, have
constantly reinvented the war of Algeria. A dissymetrical
process of reinvention since that population had meddled into
more than one million “French citizens from Algeria” forced
to migrate also to France in 1962.
2. The political memorial dimension
The scope or the shadow of the pacification operations led in
Algeria is extending well beyond the time and the place of their
conduct. The extreme level of violence resulting from acts of
25. Vittori Jean-Pierre, Nous, les appelés d’Algérie, Éditions Ramsay, 2007;
Rotman Patrick, L’ennemi intime, Points, 2007; Anonyme, “En Algérie, j’étais
contre la torture… mais j’étais là”, Ouest France, 2006, 16 novembre; Jauffret Jean-
Charles, Soldats en Algérie, Autrement, 2000; Branche R., “La dernière génération
du feu? Jalons pour une étude des anciens combattants français de la guerre d’Al-
gérie”, Histoire@ Politique (3), 2007, 6-6; Bantigny L., “Temps, âge et génération à
l’épreuve de la guerre : La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli des appelés en Algérie”, Revue
historique (1), 2007, 165-179.